Ed -

I think you bring up a valuable point here. There is a great similarity between IQ and belt rank. Both are attempts to categorize people by an assumed amount of learning. The problem with both, is that they do not take into account for the ability for the person in question to apply their knowledge in a functional manner.

So you end up with some college educated folks working fairly menial jobs, still living with their parents at age 30, and some high school drop-outs that have decent jobs and purchased their own homes.

Similarly, you might see black belts with little functional SD skills, because they do not practice for application - even though they may know lots of techniques.

And I think it boils down to the same thing - to be proficient with any skill, you have to use it.

IQ does not equal intellegence. someone could be 'street-smart' with a low IQ yet be considered intellegent.

just like belt-rank doesn't mean skill.

belts and IQ are artifical measuring sticks. Intellegence and skill are demonstratable and real-world.

thats why the terms 'genius' and 'soke' -in and of themselves don't really hold much meaning to me. a genius is someone who scored high on an IQ test. a soke is someone who created a style name.

those acts alone won't make or break a persons happiness.

You know, this whole discussion about a number. I have heard that there are different types of intelligence. Does anyone want to address that?

I thought I did. my last post downplays the significance of any title and places merit on ability.

Yes, you did. I was just adding on to your post...has anyone discussed different types of intelligence? I mean, I thought I read somewhere that there was emotional intelligence, physical...etc. Or is that B.S.?

oh
I would think emotional maturity has a lot to do with happiness. Ever go to dinner with someone who feels comfortable enough to just sit and eat without talking? thats emotional maturity and I've noticed those people tend to be happy....some geniuses are like that.

You are thinking about 'wisdom' perhaps?

True intelligence is having the wisdom to recognise the limitation of one's intelligence?

I like the dictionary definition of 'intelligence' -- 'The ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience'

The question is of course, does conventional education 'improves' one's intelligence, emotional or otherwise.

Ahhh....wisdom. I'll reflect on that. Thanks.

One could use the word intelligence when discussing different types of abilities or talents, such as kinestethic- musical- etc, but I'm not sure what the point of that would be?

The psychometric intelligence that IQ tests try to measure, is, as you people noted, only a kind if "raw material" that can be used more or less effectively by it's owner.

The formula...
("the intelligence quotient is defined as 100 times the Mental Age (MA) divided by the Chronological Age (CA).IQ = 100 MA/CA.")
...is b.t.w outdated, although in the childhood of testing it was used in that way. The term IQ has suvived, although it's no longer a question of a quotient as such.
The raw data from tests are nowadays sqeezed into a bell curve, that compares you to the population in general, and out pops your number
The term g (for general intelligence) is much used and all other aspects of intelligence seem to more or less correlate to this, which is what the tests usually try to measure.

The standard deviation of the test is of vital importance, for the number to have any significance. E.g in a test with a S.D of 15 one would have to be pretty sharp to get >130, whereas in another test with a S.D of 24, the same brain would (theoretically) get >148. Thus the numbers by themselves have no meaning, unless you know the S.D.

I have not seen any evidence that would suggest psychometric intelligence to correlate negatively with happiness, have you?

Nope. I kinda think it has more to do with angst, myself.

I mean, my idea of heaven/happiness is me and a couple of close friends hanging around on a sunny day, drinking wine and talking higher math. Not that I could participate much in the discussion...but just to watch and bath in the brilliance would be enough.

Perhaps happiness is being less centered around one's self.