Speaker 1: Defining intelligence. It's one more thing.
Speaker 2: I'm strong and one car. I don't they guy cad.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the intelligence thing or whatever the
Speaker 1: hell I'm talking about. We have this, Michael, can you
Speaker 1: explain what we're about to hear?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Colorado, we have a driver who went out
Speaker 3: to his car and there was a bear inside, and
Speaker 3: that bear had gotten in and got trapped, and so
Speaker 3: he calls the sheriff and the two of them try
Speaker 3: and get this bear out of his car.
Speaker 2: I find myself wondering how the bear got trapped exactly
Speaker 2: did it shut the door behind itself.
Speaker 1: I find myself wondering what I would do if I
Speaker 1: walked out and there were a bear sitting in my
Speaker 1: car with the doors closed. I might stand there for
Speaker 1: a while and think, Hmmm, who do you call for
Speaker 1: this problem? He called the sheriff. I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: the animal controller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I would lawyer. But if you're out
Speaker 2: in the country. Yeah, let's hear how the manufacturer exactly,
Speaker 2: the Ford dealer. Very large bear in the front seat.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he looks pissed.
Speaker 1: So we can type some type some para cord to
Speaker 1: the door, and then we can get back and we
Speaker 1: can pull it open. Yogi, calm down, I hit it
Speaker 1: on auto car.
Speaker 3: You're fine that you can buff that out. You guys
Speaker 3: are totally fine.
Speaker 1: I think what's more impressive is that he opened it
Speaker 1: and then pursued it to close it behind. Yeah, Yogi
Speaker 1: has been released from the vehicle. I get it. The
Speaker 1: idea is how we need to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to open the doors but not be like so close
Speaker 1: it if it comes out mad, Yeah, it tears our
Speaker 1: faces off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the video is way longer than that, but yeah,
Speaker 2: they come up with this plan and tie a couple
Speaker 2: of things together and stand back and pull the handle open.
Speaker 2: And couldn't do that with your mod Darren Tesla, could you? Huh? No?
Speaker 2: The bear just stay in there. We drive away with
Speaker 2: your car. That was charming, So as a were in
Speaker 2: the car where the driver was, somebody's eating berries on
Speaker 2: your feet.
Speaker 1: That's an example perhaps of what I'm about to talk
Speaker 1: about with intelligence here is those police officers came across
Speaker 1: the situation they've never had before and figured out a
Speaker 1: way to handle it. I have always, not always as
Speaker 1: an adult, been interested in what is smart mean, what
Speaker 1: does intelligent even mean? And now that I'm a parent,
Speaker 1: I really wonder about it because I blame academics. Academics
Speaker 1: have mostly defined it, defined it clearly, Hello, not a
Speaker 1: step in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Failed.
Speaker 1: Academics have defined intelligence in a way that suits them.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of intelligence they have. Oh, what a shock.
Speaker 1: You came up with a way of measuring intelligence that
Speaker 1: puts you at the top of the heap in that
Speaker 1: grand And that is actually what has happened. And I
Speaker 1: don't think we've we do at all. We don't have
Speaker 1: the right words, We don't have the right concept. Even
Speaker 1: shouldn't intelligence be whatever mental ability allows you to succeed
Speaker 1: in the world best. I don't care about math or science,
Speaker 1: or music, or maybe emotional intelligence, although I think that
Speaker 1: is important to one. It doesn't matter whichever combination allows
Speaker 1: you to succeed as a human being. That's what should
Speaker 1: be called smart. Yeah, I know a couple of people
Speaker 1: that are book smart that are just completely stupid when
Speaker 1: it comes to everything. That's what I'm saying. We have
Speaker 1: our labels. Our labels are so insufficient for what I
Speaker 1: just defined, which should be the only way to define smart.
Speaker 1: You're able to make your way in the world. We
Speaker 1: all know plenty of people that are what we usually
Speaker 1: define as smart who function horribly in the world, whether
Speaker 1: whether it's with their own finances or relationships, or can't
Speaker 1: hold the job or whatever.
Speaker 2: It is, right, and it pains me to admit this
Speaker 2: is somebody is fairly verbal, but a verbal intelligence is
Speaker 2: overrated being glib, being an effective communicator, although it is
Speaker 2: a great skill, it is. I know people who are
Speaker 2: fairly quiet, maybe a little bit shy, but they are
Speaker 2: spectacularly effective at planning, running, growing a business.
Speaker 1: For instance, I'm working towards something with a guy who's
Speaker 1: got a book out about this, but it just it's
Speaker 1: you know, it scratched me where I itch because I've
Speaker 1: wondered about this for a long time. And like I said,
Speaker 1: now that I've got kids, I'm I'm only worried about
Speaker 1: what kind of skills or way of looking at the
Speaker 1: world they need to go out there and succeed. I
Speaker 1: don't care about a score on any particular kind of
Speaker 1: test or either. The test is living life and surviving
Speaker 1: and being happy. That's the test.
Speaker 2: And really it's good to bottom line it like that,
Speaker 2: because getting your kid into the perfect kindergarten there in
Speaker 2: Manhattan or whatever. And then the perfect school seventy five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year to get an Ivy League education
Speaker 2: and a degree. Blah blah blah. It all boils down
Speaker 2: to can they be successful at life? However you want
Speaker 2: to define that.
Speaker 1: So I picked this up from Econ Talks Russ Roberts.
Speaker 1: That's one of the best podcasts it's ever existed. He
Speaker 1: is one of the first people to have a podcast
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, so it caught on Super
Speaker 1: Smart Guy. It's almost never about economics. He went through
Speaker 1: all the economics stuff like twenty years ago. It's called
Speaker 1: Econ Talk still because that is the name of the
Speaker 1: popular show, but he talks about everything, historians, musicians, whatever
Speaker 1: the hell. And he had this author on yesterday, a
Speaker 1: guy named Angus Fletcher who says we've misdefined intelligence, which
Speaker 1: I've long believed, equating it with data driven reasoning in
Speaker 1: place of what he calls primal intelligence, which is as
Speaker 1: good a phrase as any for just what's going to
Speaker 1: allow you to survive world the uniquely human ability to
Speaker 1: think and plan in situations with incomplete information. That's about
Speaker 1: as good a definition of what intelligence ought to be
Speaker 1: is anything I can come up with the ability to
Speaker 1: think and plan in situations with incomplete information, And people
Speaker 1: who can do that well make it through life okay,
Speaker 1: and people who can't don't.
Speaker 2: Wow. Let's contrast that with a more conventional description of intelligence,
Speaker 2: which might well be the ability to spout, which is
Speaker 2: a prejudicial word. Accumulated knowledge, right, which is not a
Speaker 2: terrible standard. I think more knowledge is good generally.
Speaker 1: But just another tool or something.
Speaker 2: I love that definition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good. And this guy has got a
Speaker 1: bunch of degrees in a bunch of different things. But
Speaker 1: he worked in Hollywood for quite a while. We're with
Speaker 1: screenplays and stuff like that, how they hold together and
Speaker 1: how it fits in with the human brain and understanding things,
Speaker 1: which was really interesting. Drawing on years of work in
Speaker 1: Hollywood and working with elite military operators, he showed how
Speaker 1: narratives aren't just entertainment, they're the foundation of human intelligence.
Speaker 1: He reveals why military special operations personnel need to create
Speaker 1: new plans on the fly, and how a lot of
Speaker 1: great literature movies and that sort of stuff, unexpected things
Speaker 1: happen and people have to deal with them, and we
Speaker 1: learn from those things about dealing with unexpected situations and
Speaker 1: what to do in that circumstance. I just thought that
Speaker 1: was a really fascinating way to look at a definition
Speaker 1: of intelligence. He believes. Now, of course I like this
Speaker 1: because I do this, so I have confirmation and bias
Speaker 1: on this. Why reading challenging literature literally rewires your brain
Speaker 1: for greater adaptability, He says, I read a lot of
Speaker 1: complicated literature. I always have enjoy it. Has that improved
Speaker 1: my life and in that manner? I don't know, but
Speaker 1: he said he believes he has proof of that, and
Speaker 1: also working with lots of military people whose whole thing
Speaker 1: is all of a sudden, your plan ran up against reality.
Speaker 1: Your plan no longer works. Now you've got to come
Speaker 1: up with something new with what little information you have
Speaker 1: to go forward. That's all of life. That's that's every
Speaker 1: bit of life, the new job you started, the raising kids,
Speaker 1: every day, it's raising kids, your marriage, you're just everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, that's stuff provoking.
Speaker 1: It really is. I wonder how much you can get
Speaker 1: better at it, though, he suggests in his book and
Speaker 1: I listened to the podcast, that we can improve that skill. Normally,
Speaker 1: the insufficient terms we use for intelligence is kind of
Speaker 1: like baked in. You either are or aren't. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much you could you can get. You can
Speaker 1: get more knowledge, can't really change the wattage of your
Speaker 1: brain power, but he's seems to believe that you could.
Speaker 1: You can become much better at adapting to new storylines,
Speaker 1: new narratives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've often thrown around twenty percent just because I
Speaker 2: don't know it seems right. You're an introvert. You can
Speaker 2: probably get about twenty percent more extroverted if you work
Speaker 2: at it and talk to yourself about why that's worth
Speaker 2: it and how you're glad you went to the gathering
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But you're never going to becomm an extrovert.
Speaker 2: And if you are, you know, bad at math, you
Speaker 2: can bust your butt and get at least functional, but
Speaker 2: you're never gonna, you know, start lecturing people on string
Speaker 2: theory or whatever. Oh it's so different, you see my point.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have no musical talent. I've known
Speaker 2: people who I remember this in grade school. It struck
Speaker 2: me at the time, as we would do little melodies
Speaker 2: on the xylophones and stuff. I had a great music
Speaker 2: teacher as an elementary school kid. But there are some
Speaker 2: kids who just had nothing.
Speaker 1: That's shoe on the xylophone right there, and they.
Speaker 2: Couldn't carry a tune. From childhood through adulthood. You might
Speaker 2: be able to get twenty percent better, but you are
Speaker 2: never going to sing at the met or even like
Speaker 2: you know, busk on a street corner. You're just not.
Speaker 2: So I can see that sort of problem solving ability
Speaker 2: getting somewhat better, but I think that's probably one of
Speaker 2: those distinct kinds of intelligence that either have it or
Speaker 2: you don't. Of course, if you've got Boco Haram shooting
Speaker 2: at you, and you can tell me if you do this,
Speaker 2: you'll get twenty percent better at, you know, fixing problems,
Speaker 2: overcoming obstacles, and staying alive. I'm really really interested in
Speaker 2: that twenty percent. So I'm intrigued whether you can develop
Speaker 2: it a lot or a little. It's worth developing.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it's so well? I may have
Speaker 1: answered the question the beginning academics measure it in such
Speaker 1: a way that prizes what they're good at. That might
Speaker 1: be a lot of it, But I understand why we
Speaker 1: don't have a more clear cut way of kind of
Speaker 1: ascertaining where people are on the gonna succeed at life
Speaker 1: scale as opposed to you're gonna succeed in college. Whoopedi shit?
Speaker 1: I mean you know whatever?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah right. I think part of it is that
Speaker 2: it's much easier to measure, and it's not useless. I
Speaker 2: mean you you throw around phrases like whoop de shit
Speaker 2: and I quote which is a little dismissive.
Speaker 1: That's from my dad.
Speaker 2: That was his phrase for things love. Yeah, because it's
Speaker 2: not useless. But how how do you measure what you're
Speaker 2: talking about? Like ability to thrive in life? Especially, here's
Speaker 2: where it gets crazy complicated. You have that ability in spades,
Speaker 2: and you decide to dedicate your life to educating poor kids.
Speaker 2: So who's in charge of counting the number of little
Speaker 2: kids whose lives you've changed? I mean, accumulating wealth obviously
Speaker 2: comes to mind, but there are plenty of people who
Speaker 2: decide that's not what I'm about, or having accumulated to
Speaker 2: get rid of it all or most of it, So
Speaker 2: I don't Maybe it's so difficult to measure far smarter
Speaker 2: I could answer your question, but clearly I'm sorry I've failed.
Speaker 3: Hum Well, I guess that's it.