Spin Off Logic Problem From Genius-Religion Debate

[TomCowley]

Strong = Higher IQ is always more accurate and more precise.
Weak = Higher IQ is on average more accurate and more precise.

[Metric]

Since your stipulation is "trivially necessary," but we usually have no guarantee that this is in force at all (as in the prior religion debate -- no doubt it's difficult to sort people into a continuum of how much exposure they've had or effort they've put into a given subject over the course of their lives), is your answer to the OP's question, "no?"

[MrMore]

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How about a question of the value of a widget to the average IQ person? Might not high IQ people be less accurate in estimating the value than average IQ people? Especially if we sat the value accuracy's test is market dependent, in which case the aggregate average person's answer is pretty much the definition of the answer anyway.

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Sure, if you take a "weak" definition of IQ and say that *on average*, higher IQ = more accurate and more precise, then you just cherry-pick the exceptional case (which could exist) to conclude that IQ and accuracy aren't necessary correlated, which isn't an interesting answer.

I showed a case where increased IQ was correlated to increased accuracy and increased precision and extrapolating still wouldn't be valid, which is a stronger result.

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LOL.

My point is that highly intelligent people--measured pretty much anyway you want--might be less likely to correctly answer questions which are themselves best answered by markets. That's an actual life-useful answer, in as much as highly intelligent people might be more likely to be deluded into thinking they can beat, say, the stock market, for more than the average return (random walk and all that), and thus trade and leverage too much, to their detriment.

[TomCowley]

Yes, but it's not an interesting "no" answer. Assume there are 20 poker tournaments in a given town on a given day that finish at the same time. Exactly one of them has attendance in inverse proportion to IQ (lots of idiots, few geniuses). Somebody at this tournament flops back-to-back royal flushes. After the tournaments end, everybody is surveyed and asked "Do you believe somebody flopped back to back royals at tournament 1? Tournament 2? etc." Everybody not at the tournament will answer no to all with >95% confidence since it's a ridiculous longshot. Everybody at the tournament will answer yes (for their tournament) with 100% confidence since they saw it. Since this tournament is disproportionately dumb people, the number of people who say "no back-to-back royals" will increase with IQ, and they'll be wrong. Manipulate this tournament's IQ and attendance and you can come up with any survey results you want. This "counterexample" doesn't address the intent of the question.

[TomCowley]

Your point isn't necessary to evaluate the intent of the OP.

[Taraz]

I don't think that such a fact necessarily means that Y must be true. It would be a small piece of evidence in favor of Y being true, but it wouldn't be overwhelming.

It could easily be the case that being smart would put you in a special position which would blind you to the factors surrounding Y. Perhaps you surround yourself with people with similar intelligence so you are insulated from the larger community and therefore hold certain beliefs. Or maybe society treats you differently systematically and this results in your belief that Y is true when it is actually false.

It could even be the case that this increase in intelligence lets this group to notice certain trends around them that most people don't notice, but 30% of them misattribute the cause of these trends to Y. So in this case, the fact that they were smart let them notice something unusual and they misinterpreted its significance.

The fact that such a large percentage of the "smartest people alive" do not believe Y should actually decrease the chance that Y is true unless it is a very complex and nuanced concept.

[PairTheBoard]

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Since your stipulation is "trivially necessary," but we usually have no guarantee that this is in force at all (as in the prior religion debate -- no doubt it's difficult to sort people into a continuum of how much exposure they've had or effort they've put into a given subject over the course of their lives), is your answer to the OP's question, "no?"

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TC has actually done a very good job here. Sklansky had a somewhat vauge notion which he formulated poorly. TC pointed out the flaws in DS's formulation and reformulated the notion in a way where the idea behind Sklansky's simplifying stipulation could be put to work via a reformed stipulation that actually makes sense - debatable as it might be. TC thereby provided a workable mathematical model we could look at.

When we do take a close look at it we see what TC points out. Sklansky's Extrapolation notion doesn't work. The linear rise in percent of people with higer IQ's giving >50% evaluations for the Price could be due to low IQ people underestimating a correct price that is still under 50%. Under TC's workable assumption, DS's extrapolation would miss the convergence of opinion to a <50% price at superhuman IQ levels.

Sklansky's basic idea of extrapolating the local linear trend is just wrong, at least in TC's reasonable and simple model. Something David guessed might be the case btw, and which he probably would have seen himself had he been able to formulate the problem in a way that made sense to begin with.

PairTheBoard

[ZeeJustin]

I was actually going to make a very similar post to yours David.

I think Y is very likely to be true in most cases. Basically, unless you could prove some kind of psychosis correlated with intelligence related to the problem at hand, I would think Y is a HUGE percent to be true.

Showing that the belief in question depends on a large amount of information, some of which is extremely difficult to comprehend would make me think that Y is even more likely to be true.

[Taraz]

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I was actually going to make a very similar post to yours David.

I think Y is very likely to be true in most cases. Basically, unless you could prove some kind of psychosis correlated with intelligence related to the problem at hand, I would think Y is a HUGE percent to be true.

Showing that the belief in question depends on a large amount of information, some of which is extremely difficult to comprehend would make me think that Y is even more likely to be true.

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It wouldn't have to be psychosis, just a systematic difference that only affects smart people. Since smart people normally self-select in many ways, this isn't too hard to imagine. I would guess that 30% of the smartest people don't think that dressing nicely with matching clothes and grooming is important. Since smart people probably value ideas more than appearance, this is not a far stretch. In this case would you assume that being careless with your appearance is the correct way to go?

Obviously this is highly dependent on what Y actually is. If Y happens to be a complex concept that requires a lot of thought I would probably agree with you.

[ZeeJustin]

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I would guess that 30% of the smartest people don't think that dressing nicely with matching clothes and grooming is important. Since smart people probably value ideas more than appearance, this is not a far stretch. In this case would you assume that being careless with your appearance is the correct way to go?

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Apples and oranges. You are talking about a lifestyle opinion, the importance of which changes drastically from person to person. I'm sure it's "correct" for many people to not care about their appearance.