A More Realistic Fred And Ginger Problem

[Borodog]

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I'm skeptical if it's possible [that someone like Ginger] exists.

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[gumpzilla]

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I'm skeptical if it's possible [that someone like Ginger] exists.

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Sklansky may be phrasing it poorly, but if you look at less extreme examples it's perfectly valid. Skill at manipulation and understanding the derivations of others is one sort of power, and creativity and innovativeness is another. Many of the guys who are good that I know don't suck at the first, but the second arena is where they shine.

[PairTheBoard]

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I'm skeptical if it's possible [that someone like Ginger] exists.

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There are people who have difficulty performing under time constraints of a test and fair poorly in such competition. But they solve the most difficult homework problems, ones that sometimes none of the other students can solve. This is sometimes recognized in the grading of qualifying exams for the PHD program where consideration is given to the quality of the student's overall work.

You can be a "slow thinker" and go a long way in mathematics. Some people are not "quick" but they can go slow and bore deeply into mathematical concepts, gaining a more powerful understanding than someone quick to pick up the surface details. In fact, I've often thought this is a major reason why so many smart people give up their study of mathematics when the concepts start to get more abstract.

Their "quick" intelligence which has provided them such easy success in the past is no longer adequate to the task. They need to "slow down" their thinking to allow deeper understanding to develop. Many "quick smart" people catch on to this fact and learn to adapt. However, most just give up the study of math and go on to other things. It's debatable what they would do with a gun to their head. Even with such motivation the talent may just not be there.

PairTheBoard

[Splendour]

this is a paradox because on the surface Fred would appear to be smarter. As an individual unit he may be smarter, but because of her "out of the box" mental capabilities Ginger is more important to the group because she can make discoveries that help the group advance.

Maybe there is more than 1 type of intelligence or different types of intelligence suit different purposes.

[yukoncpa]

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Does her extra creativity mean that she is smarter?


[/ QUOTE ] Of course

[soon2bepro]

Yeah, I think Ginger is smarter.

[recondite7]

Seems like fred would crush sngs, but Ginger would be much better at deepstacked NL cash.

[bovine_boat]

I'm not sure where the break even point is (in terms of Ginger taking 3x as long as Fred to get through things). But practically, problems given to smart people are almost never simple enough that being able to fully research a problem is better than having a good intuition.
I think Ginger would nearly always be perceived as smarter than Fred, though Fred would be more useful in some circumstances.

[Jcrew]

This is related to a subject I've been thinking about for the past few days. Breaking down different aspects of intelligence. To me, it looks there are three broad disjoint categories:

1.) Short term and long term memorization. How many iterations of exposure does it take to commit to memory.
2.) Size of working memory. How many different thought objects you can juggle at once in your mind.
3.) Permutation speed. How fast can you permute through different scenarios.

So to place Fred and Ginger in this framework, it seems like Fred's strength would be 1 and 2 while Ginger's would be 3?

[Siegmund]

I don't think so, jcrew -- none of your three points address the ability of Ginger to look in a *new direction*, as opposed to her or Fred's ability to remember and recombine facts they have already covered.

Or, if you prefer, you can say you've chosen to treat creativity and intelligence as two separate abilities. But I would prefer to say that your 1-2-3 all are connected specifically to memory, and not to intelligence (what use you make of your memories and your information about the present.)