Spin Off Logic Problem From Genius-Religion Debate

[bunny]

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There were no constraints on Y in DS's scenario. I agree with you that a high IQ is a good indicator of problem solving ability in general. I dont think it's right to annoint it as the be-all and end-all though - I suspect a category of (perhaps odd) questions exists which will deceive people who approach problems in the way that scoring highly on an IQ test requires - perhaps Y is one of those questions.

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Okay, I'll grant that. But I would also say that there's no reliable way to evaluate such "odd" questions. If IQ is a liability, then I think reason is (almost always, you'd basically have to use set theory to find a counterexample) also a liability. But I don't think we can discover truths objectively and collectively without applying reason - subjectively and personally perhaps...

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Sure we can - if a class of these questions was discovered a good method of answering one would be to give it to lots of dumb people and see what they thought. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Perhaps any real-world example of what I'm speculating exists would involve a "trick question" flavour. Where the mental habits of logical, deep thinking people led them to make unwarranted assumptions which led away from the correct answer. Do you think the "groupthink" phenomenon Phil153 mentioned exists? If it does, isnt it reasonable it exists at some level amongst the "group" of high IQ individuals - from adopting similar mental habits and approaches to problems and acquiring similar blind spots?

[bunny]

Sure - my new answer is that you're not justified to think it is more likely. Most super geniuses think it's wrong, a larger proportion of geniuses and an even bigger majority of very, very clever people. Given our history I dont see how you can bet against all those smart people telling you Y is false. (Though the reasons the dissenting super geniuses give are worth investigating, just in case)

[David Sklansky]

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In that small subset of questions, high IQ will be a liability.

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I can't imagine a high IQ being a liability in practical terms. Maybe an absurd hypothetical like "in order to get the question right, you must fail to understand it," but in the real world - high IQ a liability?

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It doesn't have to be that esoteric. How bout "Read the following IQ question. Now tell me if those who have IQs between 90-100 are more than 50% to get it right"

But even those questions are not slam dunks, I will admit. In fact I think I'd do better at them then a 95 IQ would.

[PairTheBoard]

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As long as Y is the kind of thing you score points for getting right in an IQ test.

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This is far from clear. Notice that if you only surveyed very smart people you would have no reason to bet Y was correct.

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Can you extrapolate this Trend into hypothetical super IQ's? If that's what you want to do I think it's up to you to make the case. Extrapolating trends can be a tricky business. You are using the phrase "probably true" so your arguement needs to make some kind of sense of the term "probably" in this context. I don't think it makes sense to talk about believing Y to be "probably true" as a pig in a poke, where you don't even know what Y is. If you have more statistics or even guesses about statistics for how such trends extrapolate you might believe the Trend for Y falls into the statistics of extrapolated Trends for other Y's. Even then I think you need to see what Y is to judge whether it is similiar in nature to the Y's with extrapolated Trends that work in other statistics.

PairTheBoard

[Phil153]

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Stop with the off the subject IQ debate. Stipulate that the higher your IQ, the more likely you are to be right.

This is an interesting problem regarding our right to extrapolate. The Sklansky Extrapolation Question. I personally have not decided on an answer.

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It wasn't really an IQ debate. It was a debate about whether measured intelligence does indeed match with correctness on every problem.

Part of the problem with your question is defining smarter, since the definition will throw it one way one or the other. Does smarter mean more likely to be correct on any given problem? If so, you should stipulate, because you're almost assuming the premise in that case.

If you want to start from that point, then the answer is yes, by definition. The true nature of any given problem, where opinion forms a part, is unknown, as is the IQ required to solve it correctly. Therefore the only data we have is that Y belief increases with smartness and correctness increases with smartness.

You can't abstract away the hard questions, Mr. Sklansky. If you're going to use a term like "smarter" then this question cannot be answered without determining what we mean by "smarter".

[madnak]

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Therefore the only data we have is that Y belief increases with smartness and correctness increases with smartness.

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No, we have the latter but not the former. We have a statistical indication that Y belief increases with smartness, but we don't know how reliable that indication is (most importantly, we don't know whether we can extrapolate). We also know that people tend to disbelieve Y even at the highest levels of intellect. So even given a definition of smart as "more likely to be correct," it's not simple to say that Y is likely to be true.

[Borodog]

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Armed with this information, but with no information as to what Y is about, are you justified in believing that Y is probably true?

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No, but only for institutional reasons.

[madnak]

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Perhaps any real-world example of what I'm speculating exists would involve a "trick question" flavour. Where the mental habits of logical, deep thinking people led them to make unwarranted assumptions which led away from the correct answer. Do you think the "groupthink" phenomenon Phil153 mentioned exists? If it does, isnt it reasonable it exists at some level amongst the "group" of high IQ individuals - from adopting similar mental habits and approaches to problems and acquiring similar blind spots?

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But high IQs are better at checking their assumptions and at avoiding groupthink. In a specific case it's true that a genius could be more likely to be incorrect because of increased exposure to some erroneous assumption (while a total bumpkin, unaware of the assumption, wouldn't be limited by it). But that seems pretty thin to me. It would be a very contingent situation, and a random approach would have to be superior to the genius approach (in other words, a low IQ person might do better than a high IQ person, but only if a coin-flip would also do better than the high IQ person).

Even in these cases, a person with very high IQ but without a conventional upbringing/education (someone raised in the bush for instance) should be a massive favorite over anyone with a low IQ.

[Bork]

Supposed evidence for Y: The smarter you are the more likely you are to believe Y.

I don't think that alone is enough to justify belief that Y IS true. However, at least in general it does make it more likely that Y is true, so assuming we have no other evidence then we are justified in believing Y is probably true. We started with 50% confidence Y was true, now we have some evidence that Y is true so our confidence should increase.

One potential problem would be certain beliefs which say 3% of brilliant physicists believe to be true and the rest believe to be false. For such a belief the smarter you are the more likely you are to believe it's true, and the more likely to believe it's false. This is because the only people that believe either way are brilliant physicists.

[bunny]

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Perhaps any real-world example of what I'm speculating exists would involve a "trick question" flavour. Where the mental habits of logical, deep thinking people led them to make unwarranted assumptions which led away from the correct answer. Do you think the "groupthink" phenomenon Phil153 mentioned exists? If it does, isnt it reasonable it exists at some level amongst the "group" of high IQ individuals - from adopting similar mental habits and approaches to problems and acquiring similar blind spots?

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But high IQs are better at checking their assumptions and at avoiding groupthink. In a specific case it's true that a genius could be more likely to be incorrect because of increased exposure to some erroneous assumption (while a total bumpkin, unaware of the assumption, wouldn't be limited by it). But that seems pretty thin to me. It would be a very contingent situation, and a random approach would have to be superior to the genius approach (in other words, a low IQ person might do better than a high IQ person, but only if a coin-flip would also do better than the high IQ person).

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Then are you claiming that Y must be true. (Since if Y is false, low IQ people do better which implies coin-flip is better than high IQ people who do better than 50%)