Yes, I sometimes struggle with this "truth".

Must royally suck to be crushed in the field of intellectual endeavour by someone riding the short bus.

I'm a big fan of Penrose's and Hameroff's work. Hameroff gave me his definition (the simplest he could think of) of "how minds work". An underdeveloped mind recognizes less patterns than there are (for example, doesn't recognize patterns in social interactions), a normal mind recognizes most of the patterns that are in the "input". An "insane" person sees patterns, where there are none. So I guess that's the "truth" we both refer to.

Intelligence is the ability to "compress" the patterns you recognize into smaller bits of data and finding the connections between these sets of patterns.
But that's intelligence. Now "sanity" has to be the ability to realize which patterns aren't really there. ("God", "demons", "imaginary friends", "world conspiracies", etc...). It's not like these data sets and "hints" don't exist; you just end up creating connections between sets of data, where there are none.

This is what many people in the field of AI research struggle with. Teaching the machines to search through the sets of data, compressing them and creating connections and saying "wait, now that's bull****!"

Hey Kimbo's Beard. I clicked the link in your post; just checking in to say I voted Yes to AV just to spite that rediculous leaflet. I think AV does suck a bit though.

Im not saying the highest IQ gets the job but to lead others on a certain level perhaps governor and above how could it hurt to make sure there at least above 120. Could have saved us from Bush.

Is this a level?

It would probably have saved us from Obama too. I mean if a person thinks there are 57 states its likely thier IQ is barely clears 100.

Why? It's about the evidence, not the intelligence of the person explaining it to me. If it's something like crazy physics that you could never understand, and he's telling you, "check this equation, god exists" would you start believing in God?

That's actually in interesting scenario, if you add to it the overwhelming majority of the smartest scientists/mathematicians, etc agree that the equation = "proof" that god exists.

Even then I just can't imagine being able to believe, but I can't rule out the possibility I suppose.

do you really believe that he thinks there are 57 states or do you think he misspoke?

My guess would be around 140, Bush probably around 120.

I think you are giving Bush too much credit, he is more likely around 100

Thumbs up. I will be using this one.

Bush was certainly less intelligent than the other recent presidents, going back to his dad, but I still think he is above average. The only major recent politician who I seriously think could be average is Palin, and she makes Bush look like Thomas Jefferson.

FYI Bush actaually scored 130. Someone said it best: -When a person like that scores that high I think he is only testing the test.

I haven't seen Obama do or say anything that leaves an impression with me that he is particularly smart.

What could he have done? Solve a previously unsolved mathematical theorem or something? How are you defining smart? Obama is clearly a very intelligent man unless your definition of intelligence is Langanian.

Obama is clearly articulate but that does not necessarily mean he is especially smart. Solving a mathematical theorem would do it. Perhaps if he balanced the budget I would think him smart....that is a pretty complex problem imo. However his previous endeavor of reforming health care was abortion and if I use that to judge his intellect, I have to put Obama on the stupid side of the scale.

I don't think it is. The answer is basically stop borrowing money from China and stop spending money on stupid ****. For example foreign aid. It is not the U.S. job to fix everyone elses problems. We have our own. Like...the budget.

Here's a post on another forum that might make you feel better about this guy.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...=211052&page=2

When I managed payrolls coming in on budget could be relatively easy....just don't spend more than your budget. What seperated good managers from bad ones was how they spent their budgets. So yes Obama could balance the budget by doing some across the board budget cuts and that would not necessarilly indicate he was very smart.

I didn't say it would. You did.

What I said was:

My judgement is going to be based on how he solves the problem. If Obamacare is any indication of his intellectual prowness...I find it difficult to conclude he is any smarter than Bush Jr.

Nice, that's nice.

He graduated with honors from Harvard law and taught at a top 10 law school. He intellect isn't really up for debate no matter what impression he gives to people totally uneducated in field he was close to the top of as a student.

stu, seems like an unfair unreasonable guide to judging intelligence...

its not like obama or any government person can just come up with a great idea and have it implemented...