The nature of intelligence

This seems a very sound phenomenological progression.

 

Yes, I have read the same things. Any new activity or experience if repeated will cause new connections to grow. If synaptic growth stopped then stroke victims would never regain functions that they lost. Part of stroke recovery is done by forcing the person to do new things and forcing the use of the effected limbs/functions concurrently.

I didn't say that growth stopped, just that the growth that occurs in infancy and young childhood lays the foundation for all subsequent growth and connections. Those early experiences lay out the major highways and as we continue to grow, learn and experience than tha boulevards and streets get laid out. But if the major highways didn't get built completely then that limits where the streets can go later, and it is much harder to lay down the highways later in life. That is why some function of damaged areas from stroke or brain trauma can be re-routed to new areas of the brain and others cannot.

As far as psychedelics are concerned, I've been working on some theories I have concerning the mechanism of action in the nervous system and how that translates into the subjective experience from the simplest tracers to union with the Godhead. Just need to get it all compiled and written up then I'll post it here, although the LSD mystics in the group may disagree with some of my ideas.

 

actually intelligence is the capacity for learning. and the recognition of the value of doing so. wisdom is the capacity to USE the knowledge intelligence has accumulated, to cause less harm then good. being that it is romanticized somewhat less, it is also considerably less common.

 

You could say smartness is also the capacity to use knowledge. Regular definitions don't seem to work for some people though.

 

Those are both moral interpretations that YOU have applied to the terms, but actually have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual faculties of intelligence and wisdom.
What, you've never heard of an evil genius?

 

sponges are smart..

 

There is another mentally administered quality that not really addressed by the word intelligence and that is comprehension. To comprehend is to grasp fully, to include something as part of a larger whole. The word comprehension is a much more vague in it's definition than the word intelligence.

 

The meaning of a word and the nature of that word in use can be very different.

 

Those ideas however are based upon the circumstances of the idea, the context in which it is conceived, and the materials (if any) that are involved. Putting these things together is done by using memory, remembering what something is, how it works, what its use is, etc. Could you consider evolution 'intelligent design'? As an animal evolves it slowly becomes better adapted (usually) to its environment. This is a form of intelligence based on some sort of recollection (who or what is recalling I have no idea) as to how that animal could be better adapted to its environment.

 

Our dictionaries are updated for prevailing usage.

 

Yes, you're right. I see that many people have many different definitions for similar things. That's good.

 

Had a lengthy conversation in another thread about how the root meaning of a word covers, allows for all further conjugations, or usages of the word. I used the word god as an example. It's root, coming from the old English, means "that which is invoked". It is this root definition that allows for the phenomena of idolatrous devotion. If god we,re the only thing that could be worshiped, the only definition of god, then there would be no debate about it.

Further, words are symbols that represent an embodied sensation. If you can identify and relate to this embodied sensation, or root meaning of a word, it will present you with a new clarity for meaning.

 

I understand what you're saying.