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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2735 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 10, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Because rationalists love all things IQ, I wanted to ask something here.

Is there reason to think, and is there support for, the idea that people with low intelligence simply lack or rarely develop some of the ways of cognizing, modeling the world, modeling other people, moral cognition, granularity, etc, that highly intelligent people have? Qualitative differences, not just less speed, less depth and breadth of knowledge?

Feel free to point me at research papers or relevant chapters of books if you don't want to write at length. Thanks!

There's no categorical difference between quantitative and qualitative differences. "Sometimes when I talk to other people they talk back to me" is a form of "modeling the world" that dogs and even the dumbest humans can do. Everything beyond that is just more "depth and breadth" of knowledge.

But very dumb people are observably worse at all of the things you describe than very smart people, so that "depth and breadth" is all there is, really.

I guess that's a way to say I don't understand the question, or know if it's well-formed.

Have you heard of the models of mental development in psychology? In one of them, Piaget's model, the formal operational stage of reasoning, logic and abstract thinking of several possible outcomes, hypotheticals etc, is supposed to develop around 12 years of age or a bit later. But I've heard it said that not everyone succeeds in ever reaching that stage. This is the kind of thing I want to hear more about.

The only thing I can think of that's related is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_developmental_framework Kegan stages, and David Chapman (rat adjacent)'s interpretation of them - https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge

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