DIFFERENT INTELLIGENCES

The Guardian (UK) had a recent article which explained that there are actually three different kinds of intelligence.

It was under the pretense that even smart people with high IQs make dumb and stupid mistakes all the time. The reason for it that intelligence and common sense do not parallel each other.

Having a high IQ score does not mean that someone is intelligent. IQ tests only capture analytical intelligence; this is the ability to notice patterns and solve analytical problems. Most standard IQ tests miss out two other aspects of human intelligence:creative and practical intelligence. 

 Creative intelligence is our ability to deal with novel situations. Practical intelligence is our ability to get things done. For the first 20 years of life, people are rewarded for their analytical intelligence. Then we wonder why the “best and brightest” are uncreative and practically useless.

Most intelligent people make mental short cuts all the time. One of the most powerful is self-serving bias: we tend to think we are better than others. Most people think they are "above average drivers."  If you ask a class of students whether they are above the class average in intelligence, the vast majority of hands shoot up. Even when you ask people who are objectively among the worst in a certain skill, they still tend to say they are "above average."  Not everyone can be above average – but we can all have the illusion that we are. 

We desperately cling to this illusion even when there is devastating evidence to the contrary. We collect all the information we can find to prove ourselves right and ignore any information that proves us wrong. We feel good, but we overlook crucial facts. As a result the smartest people ignore the intelligence of others so they make themselves feel smarter.

Being "smart"  can come at a cost. Asking tricky questions, doing the research and carefully thinking things through takes time. It’s also unpleasant. Most of us would rather do anything than think. A recent study found that when left alone in a room, people preferred to give themselves electric shocks than quietly sit and think.  This may be why work place procrastination is on the rise. 

Being smart can also upset people. Asking tough questions can quickly make you unpopular. People may perceive you as snobbish, arrogant or rude.

Intelligent people quickly learn these lessons. Instead of using their intelligence, they just stay quiet and follow the crowd – even if it is off the side of a cliff. In the short term this pays off. Things get done, everyone’s lives are easier and people are happy. But in the long term it can create poor decisions and lay the foundations for disaster.

This line of thinking helps explain the vexing problem on LOST when we used to yell at the screen why characters did not ask simple questions to other characters to gather basic information in order to adopt a meaningful response or plan of action. When characters came back from a mission or a dangerous encounter, rarely did the beach campers ask what was going on. They preferred to remain as quiet as sheep. And when they learned about the Hatch and its safety against the Others, no one questioned why the top leaders kept the place to themselves.

They did not challenge authority because it could make them look stupid in front of the group. But the majority of the group was in the same holding pattern - - - stay quiet and follow the crowd mentality. But this also was a bad plan because those characters who spoke up to be leaders, such as Locke or Jack, did not have enough practical intelligence to make the correct choices. They thought their analytical intelligence was superior to the other castaways. Again, it was confusing one skill set from another - - - more practical one needed to assess survival options to craft solution to major problems.

THE INTERNET AND PAIN

"I love the Internet because every piece of true pain I've experienced as an adult — with the exception of death in the family and breakups — has come from it." - - - actress Lena Dunham

When a public figure acknowledges that the world around her is a painful place, but then accepts the pain as being part of her public life, there is some profound truth that rises to the surface of our collective intelligence.

The Internet is a vast, open world. But it really is a tool, a utility, to help people communicate thoughts and ideas. However, it has turned into a dark space where trolls, haters, criminals and weak-minded prey on the lives of more fortunate people. High school bullying has gone from the playground to the global stage. 

Since the Internet is an all-consuming place, people can get lost in this world just as an intense gamer can get lost for days or weeks in a open world multi-player epic console game.

Then the lines of reality and virtual reality blur.

People need connections to other people. People need real connections to other people, and not virtual, cliche or fake connections. Friends are different than acquaintances, but on the web more and more people fall into the latter category because they don't do anything else together expect exchange messages or photo tags.

Since the daily interaction with the network and the people who you friend becomes more important, the ability to hurt one another grows exponentially.  People can be meaner because you don't have to be face-to-face to hurt someone. There is a growing segment of people out on the net with the sole purpose to hurt other people (most people they don't even know.)

There was a recent line from Dr. Who which is applicable here. "Hate is such a strong emotion that it should not be wasted on people you dislike." 

Think about that.

If someone or something causes you pain, why continue to interact with it? Because someone or something (like the internet) has woven itself into your core principles, it occupies the center of your mind and thoughts, it makes you a complete being and it defines who you are as a person.

Life is filled with ups and downs, pain and pleasure. The management of those emotional highs and lows is what separates the good from the bad, from those who can cope and those in despair, those who hide from the world from those who live life to the fullest despite the painful pitfalls that the future may hold.

INTERCONNECTION

Advice columnist Ann Landers made in the 1990s this observation on the benefits of the Internet:

"It's wonderful for the lonely. There are a great many lonely people out there, and it makes them feel that they're a part of the living world. They can talk to somebody. Somebody will talk to them. And I think it's wonderful."

The characters in LOST fit that description a decade after she wrote those words.

Each of the main characters in the series were alone. A few had abandonment issues; a few had self-esteem issues; some were socially awkward; some harbored deep pain and resentment that they could not share with anyone. Loneliness is a yoke that chokes off a person's socialization in their community. Loners tend to withdraw into themselves. They tend to live in their own room, isolated from outside contact. There are few avenues of expression. They guard themselves against anything new, because they believe they will get hurt in the end.

So the characters have issues, deep issues.

The series focal point was Numbers, people as data. The candidates were numbers. The airplane was a number. The survivors were numbers. Numbers equate to a mathematical system, such as the basis of computer programs, modules and levels.

Some theorized that LOST represented the in-game, on-line community of loners who find their own community playing a survival game called LOST on the internet. Each person shown in the series is a representative avatar of a real person isolated in their dark, lonely room, waiting for interaction and missions with their "on-line" co-players. Like in any game, there are teams competing for something (power, control, territory, kills). The island is their game map. Exploration is part of the fun. Danger is part of the game play. How players interact with other is a key component to the outcome of the game itself. And that final reward for "winning" the game (through escape, sacrifice, redemption or whatever sub-code reward there is) was going to Heaven.

Simple ending to a complex on-line game which had little rules (or at least confusing rules).

NEGATIVE SMARTS

Here is an odd bobble from the interwebs of social media culled by WIRED:

it seems the more negative in one's comments, the more intelligent the commentator appears to others.

The reason is"hypercriticism." When we hear negative statements, we think they're inherently more intelligent than positive ones. Teresa Amabile, director of research for Harvard Business School, began exploring this back in the 1980s. She took a group of 55 students, roughly half men, half women, and showed them excerpts from two book reviews printed in an issue of The New York Times. The same reviewer wrote both, but Amabile anonymized them and tweaked the language to produce two versions of each—one positive, one negative. Then she asked the students to evaluate the reviewer's intelligence.

The verdict was clear: The students thought the negative author was smarter than the positive one—“by a lot,” Amabile tells me. Most said the nastier critic was “more competent.” Granted, being negative wasn't all upside—they also rated the harsh reviewer as “less warm and more cruel, not as nice,” she says. “But definitely smarter.” Like my mordant tweets, presumably.

This so-called negativity bias works both ways, it seems. Other studies show that when we seek to impress someone with our massive gray matter, we spout sour and negative opinions. In a follow-up experiment, Bryan Gibson, a psychologist at Central Michigan University, took a group of 117 students (about two-thirds female) and had them watch a short movie and write a review that they would then show to a partner. Gibson's team told some of the reviewers to try to make their partner feel warmly toward them; others were told to try to appear smart. You guessed it: Those who were trying to seem brainy went significantly more negative than those trying to be endearing.

Why does this bias exist? No one really knows, though some theorists speculate it's evolutionary. In the ancestral environment, focusing on bad news helped you survive.

Some may say this site has had more negative LOST posts, but not really if you consider there still are posts long after the series has concluded, so that must be a positive.

If LOST was truly a character study, does one pointing out the negatives in a situation appear to be smarter?

The cursory results are mixed.

Jack quickly became the leader because of his positive outlook, demeanor and his known important medical skills.

Locke was more visceral against Jack's positions, pointing out flaws or different ways of doing things. Other castaways did not find Locke "smart," more like crazy in some of his viewpoints.

There is an irony here because when Flocke and Jack are helping Desmond re-set the cork, Jack admits that the real Locke was right about everything associated with the island.

Hurley was always upbeat and positive. He tried to keep his friends happy and entertained. No one called Hurley a genius. At the same time, Sawyer was constantly a negative, counterproductive presence in the camp. Most people knew he had some street smarts, but he never wanted to let anyone in past his personal firewall.

Kate's personality really lacked common sense because she continually compounded her mistakes in the real world as a fugitive. On the island, other women came to her for personal advice. Kate was neither smart or dumb; she was an independent survivor.

Ben was highly critical and negative towards his subordinates. In fact, so vicious that he would have them killed for disobeying him. As a result, people feared his evil genius.

In real life, people will gravitate toward upbeat and happy people. This may be instinctive to share positive emotional bonds with others. Negative people tend to drain the energy from a room and make people uncomfortable. It seems in the social media webs, the exact opposite happens. This touches briefly on the mirror theme: what is seen may be the opposite of reality.

EVOLUTION OF THE SPECIES

In the past decade, there has been some scientific debate in regard to potential changes in the human species. In studying the genes of X and Y chromosomes, it appears that there is less genetic material in the Y or male chromosomes. And when compared to other mammals, there seems to be a pattern of the genes in the Y turning off over time. The Y component produces male testes and the male form of the species. But if it slowly fades away through an evolutionary process, that would mean that humans are moving toward a woman dominated society. At that point, scientists wonder how human beings would be able to reproduce.

In nature, mutations occur to solve such problems. Some animals can actually change gender in order to procreate. Others could possibly fold their genetic strands upon themselves to create a pregnancy with complete XX genetic material.

In any such transition period, the female population would statistically grow larger than the male population. Females would become the dominate society leaders. Females would then set the standards for procreation including identifying their attributes for their mates. In advanced cultures, this can take technology to the new level to remove the male element from the procreation process all together.

In the background of LOST, we see hints of this evolutionary process taking shape.

In the Others camp, Ben was the sadistic leader who had the power, but females like Juliet are smarter, shrewder and have more common sense to survive.

In the beach camp, Jack was the reluctant leader, but Kate seemed to have more common sense survival skills on their missions. She also had the skills to manipulate men to do what she wanted them to do for her. Also, Rose was a more dominate character than her husband, Bernard. Sun had a much more global perspective than Jin.

And the idea that Sun became pregnant on the island when she and Jin were infertile couple touches upon the end of the evolutionary cycle where females are self-producing their own offspring. Interestingly, her offspring was a girl.

The female characters in the series were reserved but had deeper strengths than most of their male counterparts.