Family Gatherings

[Conservationist]

maybe you should try and get to the source of all these fools, since they seem to keep popping out of somewhere.

A lack of evolutionary progress, since intelligence is mostly genetic.

[Kelly Jones]

It's a stupid task trying to find the beginning and end of something, so in hope of preserving anything we become lost in the world.

Nice.


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[Tomas]

.

-Talking Ass-
...but then with a start you snap back to reality and realize it's not the Soaring Eagle but Aunt Emma up from Carter Lake, Iowa, who's just asked you in her grating voice if you want ketchup or mustard---or both---on your hotdog.

-tomas-
Aunt Emma doesn't have time for all the highbrow talk here on Genius. She's worried about where her next meal will come from. All the freeloaders who have some sort of "mental condition" that keeps them from working (or refusing to stoop to manual labor) just hand them the foodstamp card and all their utilities, housing allowance etc. All the freaking loner-types living off of the working man's taxes. They're too busy mountain climbing and biking to and fro on the public highway system built by others people's taxes.

Poor Aunt Emma will soon be in the nursing home (the poor house) and not-a-one of her relatives will be there visiting .. just the highbrows with their inheritance lawyers wanting the will read to see what's in it for them. Aunt Emma was keeping the rainy day fund well-stocked - but the loners want her country home up on the Oregon Trail. Let's hope Obama confiscates everything to bring about the Marxist Utopia that the feminazis so desire........


-Talking Ass-
The path to Wisdom is long, pilgrim....

-tomas-
Family reunions - Just give me the inheritance $$$, grandma.

[Anders Schlander]

A lack of evolutionary progress, since intelligence is mostly genetic.

Well, intelligence is not isolated to genetics, you could argue that there could potentially be enviromental causes for the very occurence of intelligence, not just the flourishing of it. The DNA might be right, but if the individual's in the wrong enviroment to begin with, perhaps intelligence will never develop. I wouldn't rule out the possibility, as I believe it's likely that the right influences can improve people's thought.
It also so often seems that a a person is 'molded' early on, and if the person doesn't experience the fruit of thought early on, if the child doesn't experience something that makes the child begin to use it's mind, then maybe it's too late to do anything later on.

Even otherwise working genetics can be spoiled by the wrong influences. As evidence for this, I consider some of my friends, who are perfectly capable of dealing logically with things, but they have never been influenced to love using their minds, and they are now much too concerned with family, girlfriends etc, even if they are perfectly capable of using logic in every-day matters.

edit 7/7-2010 5:11am CET: touched up a few sentence structures for better reading comprehension.


(Can u see times of last edit?)

[Conservationist]

you could argue that there could potentially be enviromental causes for the very occurence of intelligence

You could argue that there could potentially be UFOs causing intelligence. You could argue that there could potentially be a possibility of just about anything.

Back to the data, that's not so -- a great book on this is The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker.

[Anders Schlander]

Well, Genetics certainly isn't enough by itself, do you agree? Can't you think of other causes that cause intelligence? to me one thing is obvious, if a person has the potential for using his logical ability, but finds no deep need for it, there will be no deep reliance on his logical ability. However, genetics is never the complete answer, for many other reasons too. Even if an embryo has the right DNA, it has to go through 9 months progressing into a baby, the baby has to survive without being braindamaged, it needs air to breath, and it needs food, etc. And then it needs to grow up and develop it's mind. Genetics is one part of this process, if the genetics don't properly form a working individual then there is no potential, but working genes are just one part of intelligence forming in humans.

[Tomas]

(Can u see times of last edit?)

No one had submitted a post prior to your editing so no 'edit time' was generated...

[Conservationist]

Well, Genetics certainly isn't enough by itself, do you agree?

No. I suggest The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker for a good introduction to biological determinism.

[Kelly Jones]

Genius never runs in the family.


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[Tomas]

Genius never runs in the family...

Only on Genius Forum...

[Anders Schlander]

Genius never runs in the family.


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good point actually.

edit: It's just that we are bound to get entangled in different ideas of what intelligence means. Especially those who don't have a grasp of what 'genius' means here. A family can have an academic approach to things, and people born into the family can adopt an academic approach. Families where high IQ is frequent problably happens, too. But no matter how we think of intelligence, it is absurd to suggest that intelligence can arrive by the right genes alone.

[Anders Schlander]

Well, Genetics certainly isn't enough by itself, do you agree?

No. I suggest The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker for a good introduction to biological determinism.

I know you suggested the Blank Slate once already, but I was kinda fishing for merely talking about this plainly and simply. I'll still keep the book, and biological determinism in mind, so thanks.

Let me ask you one question, though. What would the right genetics in an embryo, inside a mother's womb, help the existence of human intelligence, if she was killed?

edit: You actually said it yourself a few posts back! 'Intelligence is mostly genetic'. Can we atleast agree that it is not 100% genetics? can we agree that the right DNA-sequences in chromosomes does not alone make a human?

[Conservationist]

Genius never runs in the family.

The potential for genius does.

Let me guess: no geniuses in your family?

Believe what you need to, but don't claim it's true. It's just your personal religion.

[Blair]

You may have read the introduction, but you clearly didn't comprehend it.

Genius as a term is used in it's original and correct sense in the context of this board, being one who correctly interprets reality. It's nothing to do with IQ.

Consider your failure to understand what Genius Forum is as proof that you are indeed far from Genius...

Seen it all before, btw.

[Anders Schlander]

Genius never runs in the family.

The potential for genius does.

Let me guess: no geniuses in your family?

Believe what you need to, but don't claim it's true. It's just your personal religion.

I have to say that it is so many times the case that people will religiously hold undue significance to DNA, just as reincarnation, to explain just about anything. It's just as stupid as literal reincarnation, and just as stupid as claiming that the reason it is sunny on a persons birthday is because of what the person did in that persons previous year.

PS. I saw a talk of about 30 minutes by Steven Pinker, and one of his arguments against a 'blank slate' is that identical twins raised different places are much more alike, than two identical twins raised in the same home are, inferring that, being raised in the same place would make them even more identical...

This is not the case, identical twins raised seperately, compared later, are often more alike because they are born able to develop their specific role independantly, if two identical twins are raised in the same home, it is obvious that they will naturally develop different roles to accomodate eachother, if they are reaised seperately, then they can develop similar roles because they are not competing against eachother.

I thought it was incredibly stupid to assume that living in the same home gives twins the same nurture element. Thinking about it, identical twins in the same homes are likely many times different than non-twins, living in different homes, who are both the first born son, for example. This indicates the nurture element again. Ah well.

[Kelly Jones]

Genius never runs in the family.

The potential for genius does. Let me guess: no geniuses in your family? Believe what you need to, but don't claim it's true. It's just your personal religion.

Your aggressive tone is putting me off. Do you usually engage with people in that defensive way? The "potential for genius" is neither here nor there, since everyone has potential for genius. If someone doesn't become a genius, then there's no evidence of genius. Genius is measured by the actual (and not potential) understanding of Ultimate Reality, and how one's life manifests that. It's a deeply individualised phenomenon, owing to the intellectual nature of the understanding, and to the need to let that understanding filter through every aspect of one's being in a fully conscious way. None of this process can be shortcut or substituted by hanging around a genius, or by having a genius for a parent.

There's an analogy in the concept of nepotism.


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[Talking Ass]

Kelly writes: "Genius is measured by the actual (and not potential) understanding of Ultimate Reality, and how one's life manifests that."

This is false. If the etymologies are correct, the word derives from 'jinn' or 'jinnee':

• 'A good or evil spirit, or demon, supposed by the ancients to preside over a man's destiny in life; a tutelary deity; a supernatural being; a spirit, good or bad.' [(Arabian & Mohammedan Myth.) A genius or demon; one of the fabled genii, good and evil spirits, supposed to be the children of fire, and to have the power of assuming various forms. [Written also djinnee, genie, etc.]

The word itself connects to ideas and concepts that are now part, if you will, of the archaeology of human understanding since they have their base in a radically different view of the world. It is therefor more accurate and reasonable to examine 'genius' from a far more practical standpoint. It would appear that the genii is understood to be a being who originates in fire and who 'possesses' a person, and even perhaps gives them a certain fire of inspiration. To 'be' a genius is to 'have' a genius. (Conceptually, it might be possible to forge a connection between the jinn-idea and that of 'shakti-force': a latent power that overtakes one, supercharges one, courses through one's whole being, sets one 'on fire').

Taken in whatever direction one would wish from the original starting point, in no sense did the concept of a jinn [jinnee: (Islam) an invisible spirit mentioned in the Koran and believed by Muslims to inhabit the earth and influence mankind by appearing in the form of humans or animals [syn: genie, jinni, djinni, djinny] ever mean a person who understood Ultimate Reality, except among the QRStians. You have taken a word with a rather strict definition which has evolved over time and through various cultural and existential conceptualizations, and forced your own definition on top of it. Your definition is not invalid for that reason, but it is not the only possible one.

It should be stated that, in traditional understanding and even in the current, popular understanding, one would be well advised to hang around an environment of geniuses, a group of geniuses, because it is likely that the 'fire' of genius would rub off on one, that one would become 'contaminated' [caused] by it. Also, it is neither 'good' nor 'evil' as normally understood, so be careful...

The notion of genius, then, can have many different interpretations, depending of course on how one views the world, what one values and privelages, etc.

Just another helpful and---dare I say it?---rational post from the Ass who Talks©