Morendil comments on I'm Not Saying People Are Stupid - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 October 2009 04:23PM

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Comment author: Morendil 09 October 2009 10:11:25PM *  2 points [-]

We want to at least distinguish between

  • success at practical projects that involve planning over several tasks related by a dependence graph, possibly branching or looping

  • talent in some particular domain (e.g. writing fiction, sleuthing, managing people, math, word puzzles)

  • skill at memorization, accumulation of theoretical knowledge

  • adopting behaviors which enhance or preserve your long-term prospects

Someone lacking the first would be called stupid, someone lacking the last would be called crazy (though we also use the term for mental illnesses, which are a different thing again).

Intelligence seems to be at least somewhat modular (idiot savants being the canonical demonstration). I wonder if there is some classification of biases by which parts of intelligence are affected.