Jan

25

I like GM Miguel Najdorf's definition of intelligence; the speed with which someone is able to change his mind about something. But it strikes me that this may be mainly a trait that can be acquired via education.

There seem to be two major parts to this process:

1. Having enough curiosity to look for alternatives.

2. Being able to admit you were wrong about the previously held view.

This leads on to a possible definition of an 'educational environment', i.e. a place which is able to foster these two.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

9 Comments so far

  1. rocky on January 26, 2009 3:17 pm

    The definition raises some paradoxes and questions:

    1) Why wouldn’t the MOST intelligent person (or machine) get the “correct” answer on the FIRST try?
    2) The definition assumes that there is no cost to changing ones mind. (Graph theory comes ot mind.)
    3) If women are really more fickle than men (forgive the stereotype), then does Najdorf conclude that women are more intelligent than men?

  2. Matt Johnson on January 26, 2009 7:47 pm

    Define 'education,' please.

  3. Nigel Davies on January 27, 2009 1:50 am

    Rocky,

    If someone believes they have a ‘right answer’ on a problem which doesn’t lend itself to this kind of thinking, then they were being dogmatic in the first place. Examples of the kind of fuzzy problems Najdorf would have been thinking about include chess and markets. In these ‘judgement iterations’ (for want of a better description) progress towards better models and in my experience as a chess player this is the most efficient way.

    Re women, I think this supposed fickleness may be with their preferences rather than any problem solving (get red shoes or blue) so there was no particular intellectual issue in the first place.

    Matt,

    Attempted definition of education: ‘Process by which one learns to unlearn’. This contrasts with the process of learning for which the word ‘training’ may be more suitable.

    Nigel

  4. George Parkanyi on January 28, 2009 12:17 am

    Nigel, Your response to Rocky…you didn't vet that one with the wife. Did you? Do survival instincts and maintaining un-impaired access to s-x also fall in under the category of intelligence?

    Cheers mate, George

  5. Nigel Davies on January 28, 2009 2:41 am

    George,

    The wife will very shortly be ex, which might explain the comment or vice versa. Should any dates ever find their way here I'll say that Rocky put me up to it.

    Nigel

  6. George Parkanyi on January 29, 2009 7:58 am

    Oops. Well, if it's any consolation, Nigel, my now passed friend and market mentor Omar Sheriffe Vernon el Halawani responded thus when I invited him to my wedding: "Oh, no thank you George, I'll catch the next one." That was a long time ago now. Cheers, George

  7. Nic Chalmers on January 29, 2009 10:47 am

    Is intelligence not the ability to apply knowledge in the most efficent way?

  8. Nigel Davies on January 29, 2009 1:12 pm

    George,

    You mean you’ve not had a divorce yet? Wow, that’s amazing.

    Maybe there’s an analogy to trading here in that maybe by buying right we don’t need to stop ourselves out so much. These life stops are very costly.

    Nigel

  9. George Parkanyi on January 29, 2009 6:36 pm

    No, Nigel, I have had one divorce, and the anecdote related to my second marriage. Perhaps therein lay Sheriffe's lack of conviction. So far so good on wife #2. (The first stop-loss worked — mutually, actually.) Cheers and good luck with it all. These are not easy things. George

Archives

Resources & Links

Search