Can “dumb” people have excellent memories? Is it just a matter of being able to articulate what you’ve filed up in your cranium?
I want to say that intelligence is something more than being able to regurgitate past data. I’m thinking of the ability to problem-solve. But it seems to me that’s also memory – you’re remembering something you were taught earlier in order to solve whatever problem.
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
But how do you know how to generalize, and how do you recognize relationships? You regurgitate data you’ve filed away in the past. It all goes back to memory, it seems.
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
No, they’re not the same. I’m pretty intelligent, but my memory really sucks, and it’s a real handicap. There are tricks that can help in day to day activities, but when I need to come with something “out of the blue”, I’m usually lost.
I’d say that a person with moderately high intelligence and an exceptional memory would have an advantage over another person who has exceptional intelligence, but only a moderately good memory. At least in the business and technical world.
Peace,
mangeorge (Bought memory book, lost it)
Teach your kids to bungee jump.
One them might have to cross a bridge someday.
One important aspect of intelligence is the ability to rapidly absorb and understand new information. This ability varies widely in people, and it has no bearing on whether they’ll remember the new info tomorrow.
When I was a kid we had a test called the 11+ which relied solely on the ability to absorb facts and regurgitate them.The problem was that this was used as a method of selecting children to go on to the best schools and all that led from that.
There was little emphasis on evaluation or problem solving.
Things have changed a lot but still many parents are nostalgic for those days.
We can use computors to solve problems but I doubt that you’d call that ‘intelligent’, computors are very good at remembering things ,is that intelligent?
I’ve met people who are superb at trivia quizzes but ,in reality, are thick as f*ck.
My view is that intelligence has to include a creative element.Mind you I’ve met artistic types who are completely clueless so where do you put the boundaries?
It looks to me as if there are differant varieties of intelligence ,for instance there’s the person who can think of a sharp reply in milliseconds-the Groucho Marx type.
Then there’s the type who can only perform under pressure, or the type that gets it wrong a few times before getting it spectacularly right.
There’s even the type who can display differant levels of intelligence at the same time,I’m thinking here of the geeky, who may be creative and technically brilliant but have little social intelligence.
We are all incompetant at something for instance I can dry-wall ,I’m an EE ,I can do plumbing and virtually any construction type task but when it comes to interior decor colour coordination I am utterly useless.I put that down to the 1/2 Asian ancestry.
Everyone has an area in which s/he shines. If one has a great memory, s/he is knowledgeable. But can s/he apply that knowledge? Can s/he actually create something new out of that knowledge?
If I can regurgitate facts, I am only as good as the book, but if I can create something new from what I have learned or creatively apply what I have learned, I am intelligent.
Parrots can regurgitate information, but that ability does not make them intelligent, it makes them a novel little database.
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One important aspect of intelligence is the ability to rapidly absorb and understand new information. This ability varies widely in people, and it has no bearing on whether they’ll remember the new info tomorrow.
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Very well put. My 50-year-old-sister is mentally retarded and has the greatest memory. She rembembers lyrics to old rock songs, names of family members and neighbors she hasn’t seen in decades and can tell me what I wore at my sweet 16 party. But she can’t assimilate abstract concepts, can’t do simple division or multiplication and can’t read on a fourth-grade level.
renee
I think intelligence is in the wiring, not the data banks. Given the same size memory, an intelligent brain creates billions more cross-links relating different observations.
So… a stupid person may be able to memorize an entire encyclopedia, but may only be able recall the entries sequentially (i.e. a linked list). The smart person’s memory, on the other hand, is far more associative and efficient, linking important information to other knowledge so that there are many more keys to retrieval (i.e. a relational database).