It seems like a lot of people have very narrow definitions of memory. I think that it just isn’t recalling random numbers, but also being able to recall more general situations. In my experience people are good problem solvers typically because they recall having solved a similar problem in the past. The same goes for math/logic. People just don’t jump into advanced problems without being able to recall how they solved similar problems in the past. Sure there is a component of making connections between similar situations, but I think that can often be explained by how general a person chooses to store that stuff in their memory.
I’m also having a hard time with a useful definition of intelligence that is separated from memory. It seems like a lot of people are basically defining intelligence as mental ability not dependent on memory. Ok 
. To use a computer comparison, they are defining intelligence roughly as something like how many interger additions can be done in one second. I’d rather have a slow computer running google earth(which requires storage and recall of info and algorithms->memory!) than a fast processor cranking out really large integer additions, lacking the software to do anything cool with those numbers. I would call the former more intelligent than the later. (Be nice to me I’m doped up on painkillers waiting for surgery after a pretty sweet mountain bike wipe out. 
)
Well, in my case, I define my own intelligence as
IQ test score (167)
- ease of schoolwork (no studying nets me A’s if I give a shit enough to do the work)
- ability to follow an explanation about a topic I have no previous knowledge of, and to grasp it in depth the first time around
- abilty to “see ahead” or take new information to a logical conclusion without much, if any, guidance
- fairly massive vocabulary, which goes a long way into fooling people you’re smart.
Will I remember that new thing I learned tomorrow? Probably not. I will if I found it personally interesting, but if I was just learning it because I have to for a grade or we struck up a conversation at a party, I won’t retain it. I cannot remember phone numbers, birthdays (I have mnemonics to remember my own children’s birthdays!), the multiplication tables, history (dates and events). I can’t remember what we had for dinner two nights ago, when my son’s writing project is due, or whether or not I’ve seen a particular movie. I constantly re-read books because I forget I’ve read them. I can tell you the names of only half a dozen teachers I’ve ever had. I’ve forgotten most of my ex-boyfriends’ names. I have only a dozen childhood memories. My husband is finally learning that if he asks me “remember that time…?” I won’t. He has to have labels for everyone he talks about, because I will not remember who Amanda is, even though we talked for 3 hours at a picnic last week. And God help me if he’s been talking about Amanda and switches to a tale about Audrey, 'cause then I’m totally lost.
So yeah. High intellegence? Perhaps. Poor memory? Definitely. But because I can catch onto things so quickly, I can get by, and I can fake it well enough to fool most people. I’m a fast processor with lots of RAM and virtual memory, but no save function. Once I shut off the machine, all data is lost. (Excuse the clumsy analogy, I’m not a computer person, just trying to run with your idea.)
My son has a peculiar (diagnosed) disability which I suspect I might share: he cannot retain anything presented in isolation. When shown a page with a circle, square, triangle, triangle, he can pick out that pattern from 5 options on the next page. But show him a red triangle alone, and he cannot pick it out from 5 options. Weird. Same goes for words (has made spelling nigh on impossible, because he cannot remember exceptions) and following directions (we cannot tell him “Take out the trash when you get home.” It has to be, “Take out the trash, empty the dishwasher and read your book for 30 minutes.”) A list he can do. A single thing, he physically can’t remember. Yet he’s an intelligent kid if you know how to work with his disability and have him remember things in groups. All his tests come out in the 98% percentile, except this one, in which he’s in the *first *percentile. A clear cut learning disability if there ever was one.
I just finished listening to this anecdote in my audiobook of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman. He was actually still a student then, taking an advanced biology course, and the picture he drew and began explaining was “a map of a cat,” which caused people to laugh and tell him it was called an anatomical diagram, not a map. It’s quite a funny story. And even more appropriate today; he said “You’ve spent years memorizing stuff that can be looked up in 15 minutes,” and today we can look it up in about 15 seconds thanks to Google.
Okay, sorry for the hijack there…
From post #6: Intake, Compression, Detonation, Exhaust.
No. Detonation might be a normal term when blasting holes through mountains, but it’s not the name of the stroke.
From post #9: [Intake, Compression, Combustion, Exhaust.
No. Combustion is the right word for the process that begins the stroke, but it’s not the name of the stroke.
Intake, Compression, POWER, Exhaust.
With a little digging around the Net, was able to find a copy of the Scientific American article to which I referred yesterday. Was unable to find anything definitive, though, on Feynman’s IQ. That is, found different sources reciting both numbers. If anyone has a copy of No Ordinary Genius handy (mine is in storage), I believe that’s where his sister Joan’s account appears.
My personal view of intelligence is that it is the ability to learn and understand new stuff quickly. I largely agree with WhyNot’s ideas. IMO an intelligent person doesn’t need an exceptional memory. They are able to remember the gist of a subject and then fill in the blanks because they have a genuine understanding of it. They remember “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” because they understand that an engine needs to inhale the fuel air mixture, compress it, burn it, and then the expanding gasses need somewhere to go. This would be in contrast to someone who remembers the basics of the four-stroke cycle because they have wrote-learned “suck, squeeze, bang, blow.”
As someone who has taught various subjects to people, it is fairly easy to tell those who are more intelligent than the others. It’s not that they have a better memory, it’s that they are constantly working ahead of you and coming to (mostly correct) conclusions before you have fed them the information. These are people who, with no prior knowledge of an engine, will be able to provide the “bang” and “blow” part of the equation themselves having been provided with the initial strokes.
I also believe that there are various aspects of intelligence, the above being just one of them.
I, personally, do very well in pattern recognition involving shapes or numbers, but quite poorly in some language activities, particularly anagrams and other word/letter puzzles. I have always had very good reading comprehension though.
A point for everyone in this thread to remember: If you’ve never taken an IQ test administered by a trained psycological professional in controlled surroundings, then you’ve never taken an IQ test. Those things that MENSA mails out aren’t nearly well enough controlled, and the ones you find online are not only poorly controlled, they’re also generally badly inflated (on one of them I saw, a rolling die could get an above-average score, and even an every-question-wrong response got a 70). And even if you do take a real IQ test in controlled circumstances, the scores get unreliable at the extremes of the range. In other words, you can distinguish a 95 from a 100 more easily than you can distinguish a 130 from a 140.
Really? I heard that it was the other way around, that there was a greater difference between scores the higher you got, like the difference in intelligence between 2 people with IQs of 151 and 150 was much greater than the difference in intelligence bewteen people with IQs of 91 and 90.
Chronos, does a score change much with age? Mine was done when I was in 6th grade - I scored a perfect score on the blanket screening test they gave everyone, and since my grades were not all that perfect, they assumed something went wrong. So they pulled me out of classes for several days to do a full battery with a psychologist the state sent in. Could that obnoxiously high number have come down to something more reasonable in the intervening years? Or is the test reliable enough that it doesn’t matter at what age it’s administered?
('Cause I’m really not that smart…)