Defining intelligence
Uploaded by flvcrisan on Aug 25, 2008
DEFINING INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence represents the amount of experience a person accumulates in a given time interval. High intelligence means that a large amount of experience is obtained over a short interval of time, while low intelligence means that little experience is obtained over a long period of time. Simply put, intelligence measures the rate at which a person acquires new experience. The relationship that defines intelligence is the following:
Int = ΔExp / Δt
where ΔExp is the amount of experience gained in the time interval Δt.
Here are a few examples to illustrate this relationship:
The person that solves a problem in 20 minutes is more intelligent than the one that solves the same problem in 60 minutes. In this example ΔExp has the same value for both ‒ they both solve the same problem ‒ but the time interval Δt is different. In this case, the first person acquires experience faster. Another example : researcher A makes 3 scientific discoveries in one year, while researcher B makes 1 discovery in the same amount of time. In this second example Δt has the same value for both (one year) but the experience gained ΔExp is different. According to the above relationship we can assess that scientist A is more intelligent than B because he accumulates experience faster.
Until today intelligence research has focused solely on measuring experience, while completely ignoring the time factor. Suppose person X is the world champion in mathematics and the time he spends on this discipline is about 18~20 hours a week. Now suppose person Y is just as good at mathematics as X (this means that he has the same amount of experience in mathematics as X) but Y exercises mathematics 9~10 hours a week. By ignoring the time factor it would be impossible for us to determine which of the two possesses a higher intelligence quotient, both having the same amount of experience in that area. But by calculating the experience/time ratio we can assess that Y is more intelligent than X because it has acquired the same amount of experience in half the time.
Some may recognize a certain analogy between this definition (experience/time) and other definitions from physics, such as that of speed (distance/time) or power (energy/time). The difference is that the definition of intelligence seems to be a purely theoretical relation, numerical values been almost impossible to obtain, for both experience and time components.
While the distance...