10 Weaknesses of Human Intelligence (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

10 Weaknesses of Human Intelligence

[Akashic_Librarian]

Thats really funny Steve. I love your sense of humour. very intelligent.

[Mike DeWitt]

Is that most protocols are established on the fly, continuously, subject to all other listed problems!

[eternomi]

4. Infinite loops
6.Limited sensory input
7. Poor networking capabilities

I think these three are the main culprits although #6 may be excused since it is only feeding back the results of the other two.

[bmentges]

I agree with everything except one thing on #6:

Our input channels are restricted to five senses (six for some of us)

It's six for EVERYONE. Some haven't yet discovered how to "process" it, but it is there and he/she is receiving input, regardless of noticing it or not

Best regards,
Bruno

[Sam988]

Good article.

[madgeylou]

only a boy would have to check to see what he's wearing

hmmm ... is it the light blue polo with the khakis, the dark blue polo with the khakis, or the medium blue polo with the khakis?

[fireballsedai]

Steve,
Since when were you political, and since when did you read the news? It's completely possible that I misread stuff you wrote in earlier entries, but I thought that you didn't really think that kind of thing was necessary.
I'm confused.
By the way, I love these articles, and I love this site, and I'm sorry that my first comment is a slightly negative one... The stuff here is pretty amazing.

[Mr.Mustache]

1. Faulty Hard Drive- This is somewhat relative. In my opinion our mental hard drives cuts out the meaningless details and focuses on the important information. Its convienent really. Relevant details are usually not forgotten.

2. Low RAM- Yes we can only focus on one thing at thing at a time but again we only really have to focus on relevant things.

3. Slow CPU- What is that supposed to mean?

4. Infinite Loops- Not nessecarily but it is a problem for many and it CAN be an advantage.

5. Lack of Error correction- Again, not nessecarily.

6. Limited sensory input- Yes, this is true we can only focus upon immediate surroundings, in other words, what is relevant. And the sixth sense is pretty sweet if its well developed.

7. Poor Networking Capabilities- Only true for southerners and poets.

8. High Maintenance Costs- Well, Steve you've disproved this somewhat. Polyphasic sleep anyone? Anyways, your mind does important ************ during sleep so bleh.

9. Legacy Code- You can overcome this though.

10. Dying isn't so bad, as you've mentioned in other blog posts.

So, yeah I refuse to let you bash human intelligence Steve!

[Mark Lapierre]

We also have an OS which runs the software it wants to, and which chooses input and produces output which supports the "need" to be running that software.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by madgeylou

only a boy would have to check to see what he's wearing

hmmm ... is it the light blue polo with the khakis, the dark blue polo with the khakis, or the medium blue polo with the khakis?

It is the blue jeans with the burgundy polo!

[Paul C]

That was a good laugh for the morning.

May not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can work on that... (a self sharpening tool, who would have known?)

[smartile]

I can identify with patterns of negative thoughts and the impact they have had on me..... and ultimately my life. I've actually written a post about negative patterns of thought entitled, 'How To Change Your Thoughts'.

Cheers

Stephen Martile
Stephen Martile — Personal Development with NLP

[Lauxa]

Ron Paul is going to prove you wrong on that one.

[escapee]

This causes bad habits, addictions, and Republicans.

Ohh....... The above has to be the funniest sentence of the article .

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by fireballsedai

Steve,
Since when were you political, and since when did you read the news? It's completely possible that I misread stuff you wrote in earlier entries, but I thought that you didn't really think that kind of thing was necessary.
I'm confused.

Heh. This article is a perfect example of Steve doing exactly what Steve does. He's very deliberate in his actions and, from what I have seen, always does things for a reason -- this included.

My advice to you would be to look at the “full picture” (Steve’s articles as a whole and everything else he says) instead of the “snap shots” (his individual articles) when trying to form an understanding of Steve, his character, his beliefs, his motives, his writing, etc, etc. There’s a lot of depth there to be sure, but it will help you better understand what he writes so you can use it more effectively.

A lot of what Steve writes is very practical, but I find that the vast majority of his articles are more useful for the purpose of self-exploration. It isn’t so much what Steve writes that helps me grow, but the reflection of myself I see when I read his articles.

Food for thought.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

It isn’t so much what Steve writes that helps me grow, but the reflection of myself I see when I read his articles.

Food for thought.

Indeed, some of Steve's stuff seems pointless, (of course some is very good) and often I consider he's just creating content for the sake of it, then I realise why I consider that and then I see the point of it all

Max

Stupid brain tried to make me smart, d'oh!

[Keith]

[personal bugbear]
Why does everyone forget the non-controversial 6th sense: the sense of balance? We wouldn't even be able to walk upright without it.
[/personal bugbear]

[Klamachpin]

Wow. Decent article, but inlaid with a number of uncharacteristic bitter references. I get the humor, but said humor seems a bit negative compared to what I've come to expect. Maybe it's just my Legacy Code defaulting again.

Though, the article did communicate in a more of a passive/aggresive way about possible recent or recurring problems with Republicans and/or Microsoft. And I'm Minnesotan -- I KNOW passive/aggressive when I see it.

[Susie]

Originally Posted by madgeylou

only a boy would have to check to see what he's wearing

hmmm ... is it the light blue polo with the khakis, the dark blue polo with the khakis, or the medium blue polo with the khakis?

Once again I agree with you MadgeyLou-- I could state accurately what I'm wearing right down to the color of my underwear, without looking!

[kat]

Originally Posted by Susie

Once again I agree with you MadgeyLou-- I could state accurately what I'm wearing right down to the color of my underwear, without looking!

It's not a gender-specific thing. I usually have -no- idea what I'm wearing. It's a matter of how much importance you give to it.

[John Wesley]

It's interesting how Steve based the analogy completely on a computer. He did this quite well, but you could also consider other traits weaknesses that cannot be used with this analogy. For example, being overly emotional or lacking self confidence.

[Jaybird]

My problem seems to be Bundled Software (Microsoft again?). In spite of No. 6, when "Attraction 3.0" boots, "Well, Hello! 8.1" (which I don't remember ordering) automatically starts up and saps the processing power from all other programs causing them to crash or otherwise refuse to run!

[Sean.M.Connelly]

An impressive display of human intelligence is to queue up your fight-or-flight response when asking someone out on a date. It’s nice to be prepared just in case she tries to eat you after she rejects you.

I physically burst into laughter. In fact, I'm laughing while writing this post :-).

This post makes up for those algoco posts in the past :-). *Applause*

~Sean

[freerick]

I love the tech analogy, it really gets the point across and keeps you reading.
I do also disagree with #6, as well as #7. The protocols of inter-personal communication are so complex that no one person understand them all, or even a significant part; on the other hand, because of the complexity, efficiency can be achieved. People communicate through many channels, such as body language and people have a seemingly innate capability to parse subtle data channels such as facial expressions, tone of voice, choice of words, etc. These are highly sophisticated capabilities, wouldn't you agree?

I also don't think our sensory input is limited. Our attention is limited, though, so we can only process a very limited subset of our sensory input; however, you addressed this in #3 (low ram).

I love your site by the way, it's extremely informative and talks about things that I can't find anywhere else. You're on my donation list!


Also, it's "overdue" not "overdo". See, bilateral on-the-fly error correction.



--Patrick

[Iff]

The article is good stuff indeed, although I am just wondering, how dumb do you have to be to forget what you're wearing? I mean, you don't care, fine, but forget?