[OilBurner]

Has Peak Intelligence Hit?

Most people today believe that there is enough IQ in the world today to last us for several hundred years.
Every day, millions of exams are passed, TV quiz show prizes are won and people manage to hold an intelligent conversation about topical issues. Ever since Mankind stopped climbing trees for a living, it seems that our intellectual achievements are without any boundaries. To give an indication of just how far we have come, many people can now understand the difference between an apple and a Big Mac. With progress like this, it seems like there is no stopping us.

There is growing concern however that IQs have little room to increase, or worse yet, they may decrease.
The foremost expert on this problem today is Prof. Fred H Brains. Prof Brains was formely a senior member of the high IQ organisation Mensa. He left recently to persue his work on what he terms "Peak IQ".
His main theory revolves around the idea that as mankind achieves more and our lives become more complex, we have less intellectual spare capacity for improvement. More and more of our brain power is consumed with energy sapping problems such as how to watch all your favourite TV programmes, stop the kids from biting each other and fit in a trip to KFC in one evening.
Eventually, we reach a critical point (Peak IQ) where the average person is literally unable to cope with anything else.
Rather than reach a plateau, life actually becomes even more complex because people are unable to deal with the problems they create for themselves. Prof Brains claims that this will actually cause IQ to go down. "This process is already underway and the Peak may hit by 2008" says the Professor.

Worringly, there is historical evidence to support the Professors claims. In the 1950s there was an brain expert called KM Hugebert who originally noticed this trend in the USA. He observed that whilst the average American was appearing to become more intelligent and sophisticated, people acheived more and more, then started to fumble and finished their lives actually more stupid then when they started.
He analysed the apparent increase in IQ thanks to better schooling in the early 50s and projected this phenomenon across the whole American population. His results were quite shocking. Hugebert discovered that the peak of American IQ would hit around 1969-1970.
His colleagues laughed themselves silly at this suggestion and Hugeberts claims were largely forgotten until the 70s.
After the moon landing in July 1969, it soon became apparent that America started achieving less and less from the early seventies onwards. Peak IQ had apparently hit with some force.
Today, IQs are lower than ever, although Prof Brains claims that even this is artifical, "the ability to count and produce reliable statistics is failing - the true figures could be much worse".
Elsewhere in the world the same apparent peak in IQ is hitting Britain and Norway and has already hit Russia in the early 90s.
The education industry is, naturally fighting back. They claim that education and schooling is better than ever. We just need to try harder, they claim.
Prof Brains refutes this, according to his theory, the more they educatate people, the quicker that individuals will reach overload. "At that point it really wouldn't matter how much schooling you throw at people, they just get more stupid." he says.
He also states that trying to reduce IQ depletion by recycling exams and reducing the prize money on quiz shows is pointless. "There's just so many trivial questions being asked out there, even cancelling Millionaire would only offset the peak by a few months.".
The Professor backs up his assertions with a bewildering array of evidence. From ever more nonsensical discussions on internet forums, people buying SUVs in millions, to elected officials who could be more effective if they made decisions by tossing coins - the extent and depth of the proof is shocking.

With developing countries like China and India educating their children like there is no tomorrow the problem could yet be acutely worse.

[Joe Blue]

Obviously this is just another one of those doom and gloom theories like Y2K; while there may be a colonel of truth in it the fears are misoverestimated. Clearly we will need to begin to conserve Intelligence, cooperating to use less of it now so we will have some for a reigny day. And our President is leading by example; there are even rumors he is 'brain-pooling' - sharing his intelligence with Karl Rove. Just because it looks like we are slipping down the left slope of the IQ Bell Curve without a clacker doesn't mean the situation is hopeless. Scientists recently discovered a Border Collie that understood 200 words and could learn new words when they refered to an object he could fetch. Surely if we put our minds to it we can invent a cannine-human brain hybrid that will gets us through the transition to 'sustainable intelligence' even if the road is bumby, e.g. the occasional need to hump a leg mid-thought or involuntarily lifting one's own leg when a good idea strikes. Furthermore market forces will soon make it affordable to find, extract and transport all the Common Sense that is believed to be available in large undiscovered reserves in Western Canada. Obviously this can be refined into Intelligence, albeit at a high cost. Nonetheless when I look at the future I see Bliss.

[notacornucopian]

Well this would explain a lot - late fees at the local library have shot up by an astounding 40% over the last two months. I fear we will be seeing burnt out bookmobiles at the roadside ( attacked by religious zealots who hate our capacity to reason ) before anyone does anything about this.

[Aaron]

Recent developments in so called exotic "room temperature intelligence" promise a renaissance of enlightenment around the globe.

Although unable to reproduce their results, researchers feel confident that breakthroughs are around the corner, and the promise of limitless, free brainpower is the hope for our future.

Critics charge that these claims are premature, and point to rapidly diminishing mental resources around the globe. "Every rerun of Mamma's Family brings us one step closer to the brink. I just watched the national news, and not only was it really stupid, but we are all a little dumber for having heard it."

How ironic, if RTI eventually proves feasible, that we may well be too stupid by that time, to understand it.

[EnviroEngr]

Actually, the brain drain may well have started with the uprising of agriculture and civilization a long time ago.

Outside of what Howard Zinn may have added to the Industrial-Military-Education complex observation made by a famous person years ago, dumbing down may well be over 10,000 years old.

If it weren't for the devastation going on because of it, I'd be laughing my arse off at this topic. Come to think of it, I'm laughing anyway... But in a serious way.

Two things: Multiple Intelligences; and, Left Brainedness. With multiple intelligences, all capacities have their day in the sun. With left brainedness, we have what many critics have called the most destructive imbalance in the history of sapiens-sapiens. White coat, Jekyl & Hyde megalomanic puerility. It's a corpus callosum thing to some extent.

[PhilBiker]

You make light of this phenomenon in this post, aligning it with Peak Oil humorously, but there is a real problem here. I have a book waiting on my bookshelf titled [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052138673X/qid=1087320933/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4612751-1452040?v=glance&s=books]The Collapse of Complex Societies
by Joseph Tainter[/url]. It may be that we are reaching the point of "diminishing returns" in our society (also the point of no return). I haven't read the book yet, I'm a slow reader and find James Howard Kunstler very entertaining.

[Guest]

You guys are crazy ! I just read about Zero Point Intelligence ( or ZPI ) and we have nothing to worry about - limitless brainpower from the vacuum !

[EnviroEngr]

By the way, all of this has an esoteric side to it that can be controlled, modified and accelerated through intention which, in turn, can be cultivated and mastered through various yogas and martial arts practices.

I can sketch this out if there is interest.

[Pops]

What the big worry? No need to hide in TV room.

When population stabalizes there will be enough to go around.

[EnviroEngr]

You make light of this phenomenon in this post, aligning it with Peak Oil humorously, but there is a real problem here. I have a book waiting on my bookshelf titled [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052138673X/qid=1087320933/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4612751-1452040?v=glance&s=books]The Collapse of Complex Societies
by Joseph Tainter[/url]. It may be that we are reaching the point of "diminishing returns" in our society (also the point of no return). I haven't read the book yet, I'm a slow reader and find James Howard Kunstler very entertaining.

I should qualify the note of my humor by saying that if our fate depends on our "intelligence", our odds are not at all improved. Where I live, many are in a trance-state of some kind with little awareness, let alone intelligence. I, of all people, take levels of Intelligence Capacity use very seriously; but on the social scale, not all the effort in this solar system could turn around a whole population of compromised critters. Apparatus is in place to maintain docility; too many critically thinking, mentally active people would severely threaten status quo and control. The Elite would not approve.

Your point is well taken.

[Licho]

Lol nice one

Anyway, there is some little bit of truth, humanity is probably slowly degenerating. This is caused by fact that less educated/intelligent people tend to have more childrens.

[EnviroEngr]

... Furthermore, I find OilBurner's contribution quite fascinating indeed. I have done very detailed and significant studies of Human Intelligence Systems, Artificial Intelligence Systems and Swarm Semiotics. I can just imagine the implications. One step further up involves Kirlian Photography.

[OilBurner]

Blimey, I didn't realise I'd actually written a small case study in Anthropology!!

I guess that's the key thing about parody, one way or another it needs to have a basis in the work of another art or subject to make sense.

It does raise some interesting points though, I agree. In the context of increased complexity causing diminishing societal returns, isn't Peak Oil actually a symptom rather than a problem in its self? After all, if there was no civilisation, there would be no Peak Oil to worry about!!

There was me trying to lighten things up and I happen to have stumbled upon a very serious and disturbing issue that questions the very possibility of solving the Peak Oil problem. Great!!

I guess the most important thing we can all do is keep smiling eh? Don't need oil for that!!

:D

[Jakob]

Intelligence is about 70 to 80 percent the product of genes. An interesting fact; intelligence correlates with head size (0.40). (Pretty obvious if you ask me)


Our intelligence has decreased since civilization started. It meant that idiots could survive, but not only that they reproduced more than the intelligent. So we are pretty dumb now a days, on average.


Education has almost nothing to do with it!


This is reality.. just se what the scientist say, no not the politically correct who produces politically correct material to popular magazines. But the real psychometrics, people like Arthur Jensen. Just like the oil peak it’s about measurers and pretenders.

[OilBurner]

Intelligence is about 70 to 80 percent the product of genes. An interesting fact; intelligence correlates with head size (0.40). (Pretty obvious if you ask me)

Education has almost nothing to do with it!

Jakob, would you like to back up what you're saying with some quality evidence? For instance, to counter what you're claiming about a link between head size and IQ take a look at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

or

http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/intellig.htm

Francis Galton (1884) measured head size, reaction time etc., but found no correlations

Can intelligence be taught?

There is considerable debate over the hereditary component in intelligence, and the picture is getting more complicated all the time, but at least one school believes that intelligence can largely be identified with "problem-solving skills" or even forms of pattern recognition and that as such it can be taught.

An actual "fact" is that a useful measure of inteligence is the Stanford-Binet, not head size. See http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

[EnviroEngr]

I'm going to go into a different tangent here shortly for the benefit of the many of you who have had or may have openings that you may or may not be aware of.

There are many layers of human function in the phenomenal world and in the positivist 'white lab coat' age we live in, much of what is ultimately more important is actually banished to the realm of dogma and religion. In terms of stabilizing these energies and their concomitant experiences, nothing could be worse than to Jekyl and Hyde the human being like this. Etheric energies are causative, powerful and obey very subtle direction -- they are the genie in the bottle; the extent to which the 'director' is unconscious and careless determines the level of damage and chaos that will ensue. The opposite is true when awareness and lucidity prevail.

I am hoping to share some of my experiences and those of the many people I've worked with in this regard. There is a consistent theme that runs among sincere spiritual practitioners that needs a good look in the hard light of day. I would daresay that at few other times in our long history has the balancing of the routine with the extraordinary been so important.

I'll be back with more later.

[EnviroEngr]

Before I get started with this, there is some background information to take into consideration first:

Charles T. Tart: Transpersonal Psychology

&

"The Truth Campaign was set up in 1996 by Ivan Fraser as a way to make available information which mainstream sources tend to suppress."

I've had occasion to have written correspondence with both of these gentlemen and the verdict I've come to is favorable. This is a field filled with so many charlatans that no body dares explore it. Conversely, it is especially important now to know the truths that fall into this arena.

[EnviroEngr]

Got a subscription to Archaeology coming. My day in the sun fast approaches!

[EnviroEngr]

Although this is an anthropological issue, a curious one at that, discussion of the finer details of (human recognition and thoughts of) spirit needs to go to http://peakoil.com/fortopic311.html or Psychology-Philosophy-Abstract Thinking

Stay tuned for:
Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Related Martial Arts
Esoteric Tantrism
Mysticism

The intention isn't to get into far-flung speculation, but rather to provide tools that can assist in the process of getting out of 'stuck points' in ones journey. For the most part, this will be an exercise to tune the Central Nervous System, balance endocrine and autonomic nervous system function, master neuromuscular intelligence and thereby bring power to thoughts by stabilizing the forces of both active feeling and internal emoting. In short, to be in charge of one's own destiny.

[EnviroEngr]

Got a subscription to Archaeology coming. My day in the sun fast approaches!

First Issue came two days ago. Let see... What do have in here?

Cover says "Will the Olympics Save Athens?"
"Decoding Malta's Megaliths"
"Secrets of Timbuktu"
"Anasazi in the Backyard"

Inside TOC: Greece, Iraq Looting, NJ Sandy Hook, Libraries of Timbuktu, Megaliths and "Flashpoint Ayodhya"

Looks pretty good so far. Will I learn anything new? If I do, will it be good information, mis-information, dis-information or a downright pack of lies???

www.archaeology.org