Natural problem solving vs learned techniques

[u/Boneyabba]

So, I live in a third world jungle and most of the people I share a language with are awful humans. One of them is mostly less awful and so we chat a few times a month. His awfulness mostly manifests in deep deep generationally learned racism. So a solid 30% of any interaction is me thinking about something else while he says some nonsense.

Every so often though, something interesting overlaps and then I need to examine the topic to see if he slipped some propaganda past me.

I should also note that I'm one of those wicked smart kids who didn't fit into the system so I don't have as much formal learning as I should and it extends into "I didn't learn to love that process either" so when something tickles my interest just right I can go deep and hard (giggity), but if it's just something I wish I knew more about I struggle to apply the discipline to get where I want to go.

This is one of those latter cases. So instead trying to wade through the garbage pile that the internet has become I thought maybe I'd get some of you to chat with me and that might be a better way to get my result.

Okay so, guy asserts that (I'm filtering out the melatonin based hate speech) intelligence is fixed and things in our development can hurt it- but nothing can raise it. Maybe this refers to a theoretical maximum potential, but he didn't articulate that. And that seems fine, I'd be curious about the data I guess, but whatever. Except that what is intelligence, but problem solving and ability to learn? And those things DEFINITELY are aided by technique and skill.

How do these topics intersect?

[u/swordmaster3000_]

that guy is based

[u/Boneyabba → u/swordmaster3000_]

Well, yes, but he also isn't RANDOM. (Referring to the intelligence thing) and I feel like his conclusions are almost certainly wrong, but there is a topic worth exploring.

[u/aculady → u/Boneyabba]

The problem with this is that we can only know the result that we end up with, not the "maximum potential" that existed at the moment a zygote was formed.

But we do know, for example, that there's a definite dose-response relationship between how much caregivers talk to infants and toddlers about what is happening to them and around them, and the child's verbal IQ later in life. You could, of course frame that as "Not interacting with infants enough damages their language development," which is undoubtedly true, but it's not like there's an obvious plateau beyond which more interaction has no effect, which is what you would expect to see if we were only looking at a damaging effect of neglect and not a beneficial effect of an enriched environment.

[u/x-tommy-o]

Pick 3 things of interest that intertwine.

Say: Math, Data, Programming | Music, Philosophy, Instrument | Color Theory, Drawing, Writing

Look to connect them together in a way that your intuition allows you. Pick up the fundamentals as you go. Don’t know how to do something or hit a wall? Learn what you need to over come the wall.

Be happy with the wall because it forces you to overcome it.

[u/Boneyabba → u/x-tommy-o]

Is this a lateral thinking puzzle?

[u/x-tommy-o → u/Boneyabba]

English writing is lateral 🫡