How would you rate your basic 6 abilities ?

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Str - 10 I'm not especially strong or weak.
Dex - 14 I am very dextrous, considering i need to handle pencils and other mediums on a daily basis
Con - 10 nothin special here either.
Wis - 13 I do enjoy debating once in a while, also need this as an artist.
Int - 12 I am quite intelligent really, i can easily memorize and retrieve stuff from memory usually.
Cha - 12 Although I'm not that handsome, my character often charms many people

 

Vote here. Well, Foradasthar, not "exactly" for double, but just somewhat higher. Why ? Because 10 and 11 and perhaps 12 are covering entire field of human's realistic power, thats why I said to increase it a little bit.

"Am I the only person who generally thinks that when things of this nature (physical and mental ability questions) appear on internet boards, many people grossly exaggerate/lie about their abilities? "

Its all about trusting one to another. And viewing your stats, now I question myself are you really what you said or you're just making fun of us.

 

Actually, when you think that 10 is the average what about all those people in undeveloped countries? Their INT and WIS scores would drag the average down to abysmal levels (since most places lack any real education) but their DEX and CON would be higher than our average (considering all the physical work they do [I excluded STR because it seems us European folk tend to be stronger than these guys]).

 

Wisdom and intelligence are not related to knowledge. Knowledge is related to wisdom and intelligence.

 

Knowledge is the tools, and intelligence the skill and hand using those tools. People in the undeveloped countries may have the hands and skills, but they lack the tools. And a human can only live without the tools for so long before he gets too old to ever properly learn how to use them.

Whatever means you use to measure one's intelligence, a certain level of knowledge is always required. Even in the most simple puzzle tests, knowledge of previous tests like it, or knowledge helping to improvise, plays a crucial role.

Whatever their ultimate potential, in practice people in the developing countries do indeed have a lower IQ than those in the industrialized ones.

Wisdom now, that's a tricky one.

 

Foradasthar, I agree with you. The reason people in undeveloped countries test lower in IQ is because IQ tests are written by industrialized nations. If we took an IQ test based on their culture and enviroment most of us would probably get a low score.

Ah, Wisdom. Could real wisdom be knowing that we don't don't know as much as we think we know?

 

There are 2 ways I've always defined wisdom after pondering about it with my PnP gaming pal.

- Wisdom is the ability to see the long-term consequences of all things.

- Intelligence is ability to accumulate knowledge. Wisdom is knowing how to use that knowledge to its fullest effect.

@ Nakia:
Exactly. Though my point was more that it's not just about the industrialized way of thinking. Even the most objective tests cannot measure the true intelligence of a person in a developing country vs. a person in an industrialized country, for the people in the developing countries simply do not have the necessary stimulus to develop their potential. Obviously they know more of their own cultures and customs than I ever could, but I say without egoism that I believe I as an industrial nation's child have been granted more stimulus to develop my intellectual potential than an average African tribesman has. I possess more intelligence being born where I am, than I would had I been born and raised there, no matter which universal method of measuring intelligence you use. And that's the problem in this.

 

Keep in mind that my stats are at 1st level and when i reach Epic 40th my stats would have quadrupled three fold!

... I wish

 

You do not posses more intelligence, Foradasthar, as if because you are an industrail nation's child, you posses more possibilities to use that intelligence, in much more possible fields. I have no regret on that. ^.^

Now...the question why were we, European people, including NAm, CAm and SAm, "more intelligent" to develop ourselves than African tribes...or why is the "yellow" race the more wise than anyone else...I would not know...I am guessing that it was "something" that we accedently discovered and thanks to intelligent individuals "this" side grew... Hmp....

"Could real wisdom be knowing that we don't don't know as much as we think we know?"

Hmm...Sokrat once said

"I know that I know nothing."

That is wise, and closely related to your comment...

I have been trying to indicate what wisdom would exactly be...

D&D has written

"Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, perception and intuition (...) Wisdom is more related to being in tune with and aware of one's surroundness." I would agree with that, although its very basically said. Wisdom would be an ability to realize things in a higher manner...in a form where you can "jump over" topics, seeing something that others can't, strike in center accurately, surprise and manipulate... ^_~

 

I do a fair amount of traveling and I only said poeple in undeveloped countries have on average a lower intelligence/wisdom than us western folk is simply their lack of forsight and inability to understand new concepts.

Sure, it is because we are familiar to new concepts that we can understand them more easily. That doesn't make us less intelligent just because its our culture. It is our culture that makes us more intelligent, it's a dog eat dog world and battles are often fought with intelligence rather than physical prowess.

To say we are not more intelligent on average is foolishness. Look at our technology, our healthcare and ways that make us 'non-third-world' countries. If that isn't a product of our higher intelligence then what purpouse DOES intelligence serve?

 

There could be luck.

 

Abomination, Intelligence is the ability to learn and reason and independent of knowledge. The increased technological state of 'Western' countries is the result of accumulated knowledge not superior intelligence. As someone already stated IQ tests underestimate the ability of people from other cultures due to differences in experiences and thinking patterns.

 

So inventors aren't intelligent people? They just got a look at everyone elses' notes?

We're simply more intelligent on average than 3rd-world countries. It's not PC to say but it doesn't mean it's not true. Sure, they can't do things we can because they haven't been exposed to it, but that's just a reason for their lower intelligence. D&D assumes people are born with limited statistics that hardly change, but we all know that if you want to become stronger, you work out, you want to become more intelligent, you attend higher education. We have higher education, 3rd world countries don't, therefore we on average are more intelligent.

 

Depends if you believe that anything you learn at 'higher education' is actually worth learning....e.g. is it better to learn Latin or to learn how to find edible roots in the wilderness.

.....but that is getting WAY off topic.

 

Learning how to find edible roots in the wilderness won't assist your intelligence since it is a simple lesson. Learning Latin teaches you another series of logic found in a language. Usually with learning Latin you learn bits of history, art and english. In learning Latin you increase your ability to learn.

 

"We're simply more intelligent on average than 3rd-world countries. "

I disagree. You say higher education improves your intelligence. I personally consider the term intelligence to be your inborn capability to learn, not how much you have learned. There are autistic savants who have memorized more facts then any genius could possibly hope to. Does that make an autistic savant who can't even feed him/her self a greater genius then anyone who has ever won a nobel prize?

Remember, intelligence is your capacity to learn, not what you have learned. Higher education may teach you to apply your intellect, but it does not add to your intellect. The only thing that I think could possibly contribute to an increased intelligence in industrialized nations would be the lack of malnourishment in pregnant women would help the baby develop its faculties better.

 

So in other words one can not measure their intelligence? If it is your 'capacity' to learn then we don't know what our intelligence is until we learn all that we can learn based on our intelligence.

One day at University I could say "Please excuse me. My brain is full."

 

While I don't exactly agree with Abomination, he's not completely wrong. All traits of a man can be improved through training. There's always the inherited abilities, and the learned ones.

An example of what I meant by the correct stimulus (I really hate that fancy word but I don't know a better one, don't even know if that's the correct form of the word in English) playing a role:

You have twins. Twin (a) is placed in a dull room with nothing to do in. He's fed twice a day but he never makes contact with another person, is never given any physical or mental stimulus to learn from. No objects, nothing different from the walls and his own hands to see, no new tastes, smells, nothing.
Twin (b) on the other hand is grown in a highly-advanced facility where he will be taught advanced mathematics, physics, culture and history. He will be taught survival skills in all forms of environment, and his physical abilities will be trained as high as possible.

Now you put these two in any manner of test. Which do you think will win?

Now do you see what I'm trying to say here? You can't measure someone's intelligence based off of genes only. A human brain and body needs things to work on, to learn from. The more different kind of stimulus a human has available to him, the more he will be able to draw out from his potential. But a human learning-courve starts taking a downward turn very early on in life.

So if Twin (a) of the example was suddenly put into the same facility as twin (b), when he was 15 years old, he'd still never come even close to learning what twin (b) already knew by then. Not because he was more stupid, but because his brain had already grown accustomed to the extremely low level of stimulus he'd had before, and simply would not possess the ability to learn as well anymore, as opposed to when he was still a mere baby child.

Now, while information does not directly increase one's intelligence, indirectly it does. For an intelligent person can use information to further his own intellectual abilities. Information or knowledge, afterall, is accumulation of years and years worth of intelligence used for learning. Just learning the information to memory will not increase your intelligence, but learning where it came from, how it was learned, and how you can use it to learn new things, does. All this is impossible without first possessing the information to begin with.

And I don't look upon the African tribal ways with any amount of contempt when I say that our culture with its schooling, hobbies and media etc offer more information with which to develop one's intelligence than theirs does. They simply don't have the same amount of means to build their intellectual capacity from birth, when it matters. Surely culture has to do with the tests, but that isn't all of it.

 

I don't want anyone to think that I'm being elitist here. I'm not saying all third world people are stupid or they can never be intelligent. I'm simply saying in our society we have the resources avaliable to increase our intelligence whereas they lack those resources. Since we have the resources to make ourselves more intelligent and they do not is it fair to say that we will on average be more intelligent than they are.

 

Ah, how I enjoy watching this...

I'll turn around for a small thing, though.

"Remember, intelligence is your capacity to learn, not what you have learned."

Intelligence is not capacity, it is ability to learn, speaking of that.

About using what you have learned, that would be wisdom & intelligence in one.

Capacity would be a simple brain memory, though this topic is so deep and still not discussed properly that is rather absurd to talk about "finalized" thoughts, yes.

**Pouts eager to learn**

Keyword ( Fount at Foradasthar ) : Built. Thats what it is all about. Your Intelligence is a constant parameter. Anything else you do is a boost or deboost of that constant.