Methods for Increasing your Intelligence

[Brenya]

As you may know, the methods for increasing you intelligence have over the past couple decades turned into a business. People like Paul Scheele and businesses like Volition Thought House have created products that claim to help you achieve genius through the power of your mind.

The problem is that some, and if not most products, are not as effective as the producer claims. Some people go so far as to claim the technique called 'photoreading,' as introduced by Paul Scheele, is a complete scam (cite (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0925480533/sr=8-1/qid=1185156238/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1/002-0667849-3606443?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=byExactRating%5F1&qid=1185156238&sr=8-1#customerReviews)). People also are skeptical of a technique called 'image streaming,' whose discoverers claim that it will increase your IQ as well as your ability to speak and write (See: "The Einstein Factor (http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Factor-Proven-Increasing-Intelligence/dp/0517223201/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0667849-3606443?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185156333&sr=8-1)" and The Mind Accelerator (http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Accelerator-Your-Lexicon-Success/dp/0973197102/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0667849-3606443?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185156503&sr=1-1)). Furthermore, even programming your subconscious with positive affirmations is also criticized as being ineffective (See: Floppybait's comment(s) (http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1138716/20802060/)).

So how effective do you guys think these strategies (and any other one's I haven't mentioned) are? As author and astronomer Carl Sagan says, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

[bigboab]

You can increase your knowledge, you can't increase your intelligence. Knowledge is what you have retained through experience or education.
Intelligence is the ability to deal with the unknown and as such can not be 'inhaled', like education.:)

[Biggles]

You can increase your knowledge, you can't increase your intelligence. Knowledge is what you have retained through experience or education.
Intelligence is the ability to deal with the unknown and as such can not be 'inhaled', like education.:)

I believe the brain can be exercised though. Things like Sudoko and Crosswords keep the brain active and one's intelligence supple and slinky (oooeeerr missus).

[bigboab]

You can increase your knowledge, you can't increase your intelligence. Knowledge is what you have retained through experience or education.
Intelligence is the ability to deal with the unknown and as such can not be 'inhaled', like education.:)

I believe the brain can be exercised though. Things like Sudoko and Crosswords keep the brain active and one's intelligence supple and slinky (oooeeerr missus).


Agreed but the intelligence must be there in the first instance.
At our age Les it is better just to take it for a walk.:rolleyes:

[Biggles]

I believe the brain can be exercised though. Things like Sudoko and Crosswords keep the brain active and one's intelligence supple and slinky (oooeeerr missus).


Agreed but the intelligence must be there in the first instance.
At our age Les it is better just to take it for a walk.:rolleyes:

Fair point - and I agree, a gentle stroll is much more agreeable than jogging.

[Brenya]

...you can't increase your intelligence.

Well.. I disagree. I am well aware of the constant debate of Nature vs. Nurture and believe it is a combination of both. No, it has been proven to be a combination of both. What you are referring to is our genetics, which cannot be changed (presently, at least); but there are proven techniques to increase your intelligence (i.e. your ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn).
The "Mozart Effect" is one.
Nutrition is another. Protein and caffeine particularly help.
And of course logical games and puzzles, including chess, exercise your ability to solve problems and think abstractly.

I wanted this discussion to particularly lean towards the subjects I first mentioned in my opening post. Just saying "you can't increase your intelligence" with conviction doesn't really further the discussion. I've heard enough archaic, automated responses from my (grand)parents.

[dcx]

Random newbie chiming in (hi!) - I think it's definitely possible to increase one's intelligence, subject to some genetic limits. I think I remember a study examining children brought up in the wild finding that they were missing some kinds of reasoning, or something similar. So some intelligences must be trained into us as we go!

I looked into this a while back, more on the chemical end of the spectrum. Scary stuff, really. Some of it likely does work, but the risks and side effects put me off a bit.

[100%]

There is a big difference between appearing to be intelligent and being intelligent.
It is very easy to drown out your intelligence, simply for the sake of not wanting to be disturbed.
The effects of which are not intelligent.

[bigboab]

...you can't increase your intelligence.

Well.. I disagree. I am well aware of the constant debate of Nature vs. Nurture and believe it is a combination of both. No, it has been proven to be a combination of both. What you are referring to is our genetics, which cannot be changed (presently, at least); but there are proven techniques to increase your intelligence (i.e. your ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn).
The "Mozart Effect" is one.
Nutrition is another. Protein and caffeine particularly help.
And of course logical games and puzzles, including chess, exercise your ability to solve problems and think abstractly.

I wanted this discussion to particularly lean towards the subjects I first mentioned in my opening post. Just saying "you can't increase your intelligence" with conviction doesn't really further the discussion. I've heard enough archaic, automated responses from my (grand)parents.

Don't patronize me, you young whippersnapper.:P

[QUOTE]Because IQ is hereditary and it is not, therefore, possible to increase your actual IQ; it is, nevertheless, possible to improve your performance on IQ tests by practising the many different types of question, and learning to recognise the recurring themes. It is my belief that by practise on different types of IQ tests, and by getting your mind attuned to the different types of questions you may encounter, it is possible to improve by a few vital percentage points. It is these few percentage points that may prove crucial in increasing your employment prospects and mean the difference between success or failure when attending one of the many job interviews which include the taking of an IQ test. [/QUOTE

http://www.knowl.demon.co.uk/page9.html

[Brenya]

I highly doubt that site of yours is the best place to get answers for your scientific questions. If you want one man's opinion, though, it is great! I definitely likes to voice it with "I think"s and "I believe"s.
I understand that the majority of your intelligence arises from your genes and proliferates as you grow, depending on nutrition.

There are ways, however, to improve your intelligence (creativity, speech, writing, conceptualization) right now as a grown adult. They aren't easy.
Take a look at this:
Awareness and Attention-Span: A Breathtaking Discovery (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran3.htm)
Image-Streaming (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran4.htm)

[bigboab]

I highly doubt that site of yours is the best place to get answers for your scientific questions. If you want one man's opinion, though, it is great! I definitely likes to voice it with "I think"s and "I believe"s.
I understand that the majority of your intelligence arises from your genes and proliferates as you grow, depending on nutrition.

There are ways, however, to improve your intelligence (creativity, speech, writing, conceptualization) right now as a grown adult. They aren't easy.
Take a look at this:
Awareness and Attention-Span: A Breathtaking Discovery (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran3.htm)
Image-Streaming (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran4.htm)

I still disagree. Everything I have found on the web supporting 'your' theory, and it is a theory, not fact, is trying to sell a book or a course on the subject.

[threlyn]

I highly doubt that site of yours is the best place to get answers for your scientific questions. If you want one man's opinion, though, it is great! I definitely likes to voice it with "I think"s and "I believe"s.
I understand that the majority of your intelligence arises from your genes and proliferates as you grow, depending on nutrition.

There are ways, however, to improve your intelligence (creativity, speech, writing, conceptualization) right now as a grown adult. They aren't easy.
Take a look at this:
Awareness and Attention-Span: A Breathtaking Discovery (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran3.htm)
Image-Streaming (http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran4.htm)

Intelligence has nothing to do with creativity nor with a large portion of speech and writing. I know a bunch of people who are brilliant in diverse subjects, but have difficulty speaking clearly or getting their point across. The ability to speak clearly is largely a function of one's ability to understand how the other person is thinking and how best to convey one's ideas through a channel that best links up with said method of thinking. The ability to do such a thing, I think, is rather independent of knowledge.

I won't even start arguing about creativity, because I think we can all agree that a certified moron can still be an amazing artist or musician. Knowledge and creativity are completely independent.

About the nature vs. nurture argument. Nurture does impact parts of who we are, but we may not be tackling the nurture aspect correctly just by doing exercises and puzzles all day. Take a kid in the ghetto who hails from a long lineage of parents and grandparents who have lived in the poorest places, who just happens to be genius. He/she certainly doesn't have the genes of intelligence, otherwise the parents would have made it out of the ghetto already. Nurture as we see it certainly isn't going to help us, since the person is surrounded by terrible influences and likely belongs to an even worse school system. How then, does the exceptional intelligence manifest itself? If we can rule out classic nurture and any "genius" genes, the intelligence must come about in a nurture that doesn't rely on stupid exercises.

[MaxOverlord]

Read a book.

[Snee]

You can increase your knowledge, you can't increase your intelligence. Knowledge is what you have retained through experience or education.
Intelligence is the ability to deal with the unknown and as such can not be 'inhaled', like education.:)

Depends on your definition on what intelligence is.

If it only includes IQ, then maybe you are right, although IQ tests I've taken have been easier to do because of what I'd learned, IMO.

I'm fairly certain that pure pattern-recognition, which I believe is the foundation of what people in the west refer to as IQ, is something you can get better at through practice. There are also documented instances where people, I think it was native americans, scored very low on IQ tests and where the consensus was that there actually wasn't anything wrong with their intelligence, but rather that their culture brought a certain way of thought with it that didn't translate well into conventional IQ measurements. Hence, what we measure as intelligence is at least partly a learned behaviour.

I also know from experience that suppressing emotions makes IQ-tests much easier to do.

It's also a known fact that many people with a high IQ tend to be very bad at handling social contacts. Nowadays, many people consider EQ important for measuring a person's intellectual abilities as well, something many people with high IQs might not do so well at. And it's definitely possible to learn how to read, and work together with, people better.

Having said all that, people with the same backgrounds score differently at both IQ and EQ tests, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that intelligence, however you define it, is partly dependent on genetics.

[Enigma271828]

Take a kid in the ghetto who hails from a long lineage of parents and grandparents who have lived in the poorest places, who just happens to be genius. He/she certainly doesn't have the genes of intelligence, otherwise the parents would have made it out of the ghetto already. Nurture as we see it certainly isn't going to help us, since the person is surrounded by terrible influences and likely belongs to an even worse school system. How then, does the exceptional intelligence manifest itself? If we can rule out classic nurture and any "genius" genes, the intelligence must come about in a nurture that doesn't rely on stupid exercises.

Wrong.
The existence of genius genes is far more probable than the existence of "a nurture that doesn't rely on stupid exercises"; because random mutations in genes has been proven to exist (see: evolutionary biology), while "a nurture that doesn't rely on stupid exercises [and proper nutrition]" has not been proven to exist.
Until you can directly define what "a nurture that doesn't rely on stupid exercises [and proper nutrition]" is, I cannot further rebuke your conclusion.