During Thursday I heard part of an interview about the changing standard of intelligence. The well argued thesis is that there are a number of factors which create individual and collective intelligence of which the inherited physiological is but one. For example the home of two parents who are actively mentally will stimulate their only child more than where the parents are not bright or when the child is one of several. This will seem common sense than anything revelatory or profound. The interviewer posed the question is intelligence the same or similar to common sense, alas no said the wise man being questioned. Can it be said that an intelligent man has common sense when he is involved with his six, seventh or eighth divorce or goes to prison for a criminal act with harms others? The wide man suggested, but I may not have remembered the conversation accurately that common sense is more about the ability to lead a balance life within a social context. I question the "within social context" if this in what was meant. I live an unbalanced life with the norms of my society but achieve a balance for me through creativity out of degrees of chaos and abnormality. This is sensible, common sense and intelligent of me
On one hand the depressing fact was mentioned that the ability to reason and conceptualise at speed peaks in youth and around the mid fifties tends to go into steady decline, but this can be countered to an extent my maintaining mental discipline and the programme gave the example of one man who complained that his ability to think eight moves ahead at chess had deteriorated to about four but after his death his brain was found to be speckled with Alzheimer's which indicated that although the disease has an inevitability, its worse features can be delayed, thus confirming the capacity of the mind to have some control over matter. This means that I could lose a lot of my fat, prolong my life if I have the will. I have the will but the will to work and accomplish work projects is greater at present that that to lose weight and between the evening meal and when I go to bed I often work for several hours but am also tired so I need energy pick ups and working at a desk means additional food without physical exercise.
The reason for the interview was research which explained that the overall measured intelligence of the population was continuing to rise. If one takes the mean of 100, the argument is not that some races are intrinsically lower or higher than others, but the national rating reflects the extent they have moved from an agricultural economy to an industrial and then from an industrial to an intellectual. Because our economy is now dependent on the manufacturing skills and industrial hard work of others we have to use our ingenuity and non manual skills to maintain and develop our economy and achieve improvements in the standards of living. There was a fascinating example of this shown on a TV news magazine programme recently when it was revealed that the scampi which we catch of the Scottish coast makes a 17000 return sea journey before it is available to us in the supermarket. This is because we prefer to have the scampi had shelled and sorted and this can be done significantly cheaper across the globe, creating hundred of jobs in a poor economy, than the machine process of the fish in the UK, What happens is that the fish is harvested, packed for the long sea voyage from Grangemouth and then returned for processing for supermarket distribution. Understandable someone asked about the energy efficiency of this and it was established that the effect of the sea voyages was significantly less that the machine use to peel and grade. Thus the process had become environmental friendly as well as benefiting employment and consumer preferences.
There was also a fascinating programme over the career of Dave Cameron and his un-revealed backers to do to the Conservative Party was Tony Blair did for the Labour Party. The programme used a group of spin doctors and PR men with Party loyalties to give their perception on the his cycle of fortune misfortune and potential triumph with gaining the Witney Oxford seat after the incumbent defected to Labour, and then winning the leadership battle. There was the initial success as he took on Blair at his own game with the great line about you are the man who had a future and I am now that man. And then after Brown's accession and a series of disaster's enabled him to communicate gravitas and being in command things went badly with the media reaction to his going to Africa during the biblical flooding, and the alienation of sections of his party with the decision to make grammar schools his Clause 4, there was a real threat to his leadership being mounted as the polls suggested that if Brown called an immediate General Election the Conservatives would not make the impact to ensure a subsequent victory, let alone achieve the miracle for an immediate return to office after three terms of opposition.
Then Brown seemed to panic with the trip to Iraq to signal the bringing the troops home while the war in Afghanistan intensified and Cameron had the master stroke of the conference with his own speech and the announcement on inheritance tax. While the political commentators loved it all and the sections of the press sense Labour was in trouble of their own making Brown shot into his own goal mouth in what could prove the fatal moment of a match which is now in extra time before what could become a penalty shoot out
I have become boring over the disaster of contemplating a snap General Election in the context of a recent mandate from the people, who knew Blair would not complete the term in office, and with a healthy majority in the House of Commons, amazing unity within the Parliamentary Party, based on opinion polling, unless it was to present an overall shift in policy which required a fresh mandate or a singular issue such as the new European Treaty that is not a new Constitution. The decision to lead the troops up the hill and then down again may have been recoverable in terms of integrity and maintaining the image of a man of strength but then there was the misfortune upon misfortune of the mistakes of others with Northern Rock, the employment in security of illegal immigrants, the loss of computer disks, then the matter of political party donations and now it is open season on anything going wrong by anyone blamed on his government and his Premiership.
However all is not lost as Michael Portillo suggested the government has time to recover, the Conservatives time to make mistakes or for new scandals to come to light, and for the old guard to topple Dave if he does not win the next General Election. Sadly none of this has anything to do with principles or substantive policy differences. One problem with a population that is increasing its collective intelligence is that while it may be influenced by advertising when it comes to soap powders and soap TV serials and shows such a s the X factor, it has become more and more sceptical and cynical about professional politicians and what they promise and say when things turn out differently as they always do. After the disclosures about fixing TV phone in competitions, could it be that X Factor voting will be proved top have been a scam, and if so what about the Big Brother House and all the others
On one hand the depressing fact was mentioned that the ability to reason and conceptualise at speed peaks in youth and around the mid fifties tends to go into steady decline, but this can be countered to an extent my maintaining mental discipline and the programme gave the example of one man who complained that his ability to think eight moves ahead at chess had deteriorated to about four but after his death his brain was found to be speckled with Alzheimer's which indicated that although the disease has an inevitability, its worse features can be delayed, thus confirming the capacity of the mind to have some control over matter. This means that I could lose a lot of my fat, prolong my life if I have the will. I have the will but the will to work and accomplish work projects is greater at present that that to lose weight and between the evening meal and when I go to bed I often work for several hours but am also tired so I need energy pick ups and working at a desk means additional food without physical exercise.
The reason for the interview was research which explained that the overall measured intelligence of the population was continuing to rise. If one takes the mean of 100, the argument is not that some races are intrinsically lower or higher than others, but the national rating reflects the extent they have moved from an agricultural economy to an industrial and then from an industrial to an intellectual. Because our economy is now dependent on the manufacturing skills and industrial hard work of others we have to use our ingenuity and non manual skills to maintain and develop our economy and achieve improvements in the standards of living. There was a fascinating example of this shown on a TV news magazine programme recently when it was revealed that the scampi which we catch of the Scottish coast makes a 17000 return sea journey before it is available to us in the supermarket. This is because we prefer to have the scampi had shelled and sorted and this can be done significantly cheaper across the globe, creating hundred of jobs in a poor economy, than the machine process of the fish in the UK, What happens is that the fish is harvested, packed for the long sea voyage from Grangemouth and then returned for processing for supermarket distribution. Understandable someone asked about the energy efficiency of this and it was established that the effect of the sea voyages was significantly less that the machine use to peel and grade. Thus the process had become environmental friendly as well as benefiting employment and consumer preferences.
There was also a fascinating programme over the career of Dave Cameron and his un-revealed backers to do to the Conservative Party was Tony Blair did for the Labour Party. The programme used a group of spin doctors and PR men with Party loyalties to give their perception on the his cycle of fortune misfortune and potential triumph with gaining the Witney Oxford seat after the incumbent defected to Labour, and then winning the leadership battle. There was the initial success as he took on Blair at his own game with the great line about you are the man who had a future and I am now that man. And then after Brown's accession and a series of disaster's enabled him to communicate gravitas and being in command things went badly with the media reaction to his going to Africa during the biblical flooding, and the alienation of sections of his party with the decision to make grammar schools his Clause 4, there was a real threat to his leadership being mounted as the polls suggested that if Brown called an immediate General Election the Conservatives would not make the impact to ensure a subsequent victory, let alone achieve the miracle for an immediate return to office after three terms of opposition.
Then Brown seemed to panic with the trip to Iraq to signal the bringing the troops home while the war in Afghanistan intensified and Cameron had the master stroke of the conference with his own speech and the announcement on inheritance tax. While the political commentators loved it all and the sections of the press sense Labour was in trouble of their own making Brown shot into his own goal mouth in what could prove the fatal moment of a match which is now in extra time before what could become a penalty shoot out
I have become boring over the disaster of contemplating a snap General Election in the context of a recent mandate from the people, who knew Blair would not complete the term in office, and with a healthy majority in the House of Commons, amazing unity within the Parliamentary Party, based on opinion polling, unless it was to present an overall shift in policy which required a fresh mandate or a singular issue such as the new European Treaty that is not a new Constitution. The decision to lead the troops up the hill and then down again may have been recoverable in terms of integrity and maintaining the image of a man of strength but then there was the misfortune upon misfortune of the mistakes of others with Northern Rock, the employment in security of illegal immigrants, the loss of computer disks, then the matter of political party donations and now it is open season on anything going wrong by anyone blamed on his government and his Premiership.
However all is not lost as Michael Portillo suggested the government has time to recover, the Conservatives time to make mistakes or for new scandals to come to light, and for the old guard to topple Dave if he does not win the next General Election. Sadly none of this has anything to do with principles or substantive policy differences. One problem with a population that is increasing its collective intelligence is that while it may be influenced by advertising when it comes to soap powders and soap TV serials and shows such a s the X factor, it has become more and more sceptical and cynical about professional politicians and what they promise and say when things turn out differently as they always do. After the disclosures about fixing TV phone in competitions, could it be that X Factor voting will be proved top have been a scam, and if so what about the Big Brother House and all the others
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