Patterns, intelligence and the present

In response to a post over at Cafe Philos, I commented that:

“I think one of the crucial parts of intelligence is the ability to make links and detect patterns – which is vital for experiencing the present as well as predicting the future .”

Paul responded:

“I’m very curious about what you said there. Would you elaborate please on how making links and detecting patterns is vital for experiencing the present?”

And as often happens when someone asks you to elaborate on something you’ve said, I was to begin with stumped to know how to explain what I meant, and took a while to work my way through to it. But here, Paul, is my answer:

Perhaps the best place to start is a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I don’t know if you’ve read it, but I found it a fascinating book. One of the key points it makes is that the way we perceive the world around us, normally, is not by seeing shapes and lines, but immediately interpreting those shapes and lines as things. Which isn’t very useful if you want to learn to draw… so the book encourages us to learn to look without interpreting. A fascinating and challenging exercise, that shows how fundamental making connections and interpretations is to our perception of reality. (A similar effect comes from trying to do a mindfulness meditation, where we just notice sensations without attaching any interpretation to them.)

If you want to draw accurately, you need to focus on the detail of what you are actually seeing, not what you think you see. But mostly we don’t have the time or the need to focus on detail – we need to get a quick gist of the forest. I look out of the window now and I see a hillside covered in houses. If I focus, I can see the red and black and green colours that make up those houses – the shadows and perspectives that make me see them as on a hill. And would help me draw them. But mostly all I need is to know, ah, there are houses on that hill.

So as we watch people and things I feel we unconsciously look out for patterns – something as simple as the cadence of someone’s speech, or as complex as a personality trait. Visual patterns – verbal patterns. We can’t process the details individually, so we have to find some way ofrelating to them as a pattern. Like a computer’s zip utility – that looks for repeated sequences of characters that can be captured more simply. Or, as a former music teacher used to say, “don’t listen to the notes, listen to the music”.

But that quote also brings out the fact that what we look for is more than a mechanical pattern. The patterns we find often have a deeper meaning than the details. Emergent properties. We not only look for patterns in the present, but with things in our memories… so I see a poorly built house and remember what it is like to be in a house like that, and a little bit of that remembered discomfort sneaks into my perception.

Let me give you an example to show how this shapes your present. I imagine there’s a cup of coffee (half empty, half full or steaming hot and ready to drink;)) somewhere near your computer right now. Your perception of that cup of coffee is shaped by your associations with coffee, your memory of how long ago you made it, where you got the cup from, the colour and texture…. all these things brought together shape your experience of that cup. If you forgot those associations, or were someone else who had different associations, it would be a different experience.

It’s like every single thing that we experience is the centre of a kaleidoscope of associations. It’s true of simple objects – but even more so of people. People are even more resonant with links and memories – memories we have of those people themselves and of others that were similar in some way.

By contrast, imagine being an amnesiac, or someone who couldn’t make associations. You’d be experiencing the world in black and white, compared to our normal technicolour! Indeed some descriptions of autism I have come across suggest it is this inability to reduce detail to comprehensible pattern that makes the world so difficult for an autistic person to process.

For me that complexity is an intrinsic part of our perception of the present, though so instinctive that we normally don’t notice.

To go beyond that, then, to link it to intelligence… Firstly, think of a standard IQ test – so many of the tests, whether verbal, numerical or patterns, are about detecting patterns and then applying that pattern. To decide what is the next number or pattern in the sequence, or the word that is to x as y is to z, we must find the pattern that we have been given. Once we have found that, the next step is easy.

I also feel that this sort of pattern-making is crucial for problem-solving. To apply what has been learnt in one situation to another is often the best way to make a breakthrough.

Making links is also vital for creativity – particularly when they’re unlikely links. Metaphor. Imagery. Association.

I suppose what I come down to is that the more intelligent we are, the more patterns we perceive, and the richer our perceptual world becomes. I’m not necessarily talking about a cultivated, educated intelligence here – education can often limit us to seeing a certain set of patterns, where a spontaneous intelligence can see a wider range. But the ability to interpret, see patterns, and make links, is for me a vital part of our connection with the world and of our existence as intelligent beings.

Does that answer your question, Paul?

(the beautiful photo is by James P Blair and is included in National Geographic’s gallery Patterns in Nature)

Playing small doesn’t serve the world

For me intelligence is one of the most beautiful things there is. To see that spark in someone’s eyes that shows they’re alive to the world, that they are dedicating themselves and whatever capacities they have to living life to the full. The delights of one of those conversations where two minds dance together in a world of ideas – serious or plain silly, it doesn’t matter – what matters is that living intelligence. The essence of humanity.

That light seems to shine brightest in young children, with their endless curiosity. I think it’s sad that, for some people, that light gets turned off as they grow up. They learn to feel stupid, or are told that certain interests are not for them. They are told not to ask certain questions, or give up asking questions because they never get answers.

Some types of elitism do have the effect of stifling that interest. But actually I think anti-elitism has a far more serious effect. In a society where knowledge and learning is valued but kept for the few, it is still there to be aspired to, and the excluded can fight for their just deserts. In a society where knowledge and learning is not valued, people learn to hide their intelligence in order to fit in. (I remember crying my eyes out on receiving the results of a school chemistry test – because I felt that everyone would hate me for getting full marks!). And this limits everyone. It strikes me as very patronising to dumb down for someone because it says implicitly or explicitly that their intelligence is insufficient to go any further.

Yes, some artforms or fields of study do require quite a bit of time and effort before you can really appreciate what is going on. But I do believe that often the difference between people who enjoy “elite” artforms and those who don’t is twofold – a feeling that it’s “not for people like them” and a lack of the experience needed to get into it. That’s not to say that they “ought to” enjoy these things… but I think it’s sad when people are cut off from things that they might enjoy for such limiting reasons.

I would like to live in a society filled with adults with the curious and unselfconscious fascination with the world that children have. A world where intellectual enquiry and pursuit of excellence is valued – not just because of the results, but because of the journey. Where everyone, regardless of their basic intellectual capacity, is inspired to become more, to bring their own special qualities to fruition.

For me this is expressed beautifully in the very famous Nelson Mandela quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure….

“It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?…

“Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you…

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This post was inspired by the various posts on En tequila es verdad and Cafe philos about the new Carnival of Elitist Bastards.

I encourage you to follow up the links above – I think Dana’s still looking for more contributions now and in the future. In the meantime I thought this quote from Dana rather neatly explains what the carnival’s about:

“…Elitist Bastards, who have no trouble simultaneously being common as muck and smart as all get-out. We’re not a pretentious elite, but a more populist one. We think intelligence is something to be celebrated, but I doubt any of us think it’s something reserved to a select few, and we certainly don’t think it has to make you a stuffy, proper, boring git. Calling ourselves bastards is a joyful way of announcing we’re out to have fun with our elitist tendencies.”

The beautiful photo was taken by Jose Maria Tan and uploaded to flickr.

Evidence and expectations

I saw a fascinating film recently about a young boy with quadroplegic cerebral palsy. Because of his severe physical disabilities it was incredibly difficult to establish any method of communication with him. His mother devised all sorts of ingenious techniques for overcoming the physical blocks to communication, but was often met with scepticism from professionals who were not convinced of her son’s intelligence. Part of the challenge was that he was only able to communicate with physical assistance.

The film was powerfully put together, and I was very moved by the way his mother had to struggle against a system that seemed very rigid and unresponsive.

But I also watched with some doubt in my mind. (It’s not pleasant to doubt things that other people with so much more knowledge of a situation clearly believe so strongly, but sometimes holding back on asking difficult questions is a fake respect, implying that you don’t think they’ve considered the issue. So while I try to be polite and open minded, I am trying to have the confidence of my own doubts, and not worry overmuch about what people will think about me for asking.)

Anyway, I have recently (for example, here) been looking into new-age claims for dowsing and similar, and in particular the ideomotor effect. (There’s a good article on this at: http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/). Essentially, the movement of the pendulum or other device is influenced imperceptibly by the dowser’s state of mind, even though they are not aware of this and do not intend it. The effect is very misleading, so people dowsing are often sincerely convinced that the pendulum is reflecting something in the outside world, because they have no conscious intention of influencing its movement. Nevertheless, under double blind testing dowsing performs no better than chance as a measure of what is going on outside the mind of the dowser.

So in watching the video, I was worried to what extent this effect might be intervening in assisted communication. I sympathised deeply with the mother, but also with the professionals whose scientific training trained them to doubt, to demand consistency and exclude all possibility of experimenter bias. The ideomotor effect is so insidious – with someone who has to be physically supported for communication, how it is possible to be absolutely sure that the assistance isn’t affecting the message? How is it possible to design a test that would prove beyond reasonable doubt that this was not taking place? To what extent did the professionals have cause to be doubtful?

The film addressed this difficult question of how to be sure directly. Some of the people most closely involved with the boy spoke of their moments of doubt. But they felt that the real problem was that those who were assessing his intelligence were unwilling to challenge their preconceptions about what people with such severe communication barriers were capable of mentally.

Someone asked an interesting question at the meeting – is there training that could be given to professionals to suppor them to design their own ways of testing in these unusual circumstances? I like that idea – looking for tests that are as innovative as a loving mother, whilst still rigorous enough to give real certainty by excluding any potential for bias or randomness.

Our expectations will inevitably colour the way we interpret what we see in the world around us. And people with differing expectations will see the world differently. So the challenge is to set aside our attachment to our expectations and design tests that will bring us closer to the truth, whatever that is. It’s hard to do, but I can’t help feeling it’s crucial.

Of course it’s not always possible to reach that level of certainty, so sometimes we do have to deal with situations that really are ambiguous. In which case the only way to proceed seems to be to choose the viewpoint which is least likely to do harm if untrue.

When it comes to assessing intelligence, there seems to be a lot more harm in a false negative than a false positive. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be an intelligent human being for whom communication with others is such a struggle. Making that struggle unnecessarily worse through preconceptions and overzealous scepticism is abhorrent. So it seems far safer to work on the basis that the person is intelligent, and draw on the experience of those who know the person best to understand what they wish to communicate.

One final thought – the woman who made the film was herself severely disabled and could only communicate with assistance. And her distinctive voice could be heard in the clear structure and strong message of the film. Which for me is a very powerful testament to the fact that difficulty in communication may obscure intelligence, but should never be assumed to mean that it’s not there.

With the best will in the world, our preconceptions about what is unfamiliar to us can easily get the better of us. So I am deeply grateful to her, and to those who participated in her film, for the way in which they have opened my mind.