07.+What+is+Intelligence+(February+2006) - Get a Free Blog

What is Intelligence? 41
One person could say they are sad, but if asked on a scale of 1 to 10
exactly how sad, they might say 5. Whereas another person might say 9.9
and be almost ready to kill themselves even though they have reported
their feelings using exactly the same word.
So does this suggest we should go around qualifying our emotions with
numbers on some kind of a numerical scale, like the famous Richter
scale, which is used to measure the intensity of earthquakes?
Even then, the subjective – i.e. opinional – element of personal
assessment would come in.
So it is clear to anyone who looks at these issues realistically, there is no
reliable way of categorising or describing our own emotions, of saying
precisely what it is we really feel.
There are only people who are better than others at finding similes and
metaphors for their feelings, or describing those which they perceive or
imagine to be in others, and understandably at least some of such people
become novelists, playwrights or authors.
But the more general point is that we therefore are largely isolated from
one another – that is, therefore largely unable to communicate properly
with one another by verbal means.
Of course this causes massive problems in relationships, because we
regard words as our main communicative tool, and it is especially
important to most of us that others understand how we feel, which in
practice, now as we can see, is quite unlikely, when we can rarely even
express it fully or clearly ourselves.
Thus, when we find someone who appears to be an understanding person,
and seems to know exactly what we feel, it seems to us as if we have
discovered a great treasure, and many people can become deeply attached
to another such person for that reason.
We say person X or Y really understands us, and this is a great comfort to
us, we do not then feel so totally isolated and alone in the world, for by
pure logic, if no one even understands us - what we really are and feel
deep inside - then how can they possibly care about us, or even above all
love us, which is the thing that most of us want the very most?
So what has all this got to do with intelligence?