Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

[OddHat]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Determining intelligence is still a disputed today.

 

Yes?

 

But it *is* a measuring stick regarding game mechanics for INT-based skills.

 

As noted in my post.

 

As for the Leonardo example, he was from 1452-1519; however, I consider him to be much smarter than the average joe of his day.

 

I consider him to be much more intelligent than the average Joe of today, and very likely more intelligent than the average genius of today. He still couldn't have built a space shuttle without the supporting skill set, knowledge base and infrastucture.

[Ken Solo]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

But you've already suggested that an adult who has done a PhD is "smarter" than one who hasn't. That is, that some skill sets and background experiences indicate greater "smartness" than others.

I think the idea here is that people who are more intelligent tend to go get PhDs and excell at education. That is, it is 'easier' for a highly intelligent person to master skills and sciences than it is for a less intelligent person. But it is not to say that the very intelligent necessicerily DO persue education.

Marilyn vos Savant recent wrote an article for the July 17, 2005 issue of Parade magazine about intelligence and gender, but the relevent point she made is that "the brightest people are spread over all sorts of other occupations." Thus many high intelligence people never manke their mark on the sciences.

It is very likely that very intelligent people even 1000 years ago were too busy eaking out a basic living to persue any education. Education was for the wealthy, and even then the resources available were very limited.

Now that almost everyone in the world recives an education (skill development, not intelligence enhancement) by age 18 that would put to shame many of the most learned of Dark Age scholars AND have the free time to persue invention, we (humans) have been creating new things like it was our job!

I often wonder, since I live in an age where my computer and cell phone are out of date the moment I buy them, what would it be like to live in an age where there was no mention of technological advancement in your whole lifetime.

[Ken Solo]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Pinecone-

PhD as a Perk makes perfect sense. How much do you charge your players for it?

[pinecone]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

One point...It just doesn't seem all that "super" a Thing...Tenure is 2 points (in addition) Two characters have tenure...the perfect job for supers...they can't fire you!

[Enforcer84]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

*wrings hands* WHAT HAVE I WROUGHT?!??!??

[OddHat]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

*wrings hands* WHAT HAVE I WROUGHT?!??!??

 

Flame war in the making. A number of people have somewhat different opinions about a matter of no practical importance. This inevitably leads to death threats.

[Kirby]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

No' date=' I don't think we're smarter now than people 1,000 years ago. We have access to far more information. More knowledge =/= smarter.[/quote']

I disagree. However, it's evident that you won't let someone disagree with you on an opinion on intelligence without going into detail of why. Since we aren't going to get anywhere with this, there's not much point in responding after this post.

 

A high INT score doesn't represent a Doctorate....

I didn't say it did; you're rearranging my words (and not the first time) to fit your needs.

 

A character with an INT score of 7 can still have a doctorate

In the game: yes. In the real word: I seriously doubt it. I'm not aware of any below-average intelligent people having earned a doctorate. Just as in the game, a 1 INT person can have made cybernetic power armor - that doesn't mean it relates to real life. The INT:Active Power ratio would be something that prevented such a ridiculous concept.

 

But the average human IQ (raw intelligence) is unchanged from 5000 B.C. to 2005 A.D.

Again, I disagree. By the definitions of intelligence:

1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity
   
2. manifestation of a high mental capacity
   
3. the faculty of understanding
   
4. knowledge of an event, circumstances, etc.
   

With the exception of the first definition, the others support what I've been referring to, while the first seems to be what you've been referring to. My understanding of earthquakes, tectonic plates, lightning, meteors, weapon making, IQ tests, etc. can be said to say I have a higher intelligence than those from the beginning of recorded history, despite the fact that they may have the potential to learn as much.

[Kirby]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Flame war in the making. ... This inevitably leads to death threats.

You lie! I'll kill you for that!

 

 

 

[ghost-angel]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Flame war in the making. A number of people have somewhat different opinions about a matter of no practical importance. This inevitably leads to death threats.

 

I'll get you! and your little dog too!!

 

Personally.. I see both sides of the argument, I happen to be in the camp of "access to more knowledge does not equal a higher intelligence base"

 

But I can easily see where it can be argued that people of today are more intelligent than the people of a 1,000 years ago. I just don't agree with the logic.

[Ken Solo]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Getting back to the invention table Enforcer posted. I like the guideline of what can be created with raw intelligence + enough time. Because I know that if you don't know a skill but have enough time to work on it you can teach yourself, mostly through trail and error. I've managed to escape high school with out taking any Algebra, Geometry and all that good math stuff, yet I have worked out problems involving such. It took me nearly a whole legal pad, and someone with the proper math training could have probably got the answer in four lines, but there ya go.

My disagree ment with the Invention Table is the Active Point limit. Just because the way HERO works, some simple machines turn out to have huge APs when put in game terms. The intel limits should be on how complicated the machine/device/concept being created/worked with is, not how many active points it costs.

[Kristopher]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

I often wonder' date=' since I live in an age where my computer and cell phone are out of date the moment I buy them, what would it be like to live in an age where there was no mention of technological advancement in your whole lifetime.[/quote']

 

The first part of your sentence just isn't true -- unless you buy a clearance item that's been sitting on the shelf for a year, neither your cellphone nor your computer has to be out of date the moment you buy it. The idea that they are is nothing but marketing hype.

[massey]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Define "smarter".

 

Is someone who can feed themselves in a wilderness smarter than someone who can't?

 

It depends if you make a habit of living in the wilderness.

[massey]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

But the average human IQ (raw intelligence) is unchanged from 5000 B.C. to 2005 A.D.

 

Of course the average IQ is unchanged. The average IQ is, by definition, 100. In a far future world where everyone is a Reed Richards, the average IQ is still 100. The real world does not have a solid definition for intelligence. There is thus no good way to determine if people have grown more intelligent. It would be like asking if people's souls glowed brighter today.

[Zed-F]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

No' date=' I don't think we're smarter now than people 1,000 years ago. We have access to far more information. More knowledge =/= smarter.[/quote']

 

More knowledge != potentially smarter != actually smarter.

Better nutrition/health care may != potentially smarter, but it does => actually smarter.

 

Again, here we are talking the average person, not (a) people of exceptional intelligence to begin with and not ( people with exceptional access to good nutrition and health care. I don't think you'll disagree that the average standard of living today is much better than it was in most if not all previous centuries/cultures.

 

If you want to talk strictly about potential intelligence, fine. If you want to talk about exceptional cases, fine. But categorically stating average intelligence as a whole has not changed in 1000 years is misleading, if not outright wrong.

 

Incidentally, regarding the original topic, I prefer the skills-based approach to what tech is allowed to an INT-based approach as well.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Flame war in the making. A number of people have somewhat different opinions about a matter of no practical importance. This inevitably leads to death threats.

That's it, I'm not posting when I am sleepy any more!

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

That's it' date=' I'm not posting when I am sleepy any more![/quote']

 

I think this sums it up:

[OddHat]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

That's it' date=' I'm not posting when I am sleepy any more![/quote']

 

Dude, I hope you're not serious. That would cut my posting to near-zero.

[assault]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Flame war in the making. A number of people have somewhat different opinions about a matter of no practical importance. This inevitably leads to death threats.

 

In the Real World there have been attempts to suggest that people who aren't "white" are less intelligent than those who are. As a result, many people who are normally well-behaved tend to get a bit twitchy around this question.

 

For me, in the game: you get what you pay for. If you want to routinely invent neat stuff, buy a gadget pool.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

In the Real World there have been attempts to suggest that people who aren't "white" are less intelligent than those who are. As a result, many people who are normally well-behaved tend to get a bit twitchy around this question.

 

For me, in the game: you get what you pay for. If you want to routinely invent neat stuff, buy a gadget pool.

Conversly there have been attempts to suggest that anyone who tries to measure Intelligence objectively that they are racist. Even more reason to get twitchy when putting forth an opinion on the matter.

 

TB

[Ranxerox]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

The Hero INT stat mainly represents speed of thought, memory and perceptiveness as well as less quantifiable forms of intelligence. You could be a scientific genius who was self absorbed and absent minded, and thus had a lowish Hero INT but very high Science skills. So, I'd do it by skill level in the science in question:

 

11- May maintain and develop modern technology, by the standards of the culture in question

15- May maintain and develop cutting edge technology

21- May maintain and develop technology that is nearly miraculous for the culture in question

30- Miracles.

 

In a fairly realistic Pulp campaign, a hero with 11- Weaponsmith could maintain his weapons and make small real world modifications. 15- would get him the very best pistols possible for the world at the time. 21- gets him an Uzi. 30- gets him a nuke.

 

In a four color world with low realism, you can build a Death Ray out of stuff in your garage with no statted skills at all, as long as you have the points. Call it Everyman Skill: Silly Science.

 

I would like to say yes and no to your assertion that it is skill level and not INT score that matters.

 

Using your own table 15- is cutting edge science which is by definition where current science stops. Consequently, at this point you are as far as any normal teacher can bring and from here on out have to blaze your own trail scientifically to bring your skill higher.

 

Personally as a GM, I would normally limit what a person can acheive through purely self instruction to 2 or possibly 3 points of skill improvement. Someone with normal or lower INT, I might limit to 1 or 0 points of skill if they were already at the 15- level. So, even at the most generous level of 3 points improvement by self study we are capping out at 18-.

 

InfiniteMind, with her INT score of 50 on the otherhand, starts all sciences she chooses to seriously study at 19-. In other words, just by turning her vast intellect to a subject she automatically makes deduction and leaps gaps in ways the would revolutionize the field. By devoting serious time and energy to a field she could potentially improve her level to 22-.

 

Borrowing some rules from Star Hero, InfiniteMind could work develop technology 2 tech levels above the current involving completely new concepts with an even chance of sucess (she would be at a -3 for each tech level beyond her own and a -5 for the new concept, so after deduction she would have an 11-). Alternately, she could project up to 3 tech levels above the current with a good chance of sucess as long as only extensions of known concepts were involved (she would be at a -3 for each tech level above the current, so after deductions have a 13-).

 

Still, the fact that I had to invent a character with a 50 INT to illustrate my point shows that the vast majority of the time it IS skill level and not INT that matters.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

you've been here this long and NOW you thinkk I am serious?

[sinanju]

Re: Limits to Superhuman Intelligence?

 

Getting back to the invention table Enforcer posted. I like the guideline of what can be created with raw intelligence + enough time. Because I know that if you don't know a skill but have enough time to work on it you can teach yourself' date=' mostly through trail and error. [/quote']

 

I dunno. Quite aside from the issue of intelligence in the past, present or future, it seems to me that whether a given invention is possible in a campaign world has more to do with whether the GM thinks it's appropriate or not than with how high an INT score the PC/NPC has.

 

If I think a gadget will wreck my campaign, I'm not going to let _anyone_ invent it. If I think a gadget is really nifty, or would provide the maguffin for a great story, then someone will invent it even if he doesn't have a given INT score.