Vince Samios

Comment from Allison Reynolds
Time September 15, 2009 at 5:23 pm

Tell that to the grown ups!

Comment from Vince Samios
Time September 15, 2009 at 5:54 pm

The most mature/intelligent “grown ups” (elderly) are the ones that embrace immaturity.

The least mature/intelligent are the ones that can’t move past agism.

Nobody really matures beyond 18yrs

Maturity is often a waste of immaturity

Comment from MikeB
Time September 15, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Maturity is proportional neither to age nor intelligence - which in itself is a very abstract concept …maturity is proportional to breadth of experience from which develops an ability to predict the the ability to identify and manage risk and reward.

Comment from MikeB
Time September 16, 2009 at 1:04 am

“Common sense is the net sum of all prejudice learnt before the age of 18″ - Einstein

Comment from Vince Samios
Time September 16, 2009 at 4:59 am

“maturity is proportional to breadth of experience from which develops an ability to predict the the ability to identify and manage risk and reward.”

Ahh, we disagree again - experience can translate to a lack of maturity. Bad experiences can make a person irrational and paranoid, both traits incongruent with maturity.

Note: Immaturity and a lack of maturity aren’t the same thing.

Common sense isn’t maturity, nor intelligence.

Intelligence is indeed an abstract and sometimes unintelligible concept.

Comment from MikeB
Time September 16, 2009 at 3:45 pm

If intelligence is abstract how can maturity reflect intelligence?

The only sensible definition of Intelligence is the ability to score high in intelligence tests which measure only one small facet of the human brain in formalised reasoning.: which have little relation to making judgements calls with incomplete information in which experience base counts more and logic counts less which is the real sign of maturity.

To give an idea - I passed mensa 4 sigmas at 19 solved rubiks cubes within hours of getting one ultimately and played close to national standard chess - which proves nothing except developed rational logic and classical “intelligence” . YET - I and similar acquaintances were some of the least mature people people around.

Why? because logic and perfect reason only apply partially in the real world. Which is where experience moulds reason into maturity because of breadth of experience and feedback from similar situations.

Common sense, on the other hand is conformance to stereotypical norm - thinking which as einstein pointed out, is the period up to 18 - and thhe focus of most education - and has little to do with maturity

Knowing when and whether to go outside the box - and decisions taken on imperfect information is the true sign of maturity - ultimately every decision made on anything of substance is a balance of downside risk and reward - and that is where maturity lies.

As for “bad experiences” - one of the problems with the nanny state and all this safety tosh. Is that kids are far too protected so never learn objective measurrrement of danger which is feedback from bad experience. Asking in a situation “what is the worst that can happen, and how can you mitigate it” is not paranoia, it is objective decision making.

Comment from Vince Samios
Time September 16, 2009 at 3:59 pm

While intelligence is an abstract concept, the measurement of intelligence is subjective with nonspecific nor intelligible relationships to “intelligence tests” which fail to take into account broad measurements of convergent/divergent intellectual intelligence, combined with social/emotional & logical/rational intelligence. Even physical intelligence…

The only sensible definition of intelligence treats each factor separately and comments on each individually. Which makes it very difficult to draw solid conclusions on the intelligence of one individual.

Mensa is a farce - I’m tested at 140-150 but refuse to pay yearly membership fees just for the inflated ego.

I don’t disagree with your comment wholly. You have some solid intelligence behind it :p

Comment from MikeB
Time September 16, 2009 at 4:23 pm

Absolutely. I think intelligence tests and mensa are a load of b*x, and anyway - as groucho marx said “I would never join a club that would have people like me as a member” - so my stay was brief

The problem with social/emotional factors is they are more or less unmeasurable.

So if intelligence is unmeasurable except ina very limited sense, the original post relating broad intelligence it proportional to maturity,, is verry fuzzy logic indeed.

But I really do think stopping kids climbing trees, see saws and so on completely rations their exposure to danger and their ability to factor risk into a mature decision process generally, and so their maturity. Stopping kids trading mars bars for marbles on playgrounds does even more damage. And swapping those and real people for the surreal world of video games makes is the final maturity killer. So age vs maturity is now all over the map.

Time for me to shut up.