Theory of Humanity: Intelligence and two different lifelong applications

[Kriminal99]

Intelligence is real

 

IQ is real and represents natural ability. Across all kinds of IQ tests, a general factor emergers that is correlated with the results on every test. It is this factor that IQ is supposed to represent.

 

If this is difficult to understand and accept, consider that one thing that is highly correlated with IQ is complex reaction time. When properly defined, it can have a correlation of up to 80% with IQ which is as much as any IQ test. This measures, for example, the amount of time it takes a person to extract the meaning of a word from it's context when a person is exposed to the word in everyday life. People are exposed to words all the time, with varying sized windows of opportunity to extract the meaning of the word, and so vocabulary is highly correlated with this G factor that controls how well a person scores on every kind of IQ test. I believe however, complex reaction time is difficult to test directly because one can easily test simple reaction time by mistake by giving the person a mental task they are already familiar with.

 

In general it just means the amount of time it takes your brain to process information.

 

What do you do with what you have?

 

There are two distinct ways people can apply their intelligence, that does not change what score they test at but directly affects their every day behavior. This has less to do with some kind of permanent limitation or disposition, and more to do with patterns of behavior - patterns of behavior so strong that people rarely cross over from one side to the other.

 

A typical person

 

A person who begins life with normal experiences learns to trust the source of their comfort - parents and other people. With safety taken care of, their immediate goals are to elicit favorable responses from other human beings. As such, they handle information in a manner that allows them to better do so - unfortunately at some expense of accuracy in their beliefs and ability to understand their surroundings. More explicitly, they generalize from their experiences using metaphors to some degree.

 

Metaphors allow people to relate just about anything, and thus are well suited to having a toolset usable to persuade and move other people. However when you use a metaphor, you do not know where the line is between the similarities and differences in the two related ideas.

 

Example: Honor is like sportsmanship in baseball. Question: If a knight plans to fight with honor, should he take off his helmet on the battlefield and shake hands with his opponent?

 

Atypical person

 

On the other hand we have people who experience isolation earlier on or perhaps even traumatic events that display the impotence of man. In contrast to the above situation, the person's safety is in question and or the person has no choice but to focus on adapting and understanding the natural world to get what they want. Such people learn to generalize from their experiences almost entirely using concepts. That is, they observe the natural world and note that there are similarities between somewhat different situations. From this they create a concept - an idea such that some parts of the idea are set in stone and define what the idea is (the similarity they deduced) and some parts are left variable (the differences they observed in the similar situations.

 

Example: Such a person witnesses the behavior of both a knight and a judge. They look nothing alike. Something is similar about their behavior however. Both of these people have power relative to the people around them, but instead of doing whatever they want they concern themselves with adherence to some set of rules in order to serve some greater purpose with their power. Hence, honor.

 

Generalizing from one's experiences in such a manner gives a person a much more precise understanding of the relationship between different ideas. This results in a person of the latter type having everything they have ever learned combined into one network of understanding that they can draw from near-flawlessly for:

 

Creative purposes

 

Knowing when a thought or approach is disqualified from being accurate or succesful based on the rules of a superset of ideas

 

Creating comprehensive plans that take account for every possibility.

 

Example: The hull of a ship has holes in it that causes it to sink, contrary to what the ship is supposed to do. A chess player knocks his opponent's pieces off the board in anger thus defeating the purpose of the game - as even if the angry player had begun to win his opponent could simply do the same thing and therefore noone could have won despite what the people thought when they sat down to play.

 

Hence: Integrity. The integrity of a competition (like chess) depends on the honor of it's participants. The two ideas fit together perfectly, because the relationship between them is fully defined when they are concepts and not metaphors.

 

 

Their original dispositioin is also useful from the standpoint of knowledge based on the fact that they are likely to disregard how people react to or understand a situation and instead look solely at the context which the idea arises from.

 

However as a result of their extreme knowledge and deductive abilities relative to other people, they do not fit in very well. Normal people's (from the first group) behavior makes little or no sense from this perspective. A person is obviously attracted to someone else (by their body language and subtle reactions) but won't admit it. A person insults another in a situation when the insulter would typically be insecure, but claims it is because of their dislike of the other person instead. A teacher or other adult is not able to explain an idea that seems to contradict what has been seen, and reacts by becoming angry or mis-using their authority (that they were given for a specific purpose) to punish you for asking. It is my belief that fallacies were originally created by such people (as those in this second group) trying to explain the difference in reasoning between themselves and others.

 

How do they fare?

 

It's easy to see why people in this situation often become misanthropic and perhaps "unsuccessful" in the superficial sense.

 

On the other hand, people in the first group with high iq's fit in really well. They may never come to understand the world as the latter group does, and may feel tossed around by the tides of life. But, they use their natural ability to more quickly learn exactly what to say and do in order to garner respect or admiration from others.

 

There is no clear barrier that prevents one from crossing over to the other - it's just usually they don't care to. A rational minded person from the second group may cross over into having good people skills if they are cast into a particuarly warm and mature social enviornment or if they develop a comprehensive theory of humanity. A person from the first group may learn just about anything if directed to by others (either directly or because they need to better serve others).

[modest]

Interesting ideas Krim. It almost sounds like the opposite of what one would expect.

 

Atypical person... people who experience isolation earlier on or perhaps even traumatic events...they do not fit in very well.. often become misanthropic and perhaps "unsuccessful" in the superficial sense.

People who grow up with chronic trauma are usually diagnosed with assorted personality disorders later in life. I personally think there is a distinction between the two which is touched on here,

The clinical picture of a person who has been reduced to elemental concerns of survival is still frequently mistaken for a portrait of the survivor’s underlying character. Concepts of personality developed in ordinary circumstances are frequently applied to survivors without an understanding of the deformations of personality that occur under conditions of coercive control. Thus patients who suffer from the complex sequelae of chronic trauma commonly risk being misdiagnosed as having personality disorders.”

 

Psychotraumatology: Key Papers and ... - Google Book Search

Nevertheless, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (which is how I would describe your atypical group) can present with symptoms nearly-equivalent to dissociative disorders. Notice some of the symptoms:

Alterations in consciousness, including:

• amnesia or hypermnesia for traumatic events
  
• transient dissociative episodes
  
• depersonalization/derealization
  

These dissociative states of consciousness and derealizations sound an awful lot like the attributes you give "normal" people while mental health practitioners are giving the same attributes to the people you describe as "abnormal".

 

I might be taking what you're saying to too far an extreme. But, I do think the most extreme cases demonstrate the trend. An extreme case of your abnormal group (experiencing extreme trauma) might develop depersonalization disorder.

 

On the subject of IQ and trauma during development, there have been some interesting studies.

This study suggests several conclusions. First, trauma exposure has little or no effect on measures of IQ or on other tests of neurocognitive functioning. Second, the striking similarity in the test scores between co-twins strongly implicates genetic influence on performance. Third, because the PTSD group scored within the normal range on all but one test, above average congnitive ability appears to confer protection against PTSD. Indeed, consistent with an early study (Macklin et al., 1998), the mean IQ of the healthy combat veteran group was 118, and over 40% of this group scored in the superior range (over120). The mean IQ of the PTSD group was 105.

 

Oxford textbook of Psychopathology

 

It doesn't seem that exposure to trauma has any significant effect on the measure of IQ. What is interesting is that children who test with a high IQ at age 6 are less-likely to have trauma related problems later in life.

 

In this longitudinal study, the investigators randomly selected 823 newborns from the 1983-1985 discharge lists of 2 major hospitals in southeast Michigan and assessed them at age 6 years. Follow-up data to age 17 years were available for 713 cohort members (86.6% of the initial sample). The primary endpoints were cumulative exposure to qualifying traumatic events up to age 17 years, and diagnosis of PTSD meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria among participants who had experienced 1 or more traumatic events...

 

Children with an IQ greater than 115 at age 6 years had decreased risk for exposure to traumatic events (adjusted OR for assaultive violence, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.2 - 0.7), decreased risk for nonassaultive trauma (adjusted OR, 0.6; 95% CI, 0.3 - 0.9), and decreased conditional risk for PTSD (adjusted OR, 0.2; 95% CI, 0.1 - 0.9).

 

The results of this prospective community study highlight the role of intelligence in avoidance of exposure to traumatic experiences and their PTSD effects

 

Log In Problems

 

Presumably, smart people avoid traumatic situations.

 

~modest

[Kriminal99]

Interesting ideas Krim. It almost sounds like the opposite of what one would expect.

 

 

People who grow up with chronic trauma are usually diagnosed with assorted personality disorders later in life. I personally think there is a distinction between the two which is touched on here,

Nevertheless, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (which is how I would describe your atypical group) can present with symptoms nearly-equivalent to dissociative disorders. Notice some of the symptoms:

 

These dissociative states of consciousness and derealizations sound an awful lot like the attributes you give "normal" people while mental health practitioners are giving the same attributes to the people you describe as "abnormal".

 

I might be taking what you're saying to too far an extreme. But, I do think the most extreme cases demonstrate the trend. An extreme case of your abnormal group (experiencing extreme trauma) might develop depersonalization disorder.

 

On the subject of IQ and trauma during development, there have been some interesting studies.

 

It doesn't seem that exposure to trauma has any significant effect on the measure of IQ. What is interesting is that children who test with a high IQ at age 6 are less-likely to have trauma related problems later in life.

 

 

Presumably, smart people avoid traumatic situations.

 

~modest

 

Hi. Honestly I am not sure how any of the things you said are responses to what I said. You claim I called typical people dissociative? Where did you get this from? You said I claimed trauma effects IQ, but I said the exact opposite of that.

 

 

I am not sure what you are arguing here. How often do 6 - year olds get diagnosed with personality disorders? Are you implying that nothing changes about people who experience traumatic events early on until the last minute were they suddenly react to things that happened decades ago? The main classification for the "Atypicals" was isolation. I also remarked that viewing the impotence of man in traumatic situations can shatter this idea that persuasive tactics are more important than actually understanding.

 

One idea on "personality disorders" is just that you have a bunch of silly people commenting on the behaviors of other people who are not like them and who they do not understand. I could easily take a similar approach to describing a normal person: Everyone who tries to alter the facts to get attention is a narcissist. - They create chaos to everyone's detriment to benefit themselves while pretending to be friendly. From the perspective I described earler, this could easily include everyone in the normal category since they the defining attribute is that they choose persuasion and communication over understanding.

 

Then the question becomes not can you differentiate people who go throught traumatic events and people with real personality disorders, but rather is there such a thing as personality disorders at all? No doubt there are some that have to do with things like excessive drug use (by prescription) causing a person to have outbursts of anger far more quickly than normal, or blunt trauma to the head altering behavior.

 

But in many cases "personality disorder" seems to mean nothing more than "person I don't understand".

 

Rather than tossing around terms like "narcissim" I would rather just call it emotionally immature and address the behavior using philisophical arguments instead of narcotics. I have a lot of experience dealing with people with so called "personality disorders". The diagnosis was usually driven by someone extremely dysfunctional themselves, and after watching the described behavior (which I am often familiar with the motivations for) I addressed it with a philisophical argument to the person and watched it go away.

 

Anyways, As I said I am confused as to how you came to the conclusion that I assigned things like extreme dissociation to normal people... the same people I said handled information in such a way as to better persuade, move, and illicit respect from other people. What does this have to do with dissociation?

 

Dissociation is a survival skill that some people learn while experiencing traumatic events (hopefully not soldiers, but perhaps children whose parent's often fight) that seem impossible to influence. Later such a person might use this skill in social situations to ignore irrational and immature people who they find themselves in conflict with due to their more survival oriented understanding of their surroundings. Imagine being around a bunch of people who make ridiculous and vicious claims... but you are not yet capable of explaining why the claims are ridiculous in a way they can understand. There are more of them, and they see no need for any validation other than this fact (who needs the truth?) , while there is no one of a similar mind as you that can be teamed up with. Hence, Dissociation.

 

I have had such experiences in the distant past. I admit the use of such tactics may have established some patterns of behavior that are hard to break, but they have also been useful in my opinon. I have a ridiculously high pain tolerance, emotions don't immediately display on my face unless I want them to, It is easy for me to ignore how somethign makes me immediately feel and act on my beliefs instead. Many of these things can be considered valuable skills.

 

On the other hand I sometimes daydream and accidently ignore someone or have to check that I locked a door several times because I keep forgetting since my actions weren't signifigant enough to commit to memory. But for the most part I seem to be in control of these negatives.

[Kriminal99]

a

[modest]

I apologize. You apparently didn’t understand anything I said or quoted which most-likely is some fault of my explanation. I will explain my thinking more fully:

 

You posit two groups of people and examine the differences in thought processes between them. We can call them group-T (typical) and group-A (atypical). You are not very specific about the defining characteristic of T & A, but here is how I interpret what you said:

 

Group T:

A person who begins life with normal experiences learns to trust the source of their comfort - parents and other people. With safety taken care of

This seems to be well-defined to me. I take it to be a normal, healthy upbringing.

Group A:

On the other hand we have people who experience isolation earlier on or perhaps even traumatic events that display the impotence of man. In contrast to the above situation, the person's safety is in question and or the person has no choice but to focus on adapting and understanding the natural world to get what they want.

You mention two explicit factors: isolation and trauma. You later say that isolation is the main classification, but that is not how I took what you said. I take the main defining characteristic of group A to be a lack of safety—an upbringing where caregivers create an environment where safety is not guaranteed. The quote I gave characterizes it as such: “a person who has been reduced to elemental concerns of survival”

Mild cases of group-A would be mild neglect—guardians who mostly leave their children to care for themselves. More severe cases of A would be physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a controlling guardian. There are many other examples, but I would contend that the best examples for the purpose of evaluation are the most extreme.

 

The question then is how do the thought processes and world-views of group-A compare to group-T? You conclude (through no apparent force of logic or reasoning) that group-T sees thing metaphorically while group-A sees things conceptually. You then draw a host of further deductions based on the metaphor/concept conclusion.

 

I do not think people whose upbringing frequently reduced them to a state of elemental concern for survival process information more conceptually than people with a more typical upbringing. I therefore think your further deductions based on that premise such as: ”as a result of their [group-A] extreme knowledge and deductive abilities relative to other people, they do not fit in very well.” are very misplaced.

 

This ultimately boils down to the psychology of group-A. There are many, many studies and books which examine that very subject. The stress of growing up as ‘group-A’ is traumatic and the psychological consequences of that post-stressful-trauma is described clinically as complex post-traumatic stress disorder. which is defined by psychology today as:

 

Complex PTSD

 

Complex PTSD, also known as disorder of extreme stress, is found among individuals who have been exposed to prolonged traumatic circumstances, especially during childhood, such as childhood sexual abuse. Research shows that many brain and hormonal changes may occur as a result of early, prolonged trauma, and contribute to troubles with learning, memory, and regulating emotions. Combined with a disruptive, abusive home environment, these brain and hormonal changes may contribute to severe behavioral difficulties such as eating disorders, impulsivity, aggression, inappropriate sexual behavior, alcohol or drug abuse, and other self-destructive actions, as well as emotional regulation (such as intense rage, depression, or panic) and mental difficulties (such as scattered thoughts, dissociation, and amnesia). As adults, these individuals often are diagnosed with depressive disorders, personality disorders, or dissociative disorders. Treatment may progress at a much slower rate, and requires a sensitive and structured program delivered by a trauma specialist.

 

Psychology Today's Diagnosis Dictionary: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

 

It is my belief that group-A “does not fit in very well” (as you say) because of the description given above rather than because they have “extreme knowledge and deductive abilities” (as you say). What is described by psychologists as “scattered thoughts and dissociation” is not compatible with your unsupported description of superior conceptual thinking ability.

 

I realize my previous post was very sparse and not easily understood. I hope this post explains more fully where I’m coming from.

 

~modest

[Kriminal99]

I apologize. You apparently didn’t understand anything I said or quoted which most-likely is some fault of my explanation. I will explain my thinking more fully:

 

You posit two groups of people and examine the differences in thought processes between them. We can call them group-T (typical) and group-A (atypical). You are not very specific about the defining characteristic of T & A, but here is how I interpret what you said:

 

Group T:

This seems to be well-defined to me. I take it to be a normal, healthy upbringing.

Group A:

You mention two explicit factors: isolation and trauma. You later say that isolation is the main classification, but that is not how I took what you said. I take the main defining characteristic of group A to be a lack of safety—an upbringing where caregivers create an environment where safety is not guaranteed. The quote I gave characterizes it as such: “a person who has been reduced to elemental concerns of survival”

Mild cases of group-A would be mild neglect—guardians who mostly leave their children to care for themselves. More severe cases of A would be physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a controlling guardian. There are many other examples, but I would contend that the best examples for the purpose of evaluation are the most extreme.

 

The question then is how do the thought processes and world-views of group-A compare to group-T? You conclude (through no apparent force of logic or reasoning) that group-T sees thing metaphorically while group-A sees things conceptually. You then draw a host of further deductions based on the metaphor/concept conclusion.

 

I do not think people whose upbringing frequently reduced them to a state of elemental concern for survival process information more conceptually than people with a more typical upbringing. I therefore think your further deductions based on that premise such as: ”as a result of their [group-A] extreme knowledge and deductive abilities relative to other people, they do not fit in very well.” are very misplaced.

 

This ultimately boils down to the psychology of group-A. There are many, many studies and books which examine that very subject. The stress of growing up as ‘group-A’ is traumatic and the psychological consequences of that post-stressful-trauma is described clinically as complex post-traumatic stress disorder. which is defined by psychology today as:

 

 

 

It is my belief that group-A “does not fit in very well” (as you say) because of the description given above rather than because they have “extreme knowledge and deductive abilities” (as you say). What is described by psychologists as “scattered thoughts and dissociation” is not compatible with your unsupported description of superior conceptual thinking ability.

 

I realize my previous post was very sparse and not easily understood. I hope this post explains more fully where I’m coming from.

 

~modest

 

Concepts define them

 

You seem to be reasoning regarding some other class that you created based on your private interpretation of what I wrote. That is not what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear. The DEFINITION of class-A is that they generalize from experiences using concepts. The set of possible causes enumerated at the beginning of the description (using or's) were possible explanations for why.

 

The defining characteristic of group-A is meant to be the fact that they generalize from their experiences using only concepts and not metaphors. There was a set of possibilities presented at the beginning of the description (isolation, trauma etc) which were related to each other, but after this and more importantly a single defining attribute which defined the class was presented - concept using. The thread then goes on to describe the differences between metaphors and concepts when being used to generalize from experiences.

 

I believe this has a cascading effect on a person's ability to reason, and note that people who seem to lack the same level of creativity, ability to create comprehensive plans, ability to learn quickly etc have this issue where they connect ideas in their mind through some fuzzy, metaphoric, artistic logic that causes them to reason in circles about anything that isn't a strict collection of ideas that was handed to them by someone else.

 

To be honest, other than isolation I am making a logical assertion on the cause of this. Isolation is an obvious cause because it wouldn't even occur to someone to dumb down their methods of generalization to allow better communication when there is no benefit to doing so because there is no one else around. It may be the main cause and it may be that the groups are seperated only to the degree that their patterns of behavior drive them to be integrated into or isolated from a social network on a regular basis. In which case a long term reason would be needed to explain continued isolation for anyone who isn't raised by wolves.

 

Obviously, dissociativity is a type of isolation, and can be caused by trauma. I forget that reading the description of such a phenomenon one might assume attributes that are different than the reality. Dissociation does not mean that a person stops taking input from their surroundings entirely. It is a very subtle thing, almost like peripheral vision is to focused vision. In fact, if I were to describe what dissociation is from scratch I would likely describe it as a degree of control over how the different parts of your mind split up the input processing to be done.

 

Your kinds of trauma and Dissociation

 

The type of trauma you mention might certainly encourage dissociation. Some of the sources you yourself quoted describe dissociation as a purely subjective phenomenon.

 

While in a state of dissociativity (assuming the state I experience that is very similar to the description of dissociativity is in fact so) someone can walk up and talk to me and I will in a sense not "hear" or "see" them until after it is too late to respond - unless they become angry or frustrated which causes them to come to the center of focus immediately. However once I am alerted the information of everything that just happened is still there - it was always there. Always capable of being processed consiously and categorized as "experimental data". Just not in the centre of focus in such a way that would allow an immediate response.

 

In my experience, dissociativity is not a skill that is easy to completely control once you have started it. Every interesting idea may trigger it such that you can focus better. You might lessen your processing of input to almost nothing when performing trivial tasks, only to find the tasks become less trivial with that little "processing power" assigned.

 

An intresting question might be how does one differentiate the phenomenon of dissociation from the automation of repeated tasks such as driving? The two seem to have more similarities than differences from the perspective of introspection.

 

Other kinds of trauma

 

The kind of trauma I had in mind was a little different - I meant to describe events that were not directed at the person in question but rather happened around them. Imagine a child witnessing the chaos of 9/11, or even something as simple as a car wreck when they were just old enough to understand what was happening to some degree. Imagine a child witnessing extended verbal and/or physical fights between parents in addition to anything directed at the child - which almost always entails hypocracy and immaturity on one side or the other of the argument or else the arguments would not persist.

 

These kinds of things can drive someone (or at least one person) to decide from an early age that other people are NOT capable of solving real world problems and basically are just biding their time until another disaster occurs due to the accumulation of ignorant behaviors that were motivated by lack of immediate punishment. (Which is basically true on many different levels). This can cause someone to make a consious choice to be far less impressionable and understand the natural world over people.

 

This might cause a more consious choice towards dissociativity, rather than some completely uncontrolled form that would arise from still possibly believing that there is nothing wrong with what was happening.

[modest]

The DEFINITION of class-A is that they generalize from experiences using concepts. The set of possible causes enumerated at the beginning of the description (using or's) were possible explanations for why. The defining characteristic of group-A is meant to be the fact that they generalize from their experiences using only concepts and not metaphors.

 

Ok. I don't disagree in any significant way with your conclusions about conceptual thinking vs. metaphorical thinking. If you define class-A as conceptual thinkers then I certainly wouldn't object to class-A thinking conceptually ;)

 

Probably a good example of conceptual thinking would be math—a topic constructed entirely of concepts. Some people when learning math must make use of metaphors. 8/4=2... If I have eight apples and divide them up equally among 4 people then each person will get two apples. With a more conceptual understanding the numbers don't represent anything but are concepts in and of themselves. The division operator does not represent an action performed on whatever the numbers represent, but rather the division operator establishes a direct relationship between concepts.

 

When some people see the equation:

c = a • b

They imagine a, b, and c representing things and this equation being like a metaphor for that situation. Other people might see it as more of a conceptual relationship. For example, when a gets bigger, b gets smaller:

c =

a

•

b

c =

a

•

b

c =

a

•

b

c =

a

•

b

They would see this directly without attributing some situation to the equation. That kind of conceptual thinking would certainly have benefits. Such people would be very-well suited to professions like computer science and engineering. People with more metaphoric or language-based thinking would be more suited to business or marketing.

 

I don't exactly share your view on what life experiences bring about this difference in thinking among people, but I do think it is a real distinction, and an interesting one at that.

 

~modest

[Kriminal99]

Trauma and Class membership

 

You disagree that trauma would determine this class membership. I feel I should clarify exactly what kind of trauma I am proposing might cause membership.

 

Perhaps trauma alone isn't the thing to discuss here. I think I am proposing something along the lines of person administered trauma + recognition of immorality. The simplest form of immorality a child can probably recognize would be hypocrisy.

 

I can imagine a situation where a person is unable to make the connections necessary to realize the person's behavior is immoral due to a lack of complex reaction time (or iq rougly). I can also imagine a person who causes trauma but is really good at finding ways to justify their behavior so that a child would have trouble classifying it as immoral - thus requiring even more intelligence to get through the maze of reasoning.

 

Additionally: If the trauma was not caused by a person familiar to the observer, then I believe observation of the traumatic event could cause class A membership due to recognition of people's inability to react effectively or prevent the trauma.

 

Both of these cases have alternatives where the person experiencing the trauma is left in a sort of stupor screaming "why me?" at the sky. But it is certainly sometimes the case that the trauma recipients recognize causes of the event, or inability to address the event, in other people's behavior.

 

In my opinion, dissociation is a tool designed specifically for this purpose. It buys more time so you can categorize what happened as something other than random punishment.

 

We know that a rat that experiences "random punishment" in the form of being randomly shocked by potential food awarding pedals can simply die of a heart attack from the stress. What makes people different? In my opinion the ability to dissociate and categorize the events. The rat may have some ability to do so as well, but how could a rat possibly understand the motives and behaviors of the scientists - if they could even perceive their existence at all?

 

Class differences

 

Wouldn't the apple situation be a specification of concepts in addition to possibly being a metaphor? Like the definition of concept that I used was that it is an idea in which some things are concretely defined and other things left variable.

 

I suppose this would be saying a number is a unary operator that can take nothing as input, in which case you are just reasoning regarding the whole class of possible inputs instead of a specific input.

 

So the concept 1 would be something like

 

1(variable object that could be another number and it's operand)

 

In which case 8 apples would just be a specification of the concept 8. 8 bags of 4 apples would be a specification of the concept 8 and four, and the concept of multiplication (which I didn't describe, but I think you know what I mean).

 

Here is the thing I would be claiming about math and its relationship to the classes A and T. Because math is a well defined hammered out discipline that is known to have value by all it can attract people from class T. Because class T has social motivation to learn the subject, they can do so.

 

I suppose I would claim that class T members in this situation would begin collecting details of mathematics and assembling them into a network of understanding - the same kind of network I claim class A has. And then any other time the class T member is socially motivated to understand a well defined discipline, they would create a seperate disjoint network of understanding. Then if they wanted to relate the two networks of ideas, they would use a metaphor. They would even be perfectly capable of relating them by concept if that was part of what was well defined and presented to them.

 

The difference I would claim is that a class T member is not going to figure it out on their own, in a sense because they don't care to. A class A member would already know parts of the new discipline because they observed this knowledge in more general form in a more general discipline. Everything they learned would be joined in one big network. They could think creatively and make new discoveries by accurately applying ideas from the superset discipline.

 

If a class T member was to be motivated to try and pioneer some kind of knowledge, I would claim they would have difficulty and end up feeling like they were going in circles because they had internalized the use of metaphors to some degree and thus would be deriving contradictions in their reasoning.