2005 update: this is a bit like a blog written before blogs were invented - i.e., I put this down without really considering whether it is going to make sense to anyone. The fact is - now that I'm re-reading this several years later - I now believe that this element of the intellect - history/depth? - is much more important than I realised at the time. Apart from anything else, it helps explain why so many seemingly highly intelligent people can be so dumb... and vice versa. :-)
This is the sort of thing I mean:
A friend of the family used to be with the murder squad in the Edinburgh Police.
She spoke of one detective who was known for the reliability of her instincts.
In one example, - a case of a murdered child - in spite of a complete absence
of evidence, she felt certain that they had arrived at the home in which the
murder had been committed and that they were now talking to the murderer. She
called for the house to be dusted for fingerprints. When none were found, she
insisted that there must be something somewhere that they had missed and asked
if they had dusted the whole door. They dusted the entire surface of
the door. The print of the child's foot was there, high and in the centre of
the door. The man, as far as she had been concerned, was the murderer. No-one
else could see it but no logic could have competed with her "intuition."
My feeling is that it is a mistake to dismiss this type of story as being irrelevant to science. This detective's ability to recognize, instinctively, that she was talking to a man who was concealing the truth - the truth-or-lie function of instinctual intelligence - is one which we all share in differing degrees. Every study of body languge touches upon the giveaway gestures which most of us make when we are being dishonest. What I'm saying here is that this is not a learned ability; it is inherited. Why waste time on this kind of thing? The short answer is that my instincts tell me this is not rubbish.
|
|
Facial expressions; intonations; the walk; the posture; body language - we do not all share the same ability to read and interpret unconscious communication (2005 update: consider the number of people who voted for George Dubai Bush - tragic. What gets me is that they walk on their hind legs just like the rest of us). In terms of instinct, as in every other dimension of intelligence, some of us are much brighter than others. I believe - and, hopefully, I can explain why - that we pass on, through our genes, much more than the colour of the eyes and hair, that the skills we practice, the lessons we learn in life are, in a significant measure, bequeathed to future generations.
Another anecdote illustrating the same thing at work:
#2 The family dog had become unwell. It's owner just felt that there
was something not right with him. She stroked his head for a few moments then
she told her son to phone the vet and to tell him that the dog was bleeding
internally. When asked how could she possibly know he was haemorrhaging, she
said that she didn't know how but that she was sure that that was what
was happening and he had to tell the vet. She later said that the dog seemed
to feel "clammy" and, from that, she "knew" he was bleeding internally. There
was little or no logic in it but she was absolutely correct in her "intuition"
and the phone call saved his life. Spooky or just flukey? I don't think either,
because this was not an isolated case. There is zero scientific value in an
anecdote like this but when the same individual consistently shows unusual instincts
in the same field, then we have the beginnings of a group of anecdotes
which can, at the very least, provide a pointer to what we should be looking
into. But, just to lay the cards on the table... the instinct for medicine suggests
a simple possibility: that one or more of her ancestors may have been physicians
- and, crucially, that proved to be the case. It's genetic, plain and simple
- and it's a very important and yet unrecognized dimension of intelligence that
we all possess. These odd stories just make it more obvious.
#3 (same woman) Her son became unwell. She was sure he had jaundice and the doctor was called. The doctor, however, pronounced that there was a wee bug going around and that he should just be sent back to school. She told the doctor she was sure it was jaundice and that she was reluctant to send him to school. The doctor pointed out that the patient presented none of the symptoms of jaundice and finished smugly with, "why think you have a nightingale when all the rest are sparrows?" Her son was sent back to school but, the following day, the first symptoms of jaundice appeared and the doctor was invited to look at the nightingale with his own eyes. Nothing mysterious about this: he had simply failed to see what had been perfectly obvious to her - the look of jaundice - not the symptoms which will, according to the book, present at the onset, just "the look of jaundice."
#4 (same family - this is my favourite curious story) When the son was about seven years old he had a tortoise. They used to fill up the bath because it liked to swim. On one occasion, all present were surprised to see a trumpet shaped part of its anatomy protrude from its rear. The seven year old said, "look, its annulus has come out." A few moments later, (as someone thumbed through the dictionary) he could not remember what he had said but it had been quite clear to him, at the time, that its annulus had made an appearance!
|
|
I find it absolutely fascinating that such a word should surface from the unconscious of a seven year old. A fool will always find a way to explain such a thing away but, in truth, it virtually defies explanation - unless it was possible that the word was known to some ancestor? The question is: was it possible that he had inherited some part of the brain of an individual who knew what an annulus was? Well, of course that, in itself, is possible. Of course we inherit our brains from our ancestors. It is ridiculous to suggest that we also inherit some sort of foundation of the neural paths which existed before they conceived their children but that is exactly what I'm offering as an explanation. He knew, unconsciously, what an annulus was because, as I already said, he is descended from a medical family.
#5 (still the same family) Around the same time, the son also made a sudden comment upon seeing a photograph in a newspaper. He exclaimed, "isn't he like Byron?" When asked who he meant, he replied that he didn't know. The only "Byron" the family could think on was Lord Byron but, of course, the seven year old son had never even heard of Lord Byron. It was just one of these meaningless things which would have been forgotten but, many years later, the family discovered that their ancestors were the original i.e. previous owners of Byron's house and that he would have been a very familiar figure in their lives.
I believe that the measurement of intelligence, by present methods, completely fails to recognize what is maybe the most defining dimension of the intellect. The very process of understanding - even of this (especially of this)? - is limited by instinct. Without the instinctual dimension, there is the capacity to learn but there is a limited depth to understanding - because, I suspect, there is not a lot going on in the way of unconscious assimilation. The unconscious process of assimilation is in operation whenever we encounter a new concept provided there is a sufficiency of instinctive intelligence to facilitate the process. Over and over, we find ourselves learning afresh what our ancestors knew and it leads or at least tends always to lead us to a radical understanding rather than to just a committing of concept to memory in the mere context in which it is presented. A corrollory of that is that, being accustomed to having a radical understanding, it is so much easier to recognize that which we don't understand, to know the difference between what we know and what we have merely been taught as being fact.
A sheepdog pup which has never seen the adult dog work and never seen a sheep, will exhibit all the characteristic abilities to herd and control before training is commenced. It has inherited the not insignificant ability to present, to the flock, a very dynamic and measured level of threat. Its proximity, its profile, its speed and direction are all measured with a subtlety which comes from long experience but that experience lies totally outwith the life of the pup. There is little comparison between a family pet and a working dog, not only in terms of that which we understand as intelligence but also, more importantly, in terms of its instincts. The working dog can instinctively recognize a situation as requiring a particular action purely because it is descended from generations of working dogs. The cash value of the pup is, therefore, a function of the reputation of its parents and its grandparents. To the shepherd, it comes as no surprise that the ability of the dog is determined by its breeding. He's looking for more in a dog than what we call intelligence. He looks, also, for good instincts.
I define instinct is that part of the intellect which calls not upon one's own experience but upon the experience of one's ancestors. The notion that we are born with a brain which is akin to a blank data disc waiting to be written to by cognitive or behavioural processes is, surely, absurd to anyone who has ever really addressed the issue. My own aptitudes in art, science, geometry (and logic) have their parallels in the lives of several stonemasons in my recent family history. One of the most creative areas of my life is in music. Neither of my parents play the piano or any other musical instrument but, without any training or supervision, I started playing the piano at the age of three - it came naturally to me as it did to my grandfather who died before I was born. But of course it's not just musical talent which is passed from generation to generation, it is every form of intellectual activity and achievement. A person who can think logically is not accidentally "gifted" with a better processor than most, he or she will be descended from people who were in the habit of using their minds.
I began with a mention of our interpretation of body language. To one individual and to no-one else in a group, another's motivations, for example, may be completely transparent. But our "interpretation" of speech and body language is not a conscious process. Think on Miss Marple's trick of likening of the individual she is observing to a character in St Mary Mead (her old village). It is as good a metaphor for the process as could be wished for. The information that we glean from unconscious communication - that immense, continuous stream of data - depends almost entirely upon our unconscious ability to relate/associate that data to, and test it against, similar data which we hold in memory - both physical and genetic memory. Certain behaviour, once seen, is never forgotten - even generations later.
We inherit our brains from our ancestors in the same way as we inherit every other organ. It may, to some, seem preposterous that any residue or derivative of memory could survive the grave to influence and enrich subsequent generations but experience and these anecdotes suggest to me that there is something here worth investigating. I could suggest that anyone who has inherited a serviceable intellect would tend to agree :-)
Copyright © Jimmy Powdrell Campbell 1996, 2005.
|
|
S I T E D I R E C T O R Y
[since
Sept '97]
Copyright © 1997 Jimmy Powdrell Campbell