What Would Happen if Only the Rich Could Become Super Smart?

[mathwonk]

good question about 'had been'. i think however the difference is whether you believe the past situation may or may not have been what you hypothesize. If it is only hypothetical but not actual, then 'had been' applies, if you believe it may have been so, i think 'was' applies.

 

[Curious3141]

I've never heard of that until now, but I guarantee that I will not rest until I obtain a copy of it. It has never appeared on TV in my area, but the video store can probably get it for me..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210044/ if that helps.

 

[Danger]

Thank you, Curious. I must admit that the synopsis disturbs me in that it doesn't coincide with the plot of the short story/novel/movie. Charly didn't want to be a genius; he was chosen as a test subject without knowing what was happening to him. That was one of the main sources of the story's pathos. Also, there was no physical hazard to him. The treatment wasn't in any way going to kill him; it just was doomed to wear off and return him to his original state.
Still, I'm going to try to find a copy.

 

[Curious3141]

Thank you, Curious. I must admit that the synopsis disturbs me in that it doesn't coincide with the plot of the short story/novel/movie. Charly didn't want to be a genius; he was chosen as a test subject without knowing what was happening to him. That was one of the main sources of the story's pathos. Also, there was no physical hazard to him. The treatment wasn't in any way going to kill him; it just was doomed to wear off and return him to his original state.
Still, I'm going to try to find a copy.

Are you kidding? Charlie (that's the way *he* spells it) in the source material always desperately wanted to be smart.

Quoting verbatim from my ebook versions (the spelling is as it is in the source, since this is written by Charlie of IQ 68):

Short story:

Their going to use me! I am so exited I can hardly write. Dr Nemur and Dr Strauss had a argament about it first.

Novel:

I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon

Note how he spells his own name. I always considered the name of the '60s movie ("CHARLY" with a laterally inverted "R" in the poster) to be "too much" - a person with an IQ of 68 should be able to spell his own name.

I said that's what Miss Kinnian tolld me but I don't even care if it herts or anything
because I am strong and I will werk hard.

I want to get smart if they will let me.

I told him thanks doc you won't be sorry for giving me my 2nd chance like
Miss Kinnian says. And I 'meen it like I tolld them. After the operashun Im
gonna try to be smart. I am going to try awful hard.

*Believe me*, the TV movie is *far* truer to the plot and intent of the source material than that 60s movie. Oscar award notwithstanding, I consider the movie "Charly" vastly overrated, and the TV movie quite underrated. The source material (both novel and short story) are still better, of course.

The real pathos of the story is that Charlie just wanted to be smart enough to fit in. Yet they made him so smart that he became even more of an outsider. And then the cruellest thing of all was that he fell all the way back down, possibly regressing even lower than his former baseline, and possibly dying (this is left ambiguous).

There is a not-so-subtle subtext of "the forbidden fruit" - one of those bible-bashing ladies in Charlie's bakery (Fanny) even mentions the parable of Adam and Eve in response to seeing the new Charlie. This fits in well with the cautionary tale which censures both the scientists for trying to "play God" and (more mildly) the subject for wishing to be something more than the Good Lord intended. If Charlie had just been an involuntary test subject, only the former would've applied, and the story would've lost its impact. I can't remember the plot of the '60s movie very well - I saw it too long ago, and it didn't leave the best impression - but if that's the tack they took, then I'm even less impressed than I was.

 

[netgypsy]

I wish there were an "unsmart" pill. When very intelligent kids make fun of those less gifted they should have to take one that lasts at least a week - maybe more if they deserve it.

also I don't know why there is the perception that very intelligent people are misfits. Most are not. The absolute best and brightest I've ever known are as successful socially as they were academically. But being very intelligent academically does not mean the person is intelligent socially - that they have empathy, can read body language, or even care about other people. But this is NOT typical of intelligent people, not even the true standouts.

Any of you who haven't read Richard Feynman's "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" really need to. It is so hilarious and he is super intelligent obviously but just plain funny too. He is much more typical of the super bright people I have known than the social misfit many people expect of this type of person.

 

[Curious3141]

I wish there were an "unsmart" pill. When very intelligent kids make fun of those less gifted they should have to take one that lasts at least a week - maybe more if they deserve it.

also I don't know why there is the perception that very intelligent people are misfits. Most are not. The absolute best and brightest I've ever known are as successful socially as they were academically. But being very intelligent academically does not mean the person is intelligent socially - that they have empathy, can read body language, or even care about other people. But this is NOT typical of intelligent people, not even the true standouts.

Any of you who haven't read Richard Feynman's "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" really need to. It is so hilarious and he is super intelligent obviously but just plain funny too. He is much more typical of the super bright people I have known than the social misfit many people expect of this type of person.

My favourite parts of the Feynman book include him:

1) fixing the radio by "thinking" and reversing the order of the vacuum tubes, and winning the skeptical older guy over.

2) trying to find out if the symbol on the blueprints was a valve (or a window!) and getting branded a genius by the Lieutenant.

3) sassing the psychologists at the interview (the scene where he argues about whether people are looking at him, and the use of the word 'supernormal' vs supernatural) and gets branded crazy

4) the paint mixing story

5) the mental arithmetic ("raios cubicos!") story

I read the book more than 20 years ago and I can remember most of it vividly, with a good deal being recalled verbatim - like "map of the cat". But I can do that with most literature. Still, a very enjoyable read.

Getting back to the "misfit" stereotype, there are some geniuses who exemplify it. For instance, Grigori Perelman. I wouldn't consider him very well socially-adjusted, would you?

Maybe that's the difference between genius-level mathematicians vs genius-level physicists. The latter still have to live in the real world, sort of.

 

[Curious3141]

BTW, Danger, if you're really interested in the theme of artificially-inflating human intelligence, I can recommend some other good reads/watches:

1) The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn - very depressing ending, but this was the original source for the recent movie "Limitless".

2) Limitless - a much more upbeat movie rendering of the above. The screenplay is worth checking out as well.

3) Understand - a novelette/short story by Ted Chiang. Freely (legally) available on the Net: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm

The stories above all concern themselves with the theme of increasing intelligence, albeit of a normal human being raised to supernormal levels. Alan Glynn's book and the movie depict a person who's still able to live in society, just more successfully (but still prone to making stupid mistakes that undo him). Ted Chiang's story portray such a vast leap that the enhanced person becomes superhuman and unable or unwilling to really participate in society (until he meets an equal, with tragic consequences).

I was wondering whether to recommend "Harrison Bergeron", a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, which is about a highly intelligent person in a vengefully mediocre society. It's not really about enhancement of IQ per se, and I just found it weird. But you might like it.

 

[DaveC426913]

If everyone is smart, then no one will be.

While that may be true, that is not where the calamity comes from. In times of sudden flux (flux of anything), everyone will be madly jockeying for an advantage. This will be the source of the calamity.

Imagine if the world's governments glutted the world with 5x the volume of money. Suddenly, everyone's rich. Simple as that? No way. The world would be in upset. Lives would be ruined, whole nations would be ruined, before everything settled.

On the principle that sudden change is usually not a good thing, I don't think it matters how you define "smart". A sudden change in a lot of people's level of intelligence, however you define it, would just about be guaranteed to be disruptive to society.

Full concurrence.

 

[netgypsy]

My favourite parts of the Feynman book include him:

Maybe that's the difference between genius-level mathematicians vs genius-level physicists. The latter still have to live in the real world, sort of.

Yaay for the physicists

If everyone gained intelligence in proportion to what they currently had it wouldn't have much effect because it wouldn't affect the power structure. Those in power would still be dominant. BUT if everyone suddenly became both brilliant and equally brilliant there would be a horrendous upheaval until things were sorted out and a new power structure emerged.

 

[diamond58]

My own short-form answer: Intelligence is the ability to solve problems through reasoning and creative application of knowledge. A cynic's rejoinder: Intelligence is whatever an intelligence test measures. IQ testing has ornamented the study of intelligence with a colorful tapestry of secrets, lore and mystique, but few settled facts. I read this info here : http://www.getiq.net/info.jsp

 

[Alexander_joh]

Things like money economy and centralized government disappear, people suddenly begin rebelling against the governments and even creating their own religion. This was very interesting to me because the novel discusses consequences I never would have even thought would have occurred.

 

[turbo]

I was wondering whether to recommend "Harrison Bergeron", a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, which is about a highly intelligent person in a vengefully mediocre society. It's not really about enhancement of IQ per se, and I just found it weird. But you might like it.

That is one great story. Enforced mediocrity is not all that far off the mark. No Child Left Behind implies that a lot of children will not be allowed to advance to the limits of their capabilities. We should get back to a public school system that encourages "tracking" so that the students that are performing well in one area or another are encouraged and allowed to advance.

 

[daveb]

There was an outstanding episode of the new Outer Limits show that depicted a futuristic society wherein all adolescents were given an intelligence test that (somehow, not explained) couldn't be faked. The parents were very worried how their son, a particularly bright boy, might perform on the tests. he assured them everything would be fine.

At the end, after having taken the tests, the parents get a call from the government stating that the boy had exceeded the passing level for the intelligence test, and inquired whether the parents would like the boy's body for private burial, or whether they wanted a state-sponsored funeral.

The point was the government was dystopian, and anyone who showed exceptional intelligence was viewed as a threat and therefore eliminated.

 

[skeptic2]

My favourite parts of the Feynman book include him:

1) fixing the radio by "thinking" and reversing the order of the vacuum tubes, and winning the skeptical older guy over.

2) trying to find out if the symbol on the blueprints was a valve (or a window!) and getting branded a genius by the Lieutenant.

3) sassing the psychologists at the interview (the scene where he argues about whether people are looking at him, and the use of the word 'supernormal' vs supernatural) and gets branded crazy

4) the paint mixing story

5) the mental arithmetic ("raios cubicos!") story

I read the book more than 20 years ago and I can remember most of it vividly, with a good deal being recalled verbatim - like "map of the cat". But I can do that with most literature. Still, a very enjoyable read.

Getting back to the "misfit" stereotype, there are some geniuses who exemplify it. For instance, Grigori Perelman. I wouldn't consider him very well socially-adjusted, would you?

Maybe that's the difference between genius-level mathematicians vs genius-level physicists. The latter still have to live in the real world, sort of.

Also in the book is the story of him telling a boy that there are twice as many numbers as numbers. The boy says a number and Feynman doubles it. Regardless of what number the boy says, Feynman is always able to double it proving there are twice as many numbers as numbers.

I tried this with my 7 year old daughter. Twice she named a number and I doubled it. On the third try she said zero. How can kids that young make you feel so stupid?

Does anyone here know how to find cube roots on an abacus?

 

[Danger]

Curious, I very much want to continue this discussion, but I really have to sleep now. I most specifically want to explain why my view of Charlie Gordon (I was just going by the movie spelling because that is how it was introduced in the thread) differs from yours. For now, though, good night.

 

[chiro]

For the people that have asked for a definition of smart, I think that this is an extremely important point.

Like a lot of written language (and especially with english), people often have completely different ideas of what something means (what they think it means) and what it actually means (or should mean).

Some of the posts here have discussed smart in terms of education, in terms of creativity and intelligence amongst other things.

But what about wisdom? What about the idea that sometimes knowing too much is a dangerous thing unless you are willing to suspend your goal of doing something 'just because you can' and more or less for your own benefit in some way (power is just many of the ways that you can do something for your own benefit, but alas it is still a prominent one).

The real thing I see with knowledge is the wisdom to say 'maybe this is not a good idea' and to just let it go, or to think a bit harder and seek other wisdom that will help you see if its a bad idea in the context of everything bar yourself.

In this light I actually have a respect for many of the tribal societies out there. A lot of people call them backward and primitive, but the fact remains that they live simple, they live in a community oriented environment that has very different principles in comparison to many western places (including the idea that everyone in the tribe is an equal) and that they aren't as arrogant in wanting to know everything and exhibit the kind of control that you find happening daily in developed societies.

In this way, I consider these people very very smart relative to other societies. They may not understand electromagnetism, quantum chromodynamics or even many of the proofs we have in modern mathematics, but they don't have anywhere near the urge to control everything around them like many of us do.

 

[netgypsy]

Wisdom is, both cause and effect and empathy. The ability to see what will happen if you do it and the desire to do something that has a positive rather than a negative effect.

Now regarding tribes considering everyone equal? Far from it. Just as in tribes of primates, wolf packs, horse herds, there is a hierarchy generally based on power. The fastest, strongest, smartest (able to catch more game, fend off more enemies), become the chiefs and the healers. Women, because they have little or no control over their reproductive capability, are generally waaaay down in the hierarchy. Tribes that have a benign living area with an abundance of food are generally kinder to those who are weaker. When the living area is hostile, the weak die because the tribe can't afford to care for them or it will put the entire tribe at risk.

Regarding the control of everything around them, human sacrifice was an effort to do just this very thing. Because they had little knowledge of the workings of the planet they resorted to all sorts of practices in religion and society to allow them to gain control over the things they didn't understand.

The communes in the 70's and I'm sure some still exist, tried the equality of individuals but again had a power structure, a person who enforced rules, who protected the group, who was best at taking care of the tribe and who was best at maintaining power by virtue of strength. This is why communist societies were not really communist. They were totalitarian in that the government and its enforcers had absolute power over the populace. The difference between these and feudal societies was the education of the entire populace, the attempts to provide food and health care for everyone and the forcing of large groups of people to work together for the common good and the good of those in power.

I've often thought that the type of government in countries who call themselves communist was almost a necessity before the populace could govern itself because a completely uneducated population is not able to set up a government that will actually benefit them. Not that an educated populate is perfect but at least they can communicate in both written and spoken language.
Unfortunately the ability to see cause and effect is something far too many people lack.

 

[chiro]

Now regarding tribes considering everyone equal? Far from it. Just as in tribes of primates, wolf packs, horse herds, there is a hierarchy generally based on power. The fastest, strongest, smartest (able to catch more game, fend off more enemies), become the chiefs and the healers. Women, because they have little or no control over their reproductive capability, are generally waaaay down in the hierarchy. Tribes that have a benign living area with an abundance of food are generally kinder to those who are weaker. When the living area is hostile, the weak die because the tribe can't afford to care for them or it will put the entire tribe at risk.

I see what you are getting at, but you can't just paint the enormous amount of tribes or tribal communities out there with the same brush.

Also just because some level of organization exists, in the context of my post above (which places a focus on the desire to want to control everything around them) it does not mean that one person or even the group as a whole desires this.

When the tribe is small enough, then that is a big game changer.

We are used to different social structures and hierarchies because we for the most part are part of societies that involve many thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. When you are dealing with societies that are different with one attribute being size (communities with less than a hundred people that are completely independent) then this a big game changer.

Regarding the control of everything around them, human sacrifice was an effort to do just this very thing. Because they had little knowledge of the workings of the planet they resorted to all sorts of practices in religion and society to allow them to gain control over the things they didn't understand.

Right, but again you can't paint everything with the same brush. Not all groups are interested in 'becoming gods' or 'asking the gods for favors'.

The communes in the 70's and I'm sure some still exist, tried the equality of individuals but again had a power structure, a person who enforced rules, who protected the group, who was best at taking care of the tribe and who was best at maintaining power by virtue of strength. This is why communist societies were not really communist. They were totalitarian in that the government and its enforcers had absolute power over the populace. The difference between these and feudal societies was the education of the entire populace, the attempts to provide food and health care for everyone and the forcing of large groups of people to work together for the common good and the good of those in power.

One thing about many tribal communities is there size. When you have communities that are really really small (less than say a hundred people), then the game is completely different from when you have thousands, or hundreds of thousands let alone millions of people.

When the size is so small and everyone has to pull their weight (especially out of necessity), then that's what people will do.

Unfortunately the ability to see cause and effect is something far too many people lack.

This is unfortunate.

 

[netgypsy]

The concepts are the same regardless of size, location, religion and so on. It's the details that can differ HUGELY. One dominant individual beats up, maims, kills opponents. Another enlists their aid and makes them an "assistant". The more benign the environment, the richer in resources and so on, the more "drones" the group can support. The number of individuals does matter. In a very small high school for example every kid has to join every organization, sport team, band, glee club, or it wouldn't exist. There's a study that says kids from very small schools do much better in later life. I'm inclined to think this is true.

 

[Danger]

Hi, guys.
I'm reluctant to interrupt the discussion of tribal systems, because I'm quite enjoying it. (Which in itself is weird; I've never been into cultural anthropology.) This is the first time that I've had enough energy to post the following, though, so I'm going to take it.

The real pathos of the story is that Charlie just wanted to be smart enough to fit in. Yet they
made him so smart that he became even more of an outsider. And then the cruellest thing of all was that he fell all the way back down, possibly regressing even lower than his former baseline, and possibly dying (this is left ambiguous).

That was exactly what I meant when I stated that he didn't want to be a genius and didn't know what was being done to him. While he wanted to be "smart", I consider the procedure to be involuntary on his part because he couldn't understand the potential effects of it. It's as if some not so bright guy wants a vasectomy and ends up castrated instead. While the core intent is the same, the result certainly isn't.
I don't recall any ambiguity about him dying in the end. It seemed quite clear that he was going to spend the rest of his functional life back in the bakery sweeping up and being the butt of jokes. Whatever joy he received during the initial phases of his intellectual gain was more than compensated for by the later knowledge that it wouldn't last.

 

[Curious3141]

That was exactly what I meant when I stated that he didn't want to be a genius and didn't know what was being done to him. While he wanted to be "smart", I consider the procedure to be involuntary on his part because he couldn't understand the potential effects of it. It's as if some not so bright guy wants a vasectomy and ends up castrated instead. While the core intent is the same, the result certainly isn't.
I don't recall any ambiguity about him dying in the end. It seemed quite clear that he was going to spend the rest of his functional life back in the bakery sweeping up and being the butt of jokes. Whatever joy he received during the initial phases of his intellectual gain was more than compensated for by the later knowledge that it wouldn't last.

With regard to how "smart" pre-op Charlie expected to get, that's a fair enough point. He lacked the sophistication to discern grades of smartness in those he saw around him. He just wanted to be "smart", "like them".

After he became (really) smart, he didn't intrinsically dislike his own elevated intellect. The negative feelings came about because of the disillusionment he felt when he realized that even the professors who gifted him with intelligence had limits they were reluctant to concede (and those limits weren't as high as he originally reckoned), and the despair he came to feel when he recognised that practically no one at the bakery had actually considered him a real friend, and had merely been amusing themselves cruelly at his expense.

Smart people are just more adept at realising how crappy the world is (or can be), but this is just understanding the nature of things, and is not necessarily a bad thing per se.

With regard to the possibility that Charlie dies in the end, quotes to support my contention (bolded emphasis mine):

Short story:

June 10—Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded. Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures.
I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now that it’s definite, I don’t want it to happen.
I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the back yard. I cried.

Novel:

Algernon died two days ago. I found him at four thirty in the morning when
I came back to the lab after wandering around down at the waterfront-on his
side, stretched out in the corner of his cage. As if he were running in his
sleep.

Dissection shows that my predictions were right. Compared to the normal
brain, Algernon's had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out
of the cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain
fissures.

It's frightening to think that the same thing might be happening to me right
now. Seeing it happen to Algernon makes it real. For the first time, I'm
afraid of the future.

It's (deliberately) left ambiguous whether Charlie Gordon merely deteriorates in intellect or whether he follows Algernon to the grave. Frankly, the way those passages are written, one can make a good case for the latter supposition.

However, at least in the novel, it's certain that Charlie regresses to a state worse than his first. He starts off as a reasonably productive blue-collar worker working in a bakery:

Your Uncle Herman god rest his sole was my
best frend. He brout you in here and he askd me to let you werk here and
look after you as best I eoud. And when he died 2 years later and your mother
had you comited to the Warren home I got them to releese you on outside werk
placmint.

and ends up back in the Warren home for the severely intellectually disabled:

Thats why I am going away from here for good to the Warren Home school.

As to whether his life subsequently (beyond the written story) becomes jeapordised, that's left open.

 

[netgypsy]

If you had the chance to go to a place you consider to be "heaven", would you not go even if there was a good possibility that you would have to leave??

 

[DaveC426913]

If you had the chance to go to a place you consider to be "heaven", would you not go even if there was a good possibility that you would have to leave??

Some say hell is as simple as being allowed to gaze upon the face of God - and then having it be taken away forever.

 

[chiro]

Some say hell is as simple as being allowed to gaze upon the face of God - and then having it be taken away forever.

I remember watching Bill and Teds Bogus Journey (whoa!) and when Bill and Ted went to hell they found out that what they were experiencing was their 'own personal hell': basically they experienced their own version of what they expected hell to be like.

With the movie and plot aside, I think that this was actually a very good idea put forward of what hell could be like: basically something that is personal to the person having the experience.

 

[Danger]

Curious, I stand corrected regarding the potential death. It's over 40 years since I read the short story, and at least 30 since I read the novel. I had forgotten that aspect of it. Sorry 'bout that.

Netgypsy, there's nothing after death, so your question is irrelevant to me. My will stipulates that I be cremated, but that's only because it's the least allowed by law in my area. I'd rather just be tossed into a ditch and let the coyotes take care of me. (I would have said "cougars" rather than "coyotes", but most of you would think of the kind of cougar that I'm too old for.)

 

[DaveC426913]

I'd rather just be tossed into a ditch and let the coyotes take care of me.

What happens to your body after your death is not of consequence to you, it is of consequence to the loved ones who survive you.

 

[Danger]

What happens to your body after your death is not of consequence to you, it is of consequence to the loved ones who survive you.

Nice try, but the only person with the authority to make the call knows my wishes and won't violate them. In fact, she would disinherit herself if she did so.

 

[netgypsy]

I used the term "heaven" to indicate a state of mind, not a place you go after you die. We do all make choices like Charlie and probably with as little knowledge about what the true consequences would be as Charlie would have. We're well aware that we could and will lose a life that is as close as one can get to our individual version of heaven but this certainly doesn't stop many many us from choosing to find and create that life, because although we know it will not be permanent, we're willing to take the risk of going so high that, like Icarus, the fall will kill us. But what a ride it was.

The saddest people I know are the ones who for some reason, choose to destroy their own happiness through actions of choice.

What made me think about this is a really nice decent, intelligent, attractive, kind young adult I talked to recently, who deliberately destroys any relationship they have with a kind and caring person and who invariably goes back to one who is abusive, and I don't mean just a little bit abusive. I asked this person why and they replied, when I'm with a really good person I always think I don't deserve them. Yes this person had a bad life but it could have been much worse and the person's mother had a much worse life yet makes every effort to continue to improve her situation.

Some won't make the climb because of the pretty great certainly that they will fall, but others, like Charlie, go as high as they can because it's worth it to go there even temporarily.

(A legitimate reason to opt for burial rather than cremation - if at any point after your death medical problems in your living family appear to be inherited or there is some medical question about your death, they can always dig you up and check it out. Also it seems nicer to serve as fertilizer for plants and trees that produce oxygen than to pollute the air with the combustion byproducts)

 

[Danger]

Actually, combustion pollutants are pretty low in a crematorium, and the ashes can still be used as a mild fertilizer.
I see your point, though, and apologize for misinterpreting your original statement. Translated to my terms, you were asking if I would bang Sandra Bullock even knowing that I could never do it again. Absolutely! Given my health condition, the experience would probably kill me, but it would be worth it.