Tag Archives: thought catalog

What is smart?

It could be the fact that it’s the mid-semester Uni assignment period once again (and thus, the perfect time for procrastination and/or reflection on how stupid assignments make me feel), or the fact that I read a really great article the other day on “what is smart”, but intelligence is something I’ve been thinking about lately.

Notably; what is intelligence? How is it measured? Is it different from person to person, or is there one universal definition of what “smart” is?

You hear about people with “genius-level intellect” all the time. Almost universally, those people are regarded as “smart”, or at least intelligent. Which brings us to another question: are intelligence and “being smart” the same thing? Can you be smart as well as intelligent when you’re not talking about the dress-sense kind of smart?

Other definitions of smart are a little harder to nail down: maybe you can only name a few US states and their capitals, for example, but you have an innate understanding of how physics works (facts vs understanding). Or maybe you can recite the periodic table, but don’t understand why it’s rude to ask someone’s age (again, facts vs understanding).

Maybe you can be socially smart. Maybe you’re just good at reciting facts. Which brings us to yet another question: if you have an eidetic memory, does that make you smart? Possibly; I guess it comes down to what kind of things you choose to memorise. You could just memorise a whole lot of junk about unimportant minutiae, and that probably wouldn’t make you very “smart”. Very good at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, maybe, but probably not smart.

Or maybe all this is wrong. Maybe, like the Thought Catalog article suggests, smart isn’t just about knowing things, but it’s about knowing how things relate to each other, how they go.

But then I came across an article from the creator of Dilbert which completely changed my mind about smartness and intelligence: Scott Adams’ crackpot theory of intelligence is simply that intelligence is nothing more than pattern recognition.

My crackpot idea for today is that intelligence is nothing more than pattern recognition. And pattern recognition is nothing more than noting the frequency, timing, and proximity of sensory inputs. Language skill, for example, is nothing but recognizing and using patterns. Math is clearly based on patterns. Our so-called common sense is mostly pattern recognition. Wisdom comes with age because old people have seen more patterns. Even etiquette is nothing more than patterns.

Think about that for a second. Maybe intelligence (or how smart someone is) is nothing but pattern recognition, at both a micro and macro level.

And when you think about it, it all makes sense. On some level, with enough inputs, everything can be learnt through pattern recognition: social interactions? Pattern recognition. Physics? Pattern recognition. Programming? Pattern recognition. Pretty much anything can be interpreted as a pattern: even the haphazard arrangement of tabs in my web-browser could be explained, with enough knowledge about my habits and browsing patterns (if this was a game of Taboo I’d have just lost), with pattern recognition.

Actually, I’ve come across this idea before: my old piano teacher used to say pattern recognition was an invaluable skill to have when learning new pieces, as musical theory has heaps of repetition. I think the general idea was to recognise the patterns in order to learn to play pieces faster and more efficiently.

So, what do we know? We know a few things:

  • Intelligence is, or at least can be, some kind of sophisticated pattern recognition; know enough about something and you’ll start to see patterns, which can lead to conclusions and interpretations about what you’ve observed/sensed. Roughly translated, this is “learning”.
  • Complex patterns can be broken down into many inputs. Variables can be controlled. Changes can be observed. Results can be recorded. And finally, perhaps most importantly:
  • This was an excellent way to procrastinate an assignment I’m not feeling great about.

Can we talk about video games?

I have about a million and one thoughts on various aspects of photography and tech (I got a Kindle Touch!) which I’m going to write about a little later, but just for now, can we talk about video games for a second?

I’ll start with this: nobody likes guys.

Nobody. Likes. Guys.

Or so says the Thought Catalog piece that sparked this piece on video games. What is it about video games, man? What is about video games that makes people start foaming at the mouth whenever someone even mentions DICE are working on a new title, or that Notch has something new on the horizon?

I wrote about Medal of Honor a little while ago, and it was while watching the new Medal of Honor trailer that it dawned on me: video games are all about enjoyment, and maybe, just maybe, feelings. When you play games like Mass Effect (I wrote about that too), with games that tell the same story over a period of years, you feel something for the characters. For Commander Shepard, and for you. When you play games like Medal of Honor and you’re falling off a cliff trying to escape from people you were previously hunting down, that feels real. For Rabbit of AFO Neptune, and for you.

I recently re-played the single-player campaign of Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor, and it was then I realised why it was enjoyable. It was about the storyline, yes, but also about experiencing gameplay as a game designer wanted you to experience it. A game designer, sitting a desk in a country you’ve only read about or seen photos of, wanted you to experience a game in a very specific way. And not just you, but everyone who played the game. How crazy is that? Think about that.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the multiplayer aspect of games. Even more so when playing with friends over voice comms. But I was thinking about the Fallout 3 campaign, how your choices impacted gameplay, and I realised that single player gaming will always have my attention. Single player means you have unique experiences, exactly as the game designer wanted.

And yeah, a big part of these experiences are the graphics. I’ve been looking forward to the new Medal of Honor ever since I played through the 2010 game, and the new Medal of Honor trailer looks fantastic. Rightly so, because it’s based on the same engine as Battlefield 3. But what’s up with the trailer for Ghost Recon Future Soldier looks terrible by comparison? The graphics look like something out of 2005 — honestly, they’re not that much better than the Battlefield 2 intro (the Battlefield 3 remake of which is fantastic, by the way). Call me crazy, but I know there are heaps of games that offer brilliant gameplay experiences — but if the graphics just aren’t there, then I can’t really play the for any length of time.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s a combination of heaps of things that mean people play games. What I’m trying to say is that you should go read the Thought Catalog piece on The Games Guys Play, because it explains everything a little better than I just did.