Intelligence

Tom Barbalet's idea that intelligence should be measured by survival is a much better approach than previous ones. The fact the idea can be applied to more complex systems, shows that it scales well to represent a physical context. Time naturally applies survival as a metric to gauge intelligence because age is able to represent perseverance within physical creation. Unfortunately, quality is obscured by the scale when this idea is applied because often quality is unique at any point in time. Education can gauge intelligence in a more accurate way if it combines a search for survival and quality by pursuing unbounded problems (problems that are considered unsolvable but have intermediate solutions). Creating proper testing that uses unbounded problems is a difficult task, but it would be a great benefit to society. Such testing would be able to gauge creativity in addition to previous knowledge (memorization).

Interactions within society depends on rules and are an important guiding force within our lives. However, without breaking rules there is no innovation. An interesting example can be found in a traffic study that found an optimal speed on a dense freeway with 40% of the traffic breaking rules. Often rules are broken because the rules were formed by ignorance. Rule-breaking should be integrated, in a controlled way, with education. Solving unbounded problems would help motivate students to create a complete solution and make the problem bounded (which could be considered breaking a rule).

Unfortunately, unbounded problems are generally buried in specific complexity that is not applicable to simple studies. However, I think it could still be possible to form testing based on unbounded problems, as global knowledge becomes more categorized and accessible.

Education

"Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote."
- Edward Young

Education teaches memorization and minutiae that is then quickly forgotten. However, teaching repetitive memory techniques helps create a productive work force, filled with specialized people that are unable to utilize their mind completely. Our current society depends on specialized skill and encourages specialization with illusions of security, whether it be welfare or a retirement plan. People that depend on memorization to survive will neglect creativity and the improvements it can provide for society.

Creativity is only utilized by an increasingly limited number of individuals when you consider the amount of ingenuity required to trap wild game and the effort required to visit McDonalds. Art has become mass produced to the point that value is obscure. Business is often like a herd of cattle trampling single creative ideas by replication or legal suppression (utilizing money, otherwise known as earthly power).

For society to advance as a whole, intelligence needs better testing to determine a mind's capabilities. Education needs to strengthen the capabilities present in the individual's mind that are found through testing. The capabilities found will likely require more individual teaching than what we currently have. Creativity is one thing education has been unable to focus on seriously because it lacks a metric to measure it with.

The only serious attempts to measure creativity that I have found is within the research of Dr. E. Paul Torrance. The results have shown that creativity has been decreasing since 1990 which is likely to coincide with the use of ADHD medication. We are diagnosing the most creative segment of children with ADHD for the worst effects. Conformity comes with a high price.