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lawsuits that may arise from this visit. Leave now or read at your risk. INTRODUCTION Intelligence cannot be fully explained without revealing the physiology and functional organization of the human mind. Its structure will not be disclosed here. Incidentally, the following discussion only introduces some basic principles of intelligence. Real-life intelligence involves additional mechanisms that modulate intelligent thinking and behaviors by making them better or worse. Intelligence is a quality that is associated with social success and prominence. Intelligence is believed to allow people to solve problems, develop skills, accumulate wealth, and prosper. But intelligence is only one component that modulates human behavior. Another strong modulator is habit. Habits make people behave in ways that are proven to work well, and usually reflect a good degree of intelligence. By contrast, some habits have poor or no association with intelligent choices. Habits can be considered from the social and personal perspectives. Social habits manifest themselves in the form of customs, norms, and culture. Personal habits reflect preferences for food, activities, friends, approaches to life, and personal idiosyncrasies. All these habits modulate intelligence. Momentary lapses of intelligent thought typically result in behaviors that are controlled by habits. For example, when a person tries to solve a very difficult problem and the solution cannot be worked out through intelligence because of insufficient input, habits are activated to control behavior. This situation often arises when a person resettles to a new location. The task is too complex to solve all its aspects by reasoning. To process all issues by the neural circuits of intelligence, the subject would have to evaluate every issue consciously and under full attention. Nobody can think of every detail when moving to another place. There are too many things to worry about, and emotion interferes with cold reason. Topics that are left out from explicit conscious consideration are handled by habits. Habits may largely decide where a new house will be built and how the person's life will be arranged. Habits may cause that the person builds the house near a river, not realizing that there will be a flooding next spring. When the house is flooded, the person wonders why he did not think about the possibility when choosing the site. The failure of the homeowner is caused by temporary dissociation. Reasoning faculties of the brain are not engaged, and habits drive behavior. The lapse of reasoning is the culprit. The person may have the ability to understand that spring waters cause the river to rise and may produce flooding. But the conscious thought is not engaged at the right moment. Even more serious problem exists in people who are able to think about the possibility of flooding at the right time, but they conclude, after a long analysis, that home flooding will not happen to them. This is why Galveston was rebuilt after a devastating hurricane in the early 1900's; San Francisco was rebuilt at the same spot after a devastating earthquake in 1905; many California homes were rebuilt in places that are periodically affected by devastating wildfires, and houses were rebuilt in traditionally flooded areas on the Mississippi. The examples indicate that a temporary or permanent loss of intelligence produces undesirable behaviors that are silly, stupid, or psychopathic. Engagement of intelligence can prevent most such mistakes, but not always. The reason is that intelligence consists of two components: scholastic intelligence, measured as IQ, and emotional intelligence, measured as EQ. These two parts have different purpose and characteristics. A high IQ is usually not enough to produce proper and sensible behaviors. The person also needs to have a high EQ to thrive. SCHOLASTIC INTELLIGENCE Scholastic intelligence can be measured by standardized tests. The foundation of the tests is that 50% of all people can do the tests with below-average performance, and 50% of people can do the tests with above-average performance. The average performance gets 100 points. Above-average performance gets more than 100 points, and below-average performance gets between 0 and 100 points. Zero points means total failure, when none of the problems of the test is solved. The test can include multiple choices, but is always time-limited. This is a significant aspect because some very intelligent people take extra time to solve problems, but get poorer IQ scores. Second-guessing and deep evaluation of solutions to problems are reflective of superior intelligence. But this quality cannot be manifested in tests that demand quick finding of obvious solutions. The standardized timed tests of scholastic intelligence may not work well in some people (usually women) who tend to solve scholastic problems indirectly. A typical woman usually engages her emotional intelligence and reactivates her previous experiences with the topic before she tries to solve the given problem. The emotional processing reduces the time available for scholastic processing and may reduce the IQ score. Scholastic intelligence depends on insight, which is the ability to detect, establish, forecast, and modulate relationships between things and phenomena. Put simply, scholastic intelligence shows as the ability to recognize the relationship between cause and effect, and to solve problems. A test is given to a student with a high IQ, and he solves all problems correctly. A technical problem is attacked by an engineer with a high IQ, and he finds solutions to the problem. A production problem is faced by a farmer with a high IQ, and he finds effective ways to plant, grow, and harvest crops. Scholastic intelligence is very important in all aspects of life. Without scholastic intelligence, most problems would be solved by means of habits. Such a cognitive mode would be detrimental in the majority of human activities, but might be more beneficial in the long run. A person relying on good habits knows what works and what does not. Painful lessons of the past have usually shaped habits and guided our behaviors in most situations of our daily lives. By contrast, unexpected and new challenges call for the engagement of scholastic intelligence to solve the problem at hand. The person activates his problem-solving abilities, and the outcome is usually good, but not always. Unlike habits, which are typically shaped by both the scholastic and emotional components of intelligence over a long time, the success of scholastic intelligence in solving new problems depends on the contemporary involvement of emotional intelligence. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Emotional intelligence is an elusive property. It only got appropriate attention after the publication of Daniel Goleman's book "Emotional Intelligence." The year was 1995. During previous human history, emotional intelligence was virtually unknown to the Western world. Interestingly, native Americans have manifested deep wisdom (emotional intelligence) for millennia. The famous statement by Chief Seattle "All things are connected" manifests the expression of highly developed emotional intelligence in habits. Most non-native Americans have never been able to acquire this mode of thinking. They treat the environment with disregard or contempt. Although things are connected, this philosophy is often misapplied by people with low emotional intelligence. They typically lose contact with reality and employ supernatural phenomena, which have no factual substance. This mental deficit can lead to the belief that people live on earth and, when their bodies die, their souls will continue living an eternal life in heaven. Or the people believe that they can become reincarnated and can live many lives on earth as different people. Life is believed to move in repetitive cycles, and a person's soul (whatever that may be) never ceases to exist. The delusion is not caused by a lack of education, scientific knowledge, or scholastic insight, but by misinterpretation of facts and by the inability to introduce higher emotional intelligence into the reasoning process. What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is what more than 90% of the world population are lacking. The label "emotional intelligence" is a misnomer, and emotion itself is a misunderstood concept. Most scientists incorrectly consider that emotion is an effect that is observable in other people or animals. The scientists do not view emotion as a conscious experience of the mind. This distinction is important, because emotion can be experienced by the mind even during lucid dreams. By contrast, lucid dreams produce no emotionally triggered somatic responses that could be noticed by an observer. In addition to this problem, emotion does not produce intelligence, but only modulates "emotional intelligence." In the mid 1990's, a book about emotional intelligence, probably the one by Goleman, considered that emotion is consciousness. This is not so. In the strictest interpretation, emotion is not necessary to exercise good "emotional intelligence," but usually strongly influences decisions. Emotional intelligence is heavily affected by the pains of life. Unpleasant, threatening, or unbearable experiences result in dissociation from faculties of advanced emotional intelligence. A person may temporarily or permanently dissociate from such faculties and may have impaired emotional intelligence. The person may make poor choices, engage in reckless behaviors, sabotage one's effort, or harm self or others. Scholastic intelligence proposes ideas and solutions to problems, but emotional intelligence evaluates the scholastic approaches from the perspective of harm or benefit to self or others. Low scholastic intelligence only affects the quality of implementation of one's behaviors, but bad judgment, decision, or behavior is produced by poor emotional intelligence. Good emotional intelligence takes into account contextually rich and long-term perspectives, while scholastic intelligence is only interested in finding a solution to the problem at hand. Also the ways of information processing differ. Scholastic intelligence only seeks logical associations, but emotional intelligence is particularly focused on identifying logical inconsistencies between the considered topic and the overall wealth of knowledge and experience. The potential imperfections of one's reasoning are never considered by scholastic intelligence. A purely scholastic thinker believes that he is always right. For example, a chemist with an IQ of 200 faces a problem in designing a highly successful plastic substance. After years of research, he succeeds and develops an excellent material. Products made from the plastic are a worldwide success. The chemist never considers the side effects. He, the producer, and the consumer never consider what happens when such a material pollutes the natural environment. The consequences are horrendous, but they were never considered in the past. Despite the known problems at the present, the involved parties still behave as if nothing mattered and continue polluting the environment with more plastic. The example exposes the relationship between scholastic and emotional intelligence. While scholastic intelligence allows a person to solve scholastic problems, emotional intelligence controls human behavior. Emotional intelligence has a poor ability to solve technical or emotionally neutral issues, but is exquisitely capable of evaluating the proposed solutions from a global perspective. Emotional intelligence gives a person deep understanding of the world, approves sensible ideas and behaviors, and bans inappropriate ones. In addition, emotional intelligence is the only form of intelligence that is able to solve social and personal problems, and achieve maximum benefit for the human organism. A person with well-developed emotional intelligence does not knowingly behave in ways that are bad. Only a person with reduced emotional intelligence is capable of engaging in bad behaviors that are silly, harmful to self or others, or unnecessary. Thus, scholastic intelligence reflect human abilities in problem solving, but emotional intelligence decides how wisely these abilities are engaged, directed, and applied. The above description may lead to the idea that specific bad behaviors are caused by poor emotional intelligence. This is not so. Low emotional intelligence leads to general problems with reasoning and behavioral control, and is not limited to some specific negative traits. By contrast, some people with poor emotional intelligence but with good habits can behave in socially responsible ways at times. The good behaviors are hyperspecific and only occur within a specific context. A person may be a good neighbor while visiting the church. He may contribute generous amounts of money to a good cause. But outside the church, the person may be a loan shark and may strictly demand the payment of exorbitant interest by borrowers. When negotiating the challenges of life, good scholastic reasoning may do its job by suggesting factual solutions to problems, but poor emotional intelligence may accept harmful approaches, solutions at any cost, or only superficially sound fixes that are introduced by scholastic intelligence. The usual deficits of poor emotional reasoning in combination with intact scholastic intelligence show in limited contextual scope of the implemented solutions. The fixes only relate to the immediate issues. This is why people are capable of solving their personal problems by killing another human being. Existence of the other person is seen as the source of the problem, and so he must die to solve the problem. Highly developed scholastic intelligence can devise smart ways of implementing the murder, but may not be able to recognize that murder is socially unacceptable and that there will be consequences for the crime. In many cases, the killer does not even care what happens after the crime. Some murderers, despite their relatively low emotional intelligence, can recognize that there will be consequences if the crime is associated with the killer. Such people do employ their scholastic intelligence to cover up their involvement. But scholastic intelligence is narrow-minded and does not care about peripheral issues. This is why even masterfully thought-out murder may leave behind secondary indicators that lead to the murderer. Emotional intelligence is not an off/off mechanism, when you either have intelligence or don't. Loss of emotional intelligence is never absolute. Even the most stupid person on earth has some residual emotional intelligence. Total loss of emotional intelligence would probably mean that the associated neural structures are not functioning. If this happened, the person would die because neural systems of scholastic intelligence are not enough to sustain life. Emotional intelligence allows a person to differentiate between the external world and one's body, and offers interpretations of physical and social forces that act upon the living human organism. Incidentally, emotional intelligence is critically important for proper personal and social responses. Scholastic intelligence has no direct involvement in such matters and is of no benefit when solving issues that involve the human organism, its well-being, or its interaction with the social environment. Emotional intelligence can have very fine gradation, down to the neuronal level. Practically all people have some reduction in emotional intelligence at different times in their lives, and the loss may not be noticeable by the affected person or others. The intellectual deficit can be general or can be limited to a specific topic. Furthermore, emotional valence of the topic can profoundly affect the use of the neural circuits of emotional intelligence. Very negative topics can make otherwise intelligent people unbelievably stupid. This deficit mainly affects women and is caused by the functional organization of the female brain. Incidentally, the female brain shows higher striatal activity during reasoning that involves negative emotion. Males handle emotion differently and exhibit reduced interference between emotion and reason. But men also become stupid during dissociation. They ignore emotion and emotional intelligence, and heavily rely on scholastic intelligence. Emotional intelligence controls practically all behaviors, but even a person with fully developed emotional intelligence is capable of engaging in behaviors that might be considered psychopathic under normal circumstances. The person may harm or kill others if his well-being or survival is threatened. Such a man does not put the interests of the law, society, or others before his own. He is faithful to himself. People who do sacrifice their lives for others or refuse to kill because they do not believe in violence do not engage their emotional intelligence completely. Emotional intelligence is critically important for personal well-being, but too much intelligence is harmful and undesirable. The more developed emotional intelligence is, the finer detail and perceptual nuances can a person discern. This is obvious during traumatic experiences. To lessen the acute perception, the person dissociates from circuits of emotional intelligence and loses the detailed and palpable understanding of the situation. If traumas are repetitive and frequent, loss of emotional intelligence can become permanent and irreversible. Higher emotional intelligence also allows us to better understand the quality of things, people, and relationships. The higher sensitivity to the palpable interpretation of messages leads to critical evaluation of one's behavior and can become detrimental to one's emotional state. The subject does a lot of introspection and learning about oneself. Acknowledgment of one's errors and imperfections hurts, but the problems are addressed, resolved, and the person can move on with one's life. Another common problem of people with high emotional intelligence is that they are perfectionists. Their need for quality is apparent when they seek the opposite sex. The partner has to be both physically and mentally of high quality to be considered for marriage. Finding such people is not easy, but when a match occurs, the relationship lasts a lifetime. ACQUISITION OF INTELLIGENCE Scholastic intelligence is gained through intellectual stimulation, problem solving, and acquisition of knowledge. The training can happen by reading a book, studying in school, or finding solutions to everyday problems through on-the-job experience. The propensity to possess intellectual insight develops during a person's formative years. Particularly beneficial for the development of insight are unsatisfied needs in childhood. The brain works hard and develops the ability to solve problems masterfully. Scholastic insight accounts for perhaps three-quarters of the overall problem-solving ability, which is directly reflected in the IQ score. Future increases in intelligence are mainly achieved by acquiring further knowledge. A person with well developed scholastic insight is able to learn new information quickly and put it to use. This ability is seen among doctors, who often have technical skills and knowledge. In general, people who retain their intellectual insight, their drive to solve problems, and their desire to learn new information throughout life usually become professors, engineers, scientists, or researchers. Hence, IQ only represents a propensity to solve problems. How this faculty is put to use in real life depends on a person's specific knowledge. But having information does not automatically make a person smart. Some level of intellectual insight is always needed to process one's knowledge successfully. Paradoxically, all TV contests that deal with "smart" and "intelligent" people focus on knowledge of facts, simple skills, or procedures. If you know who starred in the movie Casablanca, know how to add 34 + 119, or know the name of the capital of Kenya, you get points and earn money. And everyone says, "He is so smart. I wish I could be like him." What the envious person does not realize is that a personal drive to gather excessive factual knowledge is a symptom of defective emotional intelligence. Perhaps the most striking examples of deficient intelligence (both scholastic and emotional) are seen on the TV program "The price is right." A contestant is supposed to open one out of five boxes, which contains cash. The other four boxes hold nothing but air. And the contestant starts looking toward the audience for clues. Everyone shouts which box to open. The contestant approaches box #3, touches the lid, and the guests start shouting even louder in disagreement. No level of intelligence can solve this problem correctly. All depends on coincidence (luck) in getting the correct box. The odds are 1 in 5, and no level of intelligence or advice from the audience can make the odds any better or worse. Is that understood? Yes, but I still want to know what others think. This is where we are entering the sphere of belief-based reasoning and magical thinking. Next to intellectual abilities, some psychologists consider that even skills are intelligence. For example, an Olympic athlete is believed to have "physical intelligence," a soldier who gets the Medal of Honor is believed to have "fighting intelligence," a gambler who wins the jackpot is believed to have "gambling intelligence," and a popular singer is believed to have "singing intelligence." This classification of intelligence is naive at best. No form of intelligence can be narrowed down to skill, talent, ability, or behavioral trend. The pathology of such classification is apparent in the statements that a man who fathers a dozen children has "penile intelligence" and a woman who produces the children has "vaginal intelligence." Because of their narrow specialization, skills and abilities do not represent intelligence, even though these faculties are supported by exceptionally capable neural systems. When the word "intelligence" is used in the general meaning, intelligence always involves sensible behavior, that is both scholastic and emotional components of intelligence. Paradoxically, the overwhelming majority of people associate intelligence with unique and narrowly focused abilities (dominance, sports, performing arts, or entertainment). These abilities are socially recognized and richly rewarded despite their insignificant contribution to social prosperity. The fleeting emotional rewards the abilities bring to the wide masses is what counts. Naturally, this value system manifests a lack of emotional intelligence in the general population. The consequence of such twisted values is that common people are asking celebrities for help in solving personal problems and other issues belonging to the domain of emotional intelligence. The trouble is that celebrities, the super-rich, and the super-influential are the least able to deal with such issues. Unlike scholastic intelligence, emotional intelligence can only be acquired through personal life experiences. This happens spontaneously and unknowingly. The learning process often engages emotion, the ability to consciously experience the emotion, and the ability to emotionally put oneself in the mind of another living thing. The reasons for the different modes of acquisition of scholastic versus emotional intelligence are given by the different roles of these faculties. First of all, scholastic intelligence is under the control of emotional intelligence. Attention, conscious awareness, and setting of priorities by emotional intelligence determine whether or not scholastic intelligence is employed in cognitive processes and whether the solutions proposed by scholastic intelligence are accepted or rejected. Thus, when a person wants to learn something, the conscious desire of emotional intelligence enables learning of the topic by scholastic intelligence. By contrast, emotional intelligence is acquired by means of unconscious learning. The desire to learn something is initiated by unconscious processes. Conscious awareness of the topic may sharpen or modulate the reasoning process, but consciousness alone cannot produce the logical conclusions; they are determined just by the circuits of emotional intelligence. To recognize the difference between consciousness and emotional intelligence, consider this case: The behavior of a thief hints that stealing is the right thing to do. He may have never consciously considered the morality of stealing; it has always seemed the natural choice to him. When he is questioned by a psychologist, the thief is forced to consciously explore the morality of his behavior. Even after the conscious exploration, the thief continues stealing because his reduced emotional intelligence considers it a logical thing to do. So, despite being consciously aware of his behavior and the fact that the behavior is wrong, he cannot modulate and alter his behavior. Acquisition of scholastic and emotional intelligence can often happen concurrently. A school lecture enriches scholastic knowledge and shapes scholastic intelligence. But the lecturer's behavior toward the students affects their emotional knowledge and intelligence. If the teacher smacks an inattentive boy, the pupil's emotional intelligence strongly reacts to the punishment. The pupil quickly pays attention to the scholastic topic, unaware that the emotional aspect of the encounter has profound and lasting effect on his psyche. Contrary to common belief, emotional intelligence cannot be taught in an educational course despite the existence of many such courses. What the purposeful training does is behavioral simulation of appropriate acts and mental processes by means of scholastic intelligence. A person who does not have good emotional intelligence is only capable of learning the appropriate responses as skills, but is incapable of applying these taught abilities appropriately or by truly and spontaneously engaging emotional intelligence. The person does not have the ability to understand emotional aspects of intelligence, and does not know why the corresponding responses of healthy people are considered human and normal. The differences between scholastic and emotional intelligence are apparent in schizophrenics and in people with autistic spectrum disorders. The subjects can learn that they are supposed to greet other people during a meeting, to embrace them to express affection, or say bye-bye when parting. Even a robot could be programmed to exhibit these mechanical behaviors. But the subjects do not feel anything and do not show such behaviors spontaneously. Even worse, while greeting another person or interacting with the person, the subjects may be looking away as if the person were of no consequence. The subjects lack the most basic traits that make us human, emotional, and social. By contrast, healthy animals can exhibit appropriate social and personal behaviors under the control of emotional intelligence. The emotional intelligence of the animals is incomparably higher than that of the autistic or schizophrenic humans. But animal behavior is often misinterpreted. For example, one dog contest was trying to find the smartest dog. Dogs were supposed to jump down from a very high place at the owner's command. If not for a safety harness that slowly lowered the animals that jumped, the dogs would have suffered serious injuries or deaths. Some dogs did not jump and were considered less intelligent than dogs that did jump. In reality, dogs that refused to jump were emotionally more intelligent and also their total intelligence was higher. But this was not the conclusion of the human judges. Problems like these are common in brain research. The researchers make false assumptions, and the outcome is considered a success when the bad assumptions are confirmed. Deficit of emotional intelligence is frequently apparent in people from the high society who have been raised with proper social norms. The people are polite and gentle, outright smooth, when interacting with the public. But their private behaviors are very different; the people may have never developed higher emotional intelligence. As a result, kings steal, cheat, rape, and murder just to have fun. In other areas of human behavior, people who were taught emotional intelligence only in school fail to understand and solve social problems. The learned habits may be good in some instances of social interactions, but can not produce consistent behaviors that are based on reason and emotional intelligence. When such a person feels personally affected, emotion can suppress habits and may lead to behaviors that are contrary to the taught principles. This would not happen if the person had naturally acquired higher emotional intelligence. The defective behavior is often manifested in aggressive males who work in the service sector. They are superficially polite, but can show absolutely outrageous behaviors when they are frustrated or feel wronged. These behaviors are so much more shocking when they are displayed by public figures. For example, a king who has been taught to be good to people may reduce taxes in good economic times, but may brutally enforce higher taxes and their collection when the king feels that his income is reduced. Lack of emotional intelligence results in his evil behaviors. In general, good scholastic intelligence can be acquired by any person. Experience shows that most people have surprisingly high ability to acquire skills, to employ knowledge, and to solve everyday problems. A low IQ is usually caused by neural damage or lack of cognitive stimulation during formative years. Decline of emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is the main reason behind poor judgment and behavior. Clinical findings reveal that emotional intelligence is universally low in a person who was severely abused in childhood. Psychotherapy can resolve the victim's traumatic memories and allow the person to live a good life. However, clinical work indicates that unresolved traumatic experiences block their integration into cognitive schemes. Until the original traumas are resolved, the person is unable to learn from her traumatic experiences and correctly solve problems that are contextually similar. Interestingly, it was unclear for a long time whether or not these abilities truly emerge after a successful therapy. Therapists do not comment on this issue or they believe that the patients are better off than they really are. The hope is that the subjects are doing fine after a successful treatment. Interestingly, no known clinical literature mentions that a successfully treated victim of severe childhood abuse stops believing in the supernatural. Religious beliefs persist, and religion often plays more important role in the life of the subject than ever before. The outcome indicates that emotional intelligence is not restored by resolving childhood traumas, and the most advanced neural circuits of emotional intelligence are not functional. Some people tend to associate scholastic and emotional intelligence with the left or right hemisphere of the brain. This association is incorrect. Both hemispheres are needed to produce either scholastic or emotional intelligence. When only one hemisphere is the main contributor to intelligence, as it happens in split-brain patients, the resulting intelligence is defective and does not reach the quality achievable in an intact brain. Another important aspect of intelligence is nurture versus nature. Children are born with a predisposition to develop good scholastic and emotional intelligence if the environment supports normal neuropsychological development. Neglect, abuse, poverty, lack of intellectual stimulation, and other negative influences may disrupt normal acquisition of intelligence. The affected subjects may suffer from global reduction in intelligence or may acquire intelligence asymmetrically, when scholastic and emotional intelligence have very different performance levels. Finally, it is time to redefine the labels used for intelligence. Since intelligence is a complex property, saying that someone is intelligent may not be very descriptive. The word "smart" might be a way to describe a person with a high IQ, and the expression "wise" would be reflective of a sound judgment. The label "intelligent" could then indicate that both IQ and EQ are high and equally well developed. SIGNS OF HIGH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Signs of high emotional intelligence are just as elusive as emotional intelligence is. It would be difficult to single out a few characteristics that are indicative of high EQ. The difficulty is given by the fact that even people with reduced emotional intelligence have some traits that are found in subjects with high intelligence. Overall, a person with a high EQ is average and is not socially prominent. You will not find him at the top of the society or at the top of the highest mountain. A high EQ prevents a person from spending all energy on one activity, such as sports, singing, math, or pursuit of various goals simply because the person longs to achieve the goals. A person with a high EQ is a generalist and leads a balanced life. There is time for work, duties, entertainment, and relaxation. The person's physical and mental well-being are of utmost importance. The behaviors are driven by real needs, and not by some arbitrarily set goals. A person with a high EQ may, similarly as thrill seekers with low EQ, go to various places and do various activities, but there is a qualitative difference. A person with a low EQ must reach the figurative peak, but a person with high EQ is fully content upon reaching the foothills and enjoying the peak from a safe distance. Being the fastest or the bravest or the most skilled or the most admired is not important to a person with a high EQ. Doing one's job well is important, but there are always other aspects to consider. One activity does not control the life of a person with a high EQ. Routines are generally avoided, as is compliance with non-critical schedules. Going to a social gathering is canceled if the person does not feel well. Going on vacation to an exotic land is canceled if it disrupts everything else. The same philosophy translates into purchases. There is no need to buy a $40,000 car when a $10,000 dollar vehicle is totally adequate. Likewise, a person with a high EQ only gets sufficient education to do one's job, but does not pursue exotic titles for the sole purpose of achieving social prestige or having more money while spending too much effort and time on the goal. The life of a person with a high EQ is balanced in every way. A person with a high EQ is a realist and correctly assesses one's strengths and weaknesses. The person uses the knowledge to prevent confrontation between one's weaknesses and demands of the environment. Certain activities are purposefully avoided because the outcome would not be good. By contrast, low emotional intelligence often leads to exaggerated optimism, curiosity, motivation, and unqualified self-confidence. SIGNS OF LOW EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Reduced emotional intelligence can be difficult to recognize. The reason for the difficulty is that many behaviors that reveal psychopathology and low emotional intelligence can also occur for justifiable reasons. Another problem is that low emotional intelligence is widespread and its symptoms are taken for normal behaviors. A person who grows up in a psychopathic family may find nothing abnormal in certain behaviors. The family gathers every Christmas, and no one questions the logic behind the custom. Men in the family wear useless strips of cloth (ties) attached to their necks, and it is considered normal. The family requires that everyone prays before a meal, and even this futile behavior is considered normal. Hence, social norms that manifest low emotional intelligence to a knowledgeable psychologist are not viewed as such by the society. The traditional definition that a psychopath acts against social norms does not apply. When everyone is a psychopath and behaves in ways that manifest reduced emotional intelligence, the behavior is considered normal. Objective symptoms of low emotional intelligence are these:
Another prominent indicator of low emotional intelligence is difficulty with quality. Depending on the degree of neuropsychological damage, a person may not be able to do quality work or recognize quality in products, artistic expressions, or services. The inability to do quality work is commonly accompanied by impatience and impulsive behaviors. In extreme cases, the subject may purposefully seek low-quality products, services, or relationships, and revel in them. Some individuals even modify a high quality product and essentially degrade it to make it compatible with their perception of beauty and quality. The poor results are often justified as being fun, exciting, challenging, or interesting. Subjects with low EQ tend to find each other and often form large teams of experts, workers, activists, or professionals. These people tend to share the mentality for impatience and sloppy work. Working fast and getting results quickly (regardless of quality, safety, or long-term reliability) is the unifying theme. The people look for shortcuts, simplifications, bending of rules, and other devices to avoid quality work. Doing something properly and responsibly seems to trigger an aversive reaction in such people, and they usually cannot cope with the ensuing mental struggle. Some subjects with this mentality have a strong belief that they need not do quality work if certain conditions apply. How these mental approaches work is truly striking: For example, there is a car accident. Two motorists stop to help. One is a man with a low EQ, and the other man has a normal EQ. The normal man gets his first aid kit and cleanses the wounds of the person injured in the accident. The emotionally dumb man sees the process and objects: "You do not have to disinfect the wounds. It is a waste of time." The other man says, "Disinfecting a wound is standard medical care. It should be done always." And the dumb subject replies, "You are no doctor. If you want to talk about proper treatment of a patient, you should first get a medical license." A related mentality is exhibited by criminals who are robbing a bank. They believe that they do not have to follow social rules, because they are already operating outside the law. As a consequence of this belief system, they leave the bank speeding, not signaling lane changes, not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks, running through red lights, driving in the wrong direction, etc. Naturally, they attract the attention of the police at the most inconvenient time. Instead of blending with the crowd, the robbers advertise their presence and identity. The gist of the above examples can occur in various environments, but the key issue is that the emotionally dumb man feels free not to do a quality job if he is not a professional, or when he perceives his work as illegal, or when he approaches the activity with the idea that he will only exert the minimum acceptable effort. With the same attitude, the dumb man also reacts to quality and responsibility in his personal life. He may believe that he does not need to put on the seat belt if he only drives within the city limits. Or he may believe that he does not have to stop at a red traffic light if he is familiar with the intersection. Similarly, the feeling of familiarity gives him a moral right to drive 50 mph in a residential area. Familiarity and previous experience reassure the man that his factually dangerous or reckless behavior is normal, acceptable, and proper. It always worked for him in the past, and the man sees no reason to change his behavior now. Another common trait of a man with a low EQ is his attitude toward minimizing and economizing. He only tends to meet minimum requirements and ignores safety margins or long-term reliability. He buys a prominently advertised One-Tonne Rope and believes that he can load it with one tonne. He refuses to acknowledge the fact that the actual rated load is only 950 kg and that he should not use any load higher than 750 kg to ensure sufficient safety margin. A frequent behavior of people with low emotional intelligence shows as an inability to handle very negative information. A woman is told that she has a life-threatening illness, and she rejects the doctor's findings. Instead of starting treatment, she is searching for a "second opinion" that would give her good news. With this mindset, she is an easy prey for unscrupulous practitioners who treat her serious condition, such as AIDS or cancer, with aspirin, diet, or hypnosis. They skillfully tell her what she wants to hear, and she is happy. And even if the treatment fails, she is incapable of accepting the harsh truth about her health. She still believes that by complying with inconsequential treatment regimens she can solve her serious problem. The same approach of avoidance is often chosen when solving technical issues. A man is told that his house has developed serious structural cracks and will require major repairs. The man does not want to hear and face the news. He paints over the cracks, plants flowers around the house, and covers the driveway with a concrete slab. His improvements have no effect on the structural integrity of the house, but this is how far he is able to go. He cannot attack the main problem head on. The only possibility that he will ever get rid of the problem is by removing the problem from his life. He may sell the house or he may have it torn down and a new house built from scratch. By contrast to these extreme cases of psychopathology, simple lack of understanding of or dedication to quality is not easy to recognize in highly functional people with reduced emotional intelligence, such as some doctors, engineers, or scientists. These individuals tend to pursue quality only in those aspects that are specifically required by their occupations. The professionals meet just the minimum requirements and are prone to do a sloppy job otherwise. Surprisingly, the experts are proud of their overall performance. For example, a surgeon whose patient dies may feel very pleased with his performance during the operation. He is unable to see that his great expertise has killed the patient. His interest is only in the procedure. Survival of the patient is not his problem. As far as he is concerned, he did his job, and being dead is the patient's flaw. Just as striking manifestation of pathology is shown by a surgeon who cannot "understand" the anger of a patient who discovers a forgotten scalpel inside his body. The doctor thinks, If the naive patient truly understood how difficult the operation was and how much expertise was required, the patient would have to excuse such a minor imperfection. The failure of people with reduced emotional intelligence to acknowledge the whole picture involves not just narrow focus on one aspect and ignorance of everything else, but also shows as an inability to process events by considering the past, the present, and the future. Most subjects only focus on the present and are unable to see the whole scope of events. For example, a person with low emotional intelligence learns that June was the rainiest month on record and, based on this information, dismisses the official claim that the year has been the driest since weather monitoring started. The person may think, How can this be the driest year? My basement is still wet. And how can this be the driest year when no month has been the driest? This kind of mentation hints that the subject is incapable of correctly drawing general conclusions from details and specific information. CONSEQUENCES OF LOW EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Reduced scholastic intelligence is usually not an issue, and a person can get along just fine when his IQ is a little lower than the IQ of his peers is. By contrast, a low EQ leads to very different effects. EQ tends to be not just a little lower, but dramatically lower in some people. They may have a high IQ, which allows them to get good jobs, but they totally fail in personal lives and relationships. The subjects tend to be dominated and misused. This is especially a problem for women, but men with low emotional intelligence like to dominate others. The physiological differences of gender-based intelligence are is explained in Dak's work. A fascinating property of reduced emotional intelligence (psychopathology) is that it can be both inclusive and exclusive. A woman may believe that her husband is cheating when he is faithful, or she may believe that he is faithful when he cheats. Similarly, a person may believe in nonexistent and baseless "facts", such as God, WMDs in Iraq, or guilt of an innocent murder suspect, but rejects tangible facts associated with global warming, looming economic crisis, or the inevitability of a military defeat in a losing war. Those who hold contrary opinions are often accused of being uninformed, unqualified, or pseudoscientific. The reason for the discourse is defective emotional reasoning of the thinker. In his understanding, he is right, and those who oppose him must be wrong and dumb. If the thinker had deficits in scholastic intelligence, his circuits of emotional intelligence would be able to acknowledged the problem. But when his emotional intelligence is affected, he fails to recognize the flaws in his reasoning and believes that he is right. Some people with low emotional intelligence become machines. They live for the pursuit of a goal and for the satisfaction of their intellectual curiosity, but ignore their somatic and emotional needs. An example is a servant who believes that his purpose in life is to satisfy the needs of his king. Another example is a theoretical physicist who believes that the only thing that matters in life is the discovery of the secrets of the universe. The social impacts of low emotional intelligence can be profound:
A person with a high EQ and a low IQ may seem like a loser in a society that is mentally skewed the other way. He does not get vaccinated every winter. He suffers through illnesses. He does not take a pill to relieve some symptom, but lives with the pain. He does not drive a car, but walks and strains his body. He is obviously a loser in every way. High IQ is so much superior than EQ is. Where would humanity be if we did not have high IQ? We would still be killing each other with bows and arrows. Thanks to high IQ, we can now kill other people with smart warheads just by pushing a button. Long live high IQ! CONSEQUENCES OF LOW SCHOLASTIC INTELLIGENCE Scholastic intelligence gives a person insight and the ability to solve diverse problems. In addition, scholastic intelligence focuses attention, promotes curiosity, and acts as a magnifier of the driving cognitive forces that are behind these abilities. Reduced IQ is particularly noticeable in math, statistics, accounting, scientific disciplines, software engineering, aerospace, medicine, chemistry, and genetic research. A person with a low IQ would probably have a problem becoming good in these disciplines, but not always. Some people are able to offset their reduced IQ with improved EQ and compensatory approaches. For example, a person with a low IQ may not be able to mathematically solve differential equations, but may employ a graphical method to get an approximate result. People with low IQ and high EQ are often capable of acquiring deep factual understanding of physical or social phenomena, while people with high IQ and low EQ may fail to comprehend the deeper meaning of the scholastically obtained results. A person who loses scholastic intelligence in adulthood because of a traumatic brain injury may develop depression and may lose interest in solving problems. This depression is of a different type than the depression affecting adults severely abused in childhood. A man with lesions to neural systems of scholastic intelligence is disappointed and frustrated that he cannon do what used to be automatic mental activity in the past. After many attempts that produce no results, the man may give up trying. He is not truly depressed. He can be happy, but is not excessively curious or driven to do mentally challenging things for fun. However, good motivation to do things and to solve problems can overcome the deficit in scholastic intelligence. If an activity has a perceived purpose or is found emotionally rewarding, the man can solve problems very well and even superbly. But the preferred approaches to problem solving will likely be different than those taken by a man with a high IQ and low EQ. By contrast to this form of depression, a victim of severe childhood abuse tends to develop deep depression that manifests no interest in living. She is neither content nor driven to change her mental disposition. The person becomes largely indifferent to the happenings in the outside world or in one's mind, and focuses on one's physical needs. This is the nature of somatization. LACK OF INTELLIGENT HABITS The above consequences of low emotional intelligence show that emotional intelligence is needed to prevent psychopathology when deciding newly encountered issues. When emotional intelligence is lacking, emotional habits control human behavior. Habits reflect cumulative life experiences and develop under the influence of the environment or are shaped by one's thoughts. When emotional intelligence is mostly engaged, also habits shaped by one's own thoughts are good. But when emotional intelligence is low or is activated rarely, habits produced by one's thinking reflect deficits. Thus, a person can have a blend of good and bad habits. A child who grows up in an environment with plenty of bad habits may easily overcome them if his emotional intelligence is high and he is able to differentiate right from wrong. In theory, a child whose parents smoke may not become a smoker thanks to his good emotional intelligence. Thanks to environmental influences, even a person with poor emotional intelligence may exhibit good handling of simple social and personal issues that are done habitually. Surprisingly, some people with very high IQ and education, but usually with poor EQ, are able to solve very complex technical problems, but fail to understand simple technical challenges. The subjects have noticeable deficits in their habitual responses. Since simple problems are normally handled by habits, higher intelligence (either scholastic or emotional) is not activated when habits are supposed to be good enough to negotiate easy tasks. The practical impact is that some experts, doctors, scientists, engineers, researchers, economists, or politicians grossly misunderstand basic relationships in scholastic areas. What the lack of good habits does to human behavior is best explained on examples.
BELIEF-BASED REASONING Belief-based reasoning is a cognitive deficit produced by several factors. An important aspect of belief-based reasoning is dramatic reduction in emotional intelligence. A second factor is noticeably reduced IQ. This may be a selective and intermittent deficit, and may be found even in university professors. A third factor is loss of touch with reality. The affected subject often fails to notice a discrepancy between belief and reality. If such discrepancy is pointed out by others, the subject tends to ignore it, minimize it, reject it as unfounded, or refuse any discussion about it. In extreme cases, the subject finds criminal any statement that is contrary to his belief. This pathological intolerance forms the backbone of racism, perversion, sedition, and blasphemy laws. The underlying cause is pathology of the brain. As in the case of schizophrenia, facts, reason, and science are irrelevant. The brain-damaged person has an internal reference of reality in his mind, and any attempts to challenge his beliefs are likely to fail. The problem is not caused by poor education, but by the operating mode of the surviving mind. Belief-based reasoning is manifested in people's attitudes toward complex or controversial issues. A man with low EQ who relies on his beliefs may say:
THE QUEST FOR INTELLIGENCE Intelligence, similarly as consciousness, has been giving scientists headaches for some time. The overall intelligence has been very difficult to define. No definition to date seems to capture all behavioral aspects. Emotional intelligence further complicates the problem. It is unclear to scholars which parts of the brain produce emotional intelligence, and how this faculty interacts with emotion and reason. Any sensible solution to the conundrum will require thorough understanding of the function and cognitive architecture of the human mind. Until these issues become understood by scientists, many false claims are likely to be made about intelligence. For example, Ray Kurzweil, a leading American thinker, expects that machines implanted in people's brains will improve intelligence [4]. Maybe so. A man who voluntarily decides to have a machine implanted in his brain would almost certainly benefit because having some machine-made intelligence is better than having none of his own. The key problem of the proposed approach to boosting intelligence with a smart machine is that the total intelligence quotient TQ = IQ x EQ. Or, expressed in words, intelligent = smart x wise. IQ has values from 0 to about 200 in the most capable people and reflects how smart a person is. By contrast, the range of emotional intelligence can acquire negative values and indicates how wise a person is. The physiology of negative intelligence is explained in Dak's book. Hence, the formula for TQ reveals that total intelligence cannot be increased by increasing IQ with the help of artificial intelligence produced by machines. The reason is that psychopathology (willingness to have machines implanted in one's brain) inherently has negative values. Boosting the man's IQ will only make the recipient's total intelligence more negative and turn him into a better psychopath. NATURE AND NURTURE OF INTELLIGENCE Since ancient times, humans have been trying to find out whether nature or nurture determines intelligence. The answer lies somewhere in the middle. Humans are born with a predisposition for having normal human level of intelligence, and environmental stimuli determine which aspects of intelligence become developed, and which fail to materialize. The mechanism is similar to our physical abilities. All humans have some average level of speed and strength, and training after birth determines how this potential is fulfilled. But no person can run at 25 miles (40 km) per hour, and no person can lift 2000 pounds (1000 kg) of weight. Leading athletes are only seconds apart when running the marathon, and getting to the finish in 95% of the winner's time is humanly impossible. By contrast, most land mammals can run at least twice faster than humans can, and a bear has 10 times more strength per unit of weight than humans have. The numbers indicate that physical abilities of all healthy people are commensurable at birth, and so is their intelligence. Environment affects not just the development of the cognitive mind, but also has major effect on skills and other unconscious faculties. It is known that very young children can produce about 200 sounds. But only those sounds that are encouraged by the environment survive and become part of the vocabulary. Sounds that are not fully mastered before the age of about 15 years usually cannot be learned well in adulthood when studying a second language. Another common problem is inability to learn language if the learning starts late, after about the seventh year. In addition to these individual skills, intelligence can become reflective of a certain lifestyle. An Indian living in the Amazon may never be able to fully fit in the jungle of a modern city, and city people who relocate to the Amazon may never acquire the abilities, knowledge, and mentality of the aborigines. So, when we try to find out which of these two populations is more intelligent, we realize that tests cannot accomplish the goal because there is no way to compare the different expressions of intelligence. This discourse indicates that intelligence is shaped by personal life experiences and is environment-specific. As for the influence of heredity on intelligence, this topic is difficult to study. The problem is that even identical twins who are separated at birth are not immune to environmental influences during intrauterine development. Basic biological functions become prominent during the second trimester, and significant cognitive abilities exist during the third trimester. When twins are born, they have already spent several months in the same environment and have received identical environmental stimuli. Even if separation takes place at birth, the previous experiences are used by the mind to interpret any new experiences. This means that the initial encounters with the world are never erased and continue influencing intelligence and cognition throughout life. Psychologists have recognized that stimulation of the brain is what determines intelligence. Although this effect is most noticeable during maturation of the brain, even adults who continue to stimulate their minds keep their intelligence at high levels. Scholastic intelligence is particularly helped by increased demands on the brain. A person who grows up in Switzerland usually learns to speak German, French, Italian, and even English, because the environment provides the stimuli. A person who grows up in the arctic learns to differentiate dozens of types of snow because survival and culture provide the stimuli. Similarly, an art expert is capable of recognizing whether or not a painting is genuine or is a fake. An average person might be unable to make any classification of the painting, but the expert has paid attention to detail and is well familiar with the painter's techniques and brush strokes. Another example is juggling. An expert does it automatically, but a novice encounters countless problems with even the simplest movements. The same rules apply to cognitive abilities, such as math. Practice stimulates not only the buildup of skills, but also improves the overall intelligence in the field of interest. Even tasks that have never been tried may be solvable by means of the acquired faculties. This is so because the brain not only solves the problem at hand, but also looks at other possible approaches and methods to master the topic. The broad exploration of the issue helps build faculties that are applicable even elsewhere. For example, a mathematician usually plays chess well, although he may be new to the game. Interestingly, most of these broader explorations are not specifically requested by the conscious mind; they are self-initiated by the problem-solving faculties of the brain. As for emotional intelligence, its development depends on environmental stimuli as human interactions force the mind to negotiate personal needs and social expectations. The pains and rewards of life together with self-reflection and conscience allow a man to promote his health, well-being, personal satisfaction with oneself, and acceptance by the society. By contrast, a person who learns that she is unworthy, that no one cares, and that she has to fight to meet her basic personal needs, will dissociate and diminish her level of emotional intelligence. An example is a woman who becomes a rock climber and disregards the significant dangers of her hobby. Even more telling is the appearance of her hands. She has broken nails and scraped skin, and yet she is ready to go out and conquer another rock. She has lost contact with her body, abuses it, and is incapable of recognizing the harm she does to herself. Another example is provided by a person who has a very demanding job. She is unable to handle the stress and dissociates from the most advanced faculties of her emotional intelligence. At some point, the neural dissociation reaches an equilibrium and becomes proportional to the level of the stress. The surviving mind is forced to experience the harsh facts of life because no more neural splitting is possible. Even with her brain damaged and less sensitive to stress, the person does not feel happy and resorts to medications, smoking, alcohol, or drugs to reduce her mental pain. The cumulative effects of the chemicals and the stress of the job lead to further, more gradual loss of neural circuits of emotional intelligence. In turn, reduction of emotional intelligence promotes reduced care about self, significant others, and the society in general. Acquisition of psychosomatic illnesses is guaranteed with such a lifestyle. THE PHYSICS OF INTELLIGENCE It is well known that humans are intelligent because they have large brains. Also other mammals with large brains tend to have high intelligence relative to smaller animals. The apes, dolphins, and dogs are known to be fairly intelligent. But only humans and large apes are intelligent enough to recognize themselves in the mirror. A dog or a big cat cannot do it. This human ability seems to reflect higher intelligence, but also could be indicative of higher functional organization of the brain. Some animals, such as dogs, have frontal lobes that resemble those of humans, but the canine frontal lobes may have not fully matured from the evolutionary perspective and may be missing higher degree of connectivity that only exists in man and great apes. Higher connectivity of frontal lobes is also missing in children. The human brain only becomes fully developed in adulthood. Hence, connectivity could be the main reason for the much more advanced mental abilities of the homo sapiens species relative to other animals. Nevertheless, there are other factors that shape intelligence. Some animals with relatively small brains, such as raven or weasel have remarkable mental faculties. On the other hand, animals with huge brains, including elephant and whale, are not dramatically smarter. These examples suggest that organization of the brain, and not necessarily the total volume, is more important for intelligence. This idea is manifested even in humans. There are no statistically significant differences between the intelligence of men and women [2], even though the female brain is about 10% smaller than the male brain is [1]. The female brain seems to have the same amount of neurons as the male brain has, but the neurons are apparently packed more densely to fit into a smaller cranium [2]. How far this downscaling can be pushed is not clear. However, even hominids with small brains, such as the Homo floresiensis with mere 380 cm3 of cranial volume, were able to produce tools that are comparable to those of ancient humans. By contrast, the cranial volume of a modern man is 1350 cm3 [3]. The cranial volumetric ratio of these two species is 3.55. The sophistication of the tools made by the Homo floresiensis suggests high intelligence, but how good was his real intelligence? Could it have been comparable to that of modern humans? Most scholars will be highly skeptical and will say, "No way." But Dak's discoveries about the cognitive architecture, function, and performance of the human brain lead to a resounding yes! The Homo floresiensis could have been just as smart. Human IQ is considered to be normal if it falls between 90% and 110% of the average intelligence. Psychological and neuroanatomical studies of Dak indicate that even a small fraction of the human brain volume is capable of producing very high intelligence. Even if the volume of the human brain were 5 times smaller, the average intelligence could theoretically reach 90 percent in a standard IQ test. This claim is unbelievable and outrageous, but agrees with the physiology of the human brain. If the human brain were 3 to 4 times smaller, its intelligence could theoretically be just as good as the intelligence of the whole human brain. Such a small, hypothetical brain would require to shed some neural structures and to change its internal connections to achieve the purported intelligence in a small volume. The reason for such a possibility is that there is redundancy in the human brain. Certain brain systems are not engaged at all times. The redundant structures do not significantly improve the overall intelligence, but allow the brain to function more effectively. Similarly, the redundant structures can be recruited to support mental operations after a brain injury. A function that would have otherwise been lost can in some cases be compensated for by the redundant neural systems. This property of the brain indicates that intelligence is not everything. Ability of the human brain to support the organism after major brain damage is just as important. INTELLIGENT HANKY PANKY Some time ago, researchers studying artificial intelligence came up with a consensus that an intelligent computer should be able to communicate with humans without being identified as a machine. Many tests to this end have been performed with a computer or a real person in one room, and a human test subject sitting at a computer terminal in another room. The performance of computer programmers has been getting better, and computers have been acquiring broader communication repertoire, but no computer has passed this test in the long run. How difficult is it to tell whether a real person or a computer generates the responses in the other room? Before this issue is explored in detail, it is useful to consider common responses we get when we call a big corporation. Our telephone call is handled by a person or by a computer. After dialing the corporate number, this is what typically happens when the call is answered by a person: "Hello? Hello? Hello?" "Worldwide Communications." "Good morning. How Can I help you? "Worldwide Communications. Hold the line, please." "Hello. Worldwide Communications." "Good morning. Worldwide Communications." "Worldwide Communications. This is Sandra. May I help you?" "Good Day. Worldwide Communications. How can I help you?" By contrast, when our call is handled by an answering machine or by a computer, the usual responses are these: "Worldwide Communications. All operators are currently busy. Please, wait for …" "Worldwide Communications. Please, select an option from the following menu … "Worldwide Communications. This is a recorded message." "The number you have called …" "We are sorry. It is not necessary to dial a one when calling this number." "For English, press one. Para Español oprima el … "This is Worldwide Communications. We do appreciate your business …" "We are Worldwide Communications. Please, state your question. How can I help you?" "You have reached Worldwide Communications. I am Albert. Please, speak clearly …" The linguistic patterns hint that real people speak in first person and process issues from personal perspectives. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes. People can be curious, happy, forgetful or rude. Real people have local customs, accents, dialects, and vocabulary. Another property, which is not apparent from the announcements, is that people exhibit correct turn-taking rules in dialogues. The turn-taking signals are usually transmitted through the tone or the timing of voice. In stark contrast, recorded messages are typically impersonal or are cast in the plural. The caller is not addressed directly, and the answering machine does not introduce itself. The messages are one-sided and with no expectation of interaction beyond a simple selection of an option. Recorded messages give instructions to properly speak in advance, but people only ask for repetition of misunderstood words after the fact. Computers are more sophisticated than simple recording machines are. A good computer program is capable of more involved interactions, but does not shake off its impersonal approach. The singular and the plural are often mixed, and it is evident that the computer is not an entity that perceives its central importance in the dialogue. A computer may speak about the company in plural, and then may invite questions from a seemingly egocentric viewpoint. Computer programs tend to produce instructions that are not necessary during normal person-to-person interactions. Examples of these instructions are given above: "Please, state your question" and "Please, speak clearly." If man made such requests, he would be considered abnormal. To appear natural, some computers introduce themselves by names, but this fact does not make the communication sound any more human. The names are universally weird, uncommon, or too fanciful to appear normal. Perhaps the worst problem of computers is that they speak in monotone. No matter what happens, computers preserve their rigid attitudes. Another human factor missing in computers is unnecessary activity. Man can include a pause when he thinks, and he also responds to his physiological responses in the form of coughing, sneezing, or heavy breathing. Real persons use filler words, emotional words, repeated words, or are searching for appropriate words to correctly describe feelings. Computers do not react this way. In addition, computers are unable to wait. Computers either wait forever or demand an answer prematurely. This inability reflects lack of personal experience (of the programmers) with human cognitive processes. So, how difficult is it to determine whether a computer or a person generates answers at a distant terminal? If you tried to win the contest by employing scholastic logic and knowledge, the computer might do pretty well for a while. However, the simplest way to identify that a computer is behind the answers is to employ emotional intelligence. No computer is able to properly handle this kind of questioning; a computer can only respond well to cold reason. Below are a few dialogues between a test subject Richard and a computer, and between Richard and a real person Sarah. Keep in mind that Richard only communicates through written messages of a computer terminal. A way to expose a computer quickly is to use slang or uncommon expressions. Test subject: Howdy? Computer: I am sorry. I do not understand the question. Real Person: Hi. Pleased to meet you. In a more traditional introduction, the exchange may look like this: Test subject: Hi. How are you doing? Computer: Hello. I am doing fine. Real Person: Hi. I'm doing fine. My name is Sarah. What's yours? The exchange with the computer is peculiar because neither side introduces itself, and the computer does not ask the test subject how he is doing. The lame reply is suspicious, but does not prove that a computer answered. Also a human subject, who is improperly instructed or has no personal interest in the communication, might answer the question factually, but might focus all her attention on the process, rather than on socializing. A typical human response is given by Sarah. She introduces herself, uses contractions, and shows interest in the person at the other terminal. After the initial contact, Richard can employ many tricks to recognize a computer: Test subject: I am Richard. Sarah, you look ugly. Computer: I am sorry. Real Person: How do you know, Rich man? In this exchange, the computer has no "idea" what should be the proper response. The reply is logical, but the computer is unable to "conclude" that the test subject cannot see the responder in the other room. Most likely, the computer has not been programmed to handle such an issue. The computer lacks the ability to "analyze" broader context and only seeks logical associations within the immediate statement. But the same comment of Richard appears very different to a real person. Being considered pretty or ugly is important to humans, and especially to women. Richard's comment cannot be answered just with a yes or no, or with an apology. Sarah handles the comment well and replies in a typically human way. She manifests factual and emotional understanding of the question, plays with words, teases the test subject, and belittles him. She is paying back the courtesy. A different trick employed by the test subject could be this: Test subject: I'm Richard. Pleasure to meet you. I've been thinking of you a lot lately. Computer: That is very nice of you, Richard. Real Person: Thinking of me? You don't even know me. The computer answers logically, but does not "know" that Richard could not have been thinking of "her", because they just met. Similarly as in the previous case, the computer is unable to make logical associations that lie outside the immediate sphere of the discussion. A second giveaway is that the computer uses Richard's name. This is absolutely unnecessary, because the communicating parties know who they are and the name serves no purpose in this case. A different way to expose a computer is to ask very personal questions. Test subject: I am Richard. How is your sex life? Computer: My sex life is good. Real Person: This is an inappropriate question. In this exchange, the machine manifests no feelings and answers logically. By contrast, Sarah is not pleased by the question and sets a norm of conduct. The test subject can easily tell who is who. The computer programmers have been beaten by Richard and are now busy to instruct the computer to give human-like answers to very personal questions. But this countermeasure is not enough to win the contest. Test Subject: They say that you have pretty legs. Computer: This is an inappropriate comment. Real Person: Who are they? The computer is dumb and does not understand the expression. It is not just a comment, but also a question and a challenge. The focus of the comment is "they", and not Sarah's legs. The computer is unable to generate a sensible answer to the open-ended comment. A question mark at the end of a sentence would normally inform the computer whether or not a statement is a question. Answering a standard question is relatively easy for a computer (programmer), but questions that do not follow the standard pattern and are only implied through context are not answered correctly. Sarah, on the other hand, is aware that Richard is testing her, and she does not feel that the question is inappropriate. She intuitively senses that the real logical issue is "they", and she also understands that the reference to her legs is a social expression, a signal that she is attractive as a female. Both these issues fall within the sphere of emotional intelligence. Sarah answers logically and with some curiosity. Her unconscious mind wants to find out what idea is Richard trying to convey. Sarah understands that the comment is not genuine, and yet she is pleased by the flattery. Her human-like reply contrasts the response of the computer. A computer poorly deals with personal issues. The generated answers are cumbersome and reflect poor discernment of nuances in meaning. This is why the subject's comments or contemplation may lead to incorrect responses by the computer. The problem is evident in the following dialogue. Test Subject: I don't know what to ask you next. Computer: Yes. Real Person: Well, can I ask you a question? Are you a computer? The answer of the machine is logically correct, but the fact that the test subject is at a loss is obvious to every human being. The fact does not need confirmation. Furthermore, the "curiosity" of the computer stops after giving the answer. By contrast, Sarah uses the opportunity to actively engage in the dialogue and learn more about the subject. She might use the moment to satisfy her curiosity, which her question indicates, or she might tease Richard with a comment, such as "Obviously, you don't." A computer would be incapable of such spontaneous and witty reactions. A computer is passive, does not exhibit curiosity, and does not express feelings. If programmers tried to simulate these human traits, the dialogues could look like this: Test Subject: I am not sure if you will like the next question. Computer: Obviously, you are not sure. Real Person: Is it one of those? No, I won't like it a bit. Test Subject: I am not sure if you will like the next question. Computer: Well, you might ask someone for an advice. Real Person: Type it in, and we shall see. Test Subject: Can I talk with you about my dog? Computer: Naturally, that is what I am here for. Real Person: You have a dog? I have one, too. A six-month-old collie. Since the dumb computer does not think and understand, the first attempt to look human is a failure. Although the computer uses the human expression "obviously", the reply as a whole delivers no cognitive meaning, support, or solution. The whole statement is unnecessary and could be replaced by silence. The second dialogue uses the human-like "well", but the suggestion does not logically match the overall context. The issue is not whether or not someone else will like the question, but whether Sarah will. The potential third party is nonexistent in this scenario, and even if there were someone to ask, it is doubtful that asking the person would be fruitful. The issue is that the question is not a "logical question", but a comment and a personal opinion. Interestingly, Sarah does not reply to the question verbally and directly, but behaviorally. She skips the expected reply and instructs Richard what to do; she tells him to type in his question. A computer would probably be unable to understand Sarah's answer because the only expressions the computer can recognize might be "yes" or "no" or "sure." Sarah's reply to the question about a dog is not logical. Sarah is clearly overwhelmed by emotion. She does not respond to the question, but generates questions of her own. Again, she responds behaviorally, rather than verbally. In her understanding, the verbal meaning of the question is of no consequence, but the fact that Richard has a dog is emotionally important to her. The emotional aspects of the question are immediately apparent to a human being, but are not recognized by a computer. Amazingly, Sarah, who is aware of the temporal aspects of the dialogue and knows who said what and when, uses an incomplete sentence "I have one, too." This ability cannot be successfully programmed into computers. Lack of emotional intelligence also makes a computer unable to "interpret" the meaning of ambiguous inquiries. This deficit is manifested in the next example. Test Subject: Can I invite you to dinner when we finish here? Computer: Thank you, Richard. My mouth already waters. Real Person: Thank you, but I already have a boyfriend. Once again, computer programmers are busy to handle this challenge. When a man invites a woman to a dinner, he is asking her for a date. The computer must be able to reply correctly. The next time, the computer is ready to handle questions of this type. Test Subject: We are done! We'll discuss the results in an hour. Can I take you to lunch? Computer: Thank you, but I already have a boyfriend. Real Person: Yes, let's take a lunch break. See you in a minute. Again, the computer failed to associate the broader context with the immediate words. Sarah understands the invitation in the overall context and believes that there is nothing more behind the offer. Nevertheless, she probably remains cautious; she knows men. Another source of difficulties for a computer is sarcasm. A computer (programmer) is easily fooled when words convey one fact and the overall context signals another. Test Subject: Sarah, I've been impressed by your answers. How have you become this smart? Computer: I have been studying since I was little. Real Person: Get out of here! The computer does not sense sarcasm, does not "realize" that the answers were all wrong, and gives a simple factual reply. By contrast, Sarah understands that she did nothing extraordinary. She perceives the comment as a flattery with implied sexual connotation. Sexual connotation in this case means "gender-related." Virtually every time a man says something nice about a woman, she takes the comment with the understanding that the man finds her attractive. Getting around this unconscious association of emotional nature is next to impossible. In this scientific experiment, Sarah logically knows that the comment is not genuine, but her unconscious mind, which is unable to recognize genuine praise from a fake one, is pleased and signals the pleasure to the conscious mind. Concurrently, Sarah feels embarrassed by the flattery. She handles her emotional reaction with a verbal dismissal, but with happiness and factual acceptance of the message. The given examples reveal the striking differences between the intelligence of people and the responses of machines. Machines (and their programmers) use cold reason and logical associations within a given topic. This reasoning mode is akin to the scholastic intelligence of humans. From the viewpoint of a computer or scholastic intelligence, all associations (even procedures, which have sequences and temporal span) are eternal and "timeless" logical facts. When and how they occur is "considered" irrelevant by a computer or scholastic intelligence. The broader context of one's life experiences is only handled by emotional intelligence. It is tracking biographical events in time and space, and supplies the mind with broad contextual understanding of technical, social, and personal matters. Emotional intelligence knows what happened earlier and is able to detect a potential logical association between the past and the present happenings. Emotional habits and intelligence take into account physiological drives, emotional state of the mind, somatic responses, sex drive, and gender orientation. Unlike scholastic abilities, emotional habits and emotional intelligence allow the human organism to interact with social and physical effects of the environment. This ability only exists in living things and is not achievable in machines. For further related information, visit the web page "Brain vs Computer." INTELLIGENCE IS NOT ENOUGH Intelligence is an important ability that allows a person to negotiate the challenges of life. But intelligence alone is insufficient to make the human organism fully functional. Somatic health and health of the peripheral nervous system are essential for optimum mental functioning. A man with frequent shooting pain in the body or severe attacks or arthritis can have IQ and EQ of 200 each, and he will not be able to function normally. As a minimum, the illnesses will act as distractors. A similar problem exists when a person has impaired basic cognitive drives, such as attention, curiosity, emotion, joy, or power of will. Traumatic brain injuries or dissociative disorders may affect any of these drives and may disrupt the ability to stay focused, to continuously perceive biographical events, to properly exercise divided attention, to enjoy an activity, to socialize, to overcome frustration and difficulties, to engage in activities spontaneously, or to project optimism, contentment, and enjoyment to the outside world. Also the physiology of these mental states is explained in Dak's work. REFERENCES [1] Renato M.E. Sabbatini, Ph.D. Are There Differences between the Brains of Males and Females? Retrieved November 16, 2008 from http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html [2] Diane F. Halpern. Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 2000. [3] Ebu Gogo - Homo floresiensis. Retrieved November 16, 2008 from http://www.ecotao.comholism/hu-flor.html [4] Helen Briggs (February 16, 2008). Machines 'to match man by 2029' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7248875.stm | |
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