Intelligence and Free Association: A conversation by Phoenix and Vanessa

PM: I personally think that philosophical intelligence is closer to artistic ability than are physical abilities. Just in terms of its subjective nature, and also because of less of a biological implication.

VM: Yeah, philosophical intelligence is also multi-faceted. In many ways, it’s parallel to the analogy between running and basketball. Running, let’s say sprinting in this case, is very easily measurable. But basketball has so many components to it, and on top of that it's a team sport. So with all those dimensions, and the team aspect to it, how can the excellence of any given individual be conceptualized? I think that word “multi-faceted” really captures it. And noticing the strengths and weaknesses of each player is part of building a good team, as well as healthy for each team member’s personal growth.

I was giving a lot of thought to free association in an Intrinsic Motivation Paradigm (IMP), as well as unschooled self-direction. I just got back from a local community garden, and I was thinking about the amount of knowledge and skill that it takes to put something like that together. I have some of those skills, but definitely not all of them. I definitely know next to nothing about growing plants. And I’m going there to be out of my house, aligned with my values, and just to be away from books and around people. So in those moments, I think about “skills”: practical skills, emotional skills, mental skills, and the very idea of a “skill” or a “strength.” I was thinking that theorizing about intelligence has to do with how we categorize and identify the facets of these various skills. And who we decide to be around has a lot to do with how we want to grow. At the current moment, I want to grow more in tangible experiences. I also want to get my conversational wit and playfulness back. It is coming, definitely. I’ve been meeting more playful people everyday. At times, there are people who are much more social than I am, and I’ve been hypothesizing lately that it’s because they are a lot more in touch with the present moment than I feel like being at the time. I think when people get together and talk about their immediate environment, or play with their immediate environment, they can connect pretty easily. I’m not always like that, and I don’t want to be like that all the time. But when I do, I dance. That’s why I love dancing. I was thinking about learning and intelligence at salsa night, where one of the salsa teachers, Marvin, is such a fun and expressive dancer. I’d say the same about myself, but he knows the steps to salsa and cumbia and all of that, which I don’t. And that allows him to do the partner dancing which has all kinds of levels to learn. So it’s making me want to learn those steps, and show up early enough so I can actually take the classes. I usually just freestyle and dance alone. I have no thesis here, I’m just exploring the various aspects of intelligence and socializing. There are heights in all of these mental, emotional, and practical skills. And among these heights, there are even more distinctions to explore. I have a friend who’s a brilliant metaphorical thinker and community organizer. They originated and co-created the image below. I’m honored to have helped out in the beginning phases! How much intelligence went into this image? Which aspects of each person were highlighted, strengthened, challenged in the process?

And thinking more broadly, how can we self-assess and other-assess so that we can create good-ass times together? DJs and MCs collaborate for their different strengths. It’s all so multi-faceted. Self-assessment and a growth mindset helps us bring it all together in an IMP.

PM: I mean, I could train all day and night, and I still wouldn't be as capable in basketball as Lebron James. Are there biological advantages within analytical thought?

VM: I’d say so! I think we all have pre-dispositions. My brother and I are very similar and very different. We’re both systems thinkers, but in very different ways. He loves graphics and visual systems. That’s not to say that he doesn’t also care about emotional systems, because he cares about and excels in that too. But it’s very evident that his mind is geared towards the sensory. Mine is much more geared towards the abstract. If it weren’t for my dedication to the IMP, I would have been a mathematician or a philosopher of language. But I know that I am very much drawn towards a mixture of non-visual abstraction, and all the other things that we talk about in this book. The brain is very much the foundation of the mind, and the way that our neurons fire differ so much from one another, as a result of so many factors: genes, experiences, trauma, and more, is key to our thought patterns and content. We can also take psychoactive drugs that alter our neural connections. The knowledge that we have about mind and brain can help each of us grow in the way that we want to. I know that I can improve a lot in navigating a city. How do I do that? By putting intention into it. By asking for support, by looking online. So our biological predispositions shouldn’t ever constrain us to what we think is possible for ourselves. I will never run as fast as a gold medalist, but, one, that’s not important to me, and, two, I can always improve my personal record. I personally try to improve on what is (1) enjoyable for me, and (2) useful for community and collective liberation. If I’m not happy, I have to stop and think about what I need to change. I think about who I should associate with or dissociate from so that I can be satisfied. Sometimes I’m all-out book nerd, sometimes I’m party animal, sometimes I’m listener, helper, support person. I can see facets of all those things in my parents, grandmas, and great-grandma. I’m not constrained to that, though. A lot of it is socialized, subconsciously or consciously.

PM: Also because the best endurance runner is, for the most part, the best endurance runner. The person was the fastest, or ran for the longest amount of time, but how do you gauge what is or isn't a philosophical thought, and how do you gauge just how deep of a it thought is?

VM: I think that there are levels of complexity. Some things are more complex than others. For instance, rhythms. Polyrhythms are much harder to play than a single rhythm. Polyrhythms that are evenly divisible, such as 2 and 4, are much easier to play than 2 and 7. When it comes to artistry, you can create profound and touching music that is based on a simple rhythm. So that multi-dimensionality of artistry or conceptual thought is inescapable. But it’s very clear that polyrhythms have more components than single rhythms. I can definitely say that there are drummers that have a lot more depth to their drumming than I do. Is it still possible for me to make a rhythm that gets people dancing just as much as the drummer capable of the greatest complexity? Sure! But that complexity capacity is there nonetheless. Is it always the best or most important thing? Probably not. So questions of what’s worthwhile or intrinsically valuable are coming up in this question of intelligence.

When I think “what is philosophical thought?” I come up with something like this: moral philosophy has to do with questions about what is justified, or what is worthwhile, okay, valuable, or good. There are other kinds of philosophical thought, and I haven’t really ever pinned down what word means for me outside of thinking about what’s good and worthwhile.

PM: Regardless of that, I think that because intelligence is just such a general term, the idea that all people have the same level of intelligence is moreso about the difference types of intelligence that exist at varying degrees. Its true that many people won't attempt to think analytically, but if they're very emotionally understanding and empathic to human beings in a multitude of situations, what does that say about their intelligence. At least to me, empathy is an intelligent trait.

VM: Empathy is definitely a trait of intelligence. And like all of the facets of intelligence, it’s also a skill. I agree that it’s probably the most important to cultivate, and/or the least acknowledged area of intelligence in this society. We see all this emphasis on STEM, which mostly just has to do with Extrinsic Motivation Paradigm (EMP) survival and “careers,” but there is very little emphasis placed on emotional well-being, which is why compulsory education is so very rarely questioned. Our emotional wellness is the first and last thing that we should be on our minds as social thinkers. It’s the foundation and the “goal”. But EMP thought will push that aside in an infinite number of ways.

So yes, empathy and self-love are definitely central what I argue for in this social philosophy. The IMP is and should be all about that.