How to Increase Fluid Intelligence (Gf)
(CCO) photo by Krzysztof Niewolny — cropped and modified by Larry Neal Gowdy
Can you describe how a spider moves? Most people cannot describe how a spider moves.
Copyright ©2023 - August 13, 2023
Can fluid intelligence be increased? Yes, of course it can. Can fluid intelligence be increased as an adult? Yes, of course it can. Nevertheless, just because a thing is possible, it does not infer nor mandate that it will happen.
Within a group that has an interest in high IQ (as also mentioned in Structure Thinking To Become More Logical), an individual asked if fluid intelligence (Gf) can be improved as an adult. The individual also asked how to increase fluid intelligence (Gf). The answers given to the individual were a blend of yeses and nos, all of which were based upon what the individuals had memorized in schools, memorized from books, memorized from articles, and imaginatively invented. None of the answers were based upon physics, nor upon firsthand experience, nor upon the individuals' own self-thinking. In other words, all of the 'high IQ' answers were imaginary.
First Know What 'Fluid Intelligence' Is Supposed to Mean
Before saying yes or no to a topic, the first question is to ask if the speaker knows what the topic is.
As the many histories write (referencing Hebb and Cattell: The Genesis of the Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence by Richard E. Brown ©2016), Raymond Cattell invented the idea of fluid intelligence (Gf) somewhere between around 1940 to 1963. As the histories also write, Cattell copied/renamed some, much, or all of Donald O. Hebb's theory of a type A and type B intelligence. The reported idea is that Cattell's general intelligence (G) has two general variables; [1] fluid intelligence (Gf) and [2] crystallized intelligence (Gc).
Unfortunately, neither fluid intelligence nor crystallized intelligence have been given intricate details of what the words are intended to imply, and, thus, without the details, Gf and Gc are mere philosophical noun-names that have no distinct meaning. Worse, Cattell, Hebb, et al did not speak of the specifics of how minds acquire, learn, process, and apply knowledge, which suggests that none of the intelligence test designers held a useful idea of what intelligence is.
As given within Brown's paper, and referencing A culture-free intelligence test: II. Evaluation of cultural influence on test performance (Cattell R. B., Feingold S. N., Sarason S. B., ©1941), Cattell's seven intelligence variables list genes, environment, culture, test familiarity, physiological variations, fluctuations of interest, and chance errors of measurement. Seeing that Cattell's variables were all related to external influences, while no variable related to personal influences (i.e. self-effort and self-learning), it is obvious that Cattell's descriptions were fully vacant of the nature of how intelligence births and develops, which sums to the obvious: Cattell knew nothing useful about intelligence, and, therefore, neither could his intelligence tests usefully measure intelligence. Rephrased, Cattell's manner of giving descriptions is permanent evidence that Cattell himself knew nothing about intelligence, and that Cattell's ideas were merely philosophical.
Philosophical theories birth philosophical noun-names, none of which have meaning.
First Know What 'Fluid Intelligence' Is Supposed to Mean
Typical definitions of Gf and Gc as reported by Wikipedia: "Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve novel reasoning problems and is correlated with a number of important skills such as comprehension, problem-solving, and learning. ...Fluid intelligence (gf) refers to basic processes of reasoning and other mental activities that depend only minimally on prior learning (such as formal and informal education) and acculturation. ...Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, involves the ability to deduce secondary relational abstractions by applying previously learned primary relational abstractions."
The Wikipedia definitions are contradictory and quite mentally disturbed, but, that is what is to be expected when new philosophical noun-names are invented and memorized without first knowing what the thing is that the noun-names are supposed to symbolize. A useful source of information that provides a ~100 year history of the numerous contradicting noun-names for intelligence is Fluid intelligence: A brief history by Phillip Kent (©2017).
The simple fact is, the person within the high IQ group was asking a question about a topic that he had no knowledge of, and, his question also included the contradictory idea that he believed that fluid intelligence (Gf) could be improved by education, training, and memorizing other people's words (Gc). The question was nonsensical, and any attempt to answer the nonsense question would also be nonsense because none of the noun-names have meaning.
Self-Learn One's Own Intelligence
The original draft of this article included a nine step description of a method to very easily improve one's 'fluid intelligence' in less than one minute, and, if the process were repeated several times a day, the individual would soon be more consciously aware than all known historical references to famous people who were allegedly "enlightened". (Some individuals naturally use the 'method' continuously.) However, the process mirrors another process that relates to the Sensory Quotient (SQ) tests, as well as being one of the key differences between normalcy and higher intelligence, and, so, the method will not be made public. (The method might could be made known if people asked, but, the hard fact is that people do not ask; people expect to be given everything without their so much as saying thank you, which in itself is symptomatic of low intelligence.)
Nevertheless, as has been mentioned many times on this website, the developing mind relies upon one specific principle: self-learning. It is from one's own observations and self-observations that one's own mind develops. If an infant does not self-initiate the self-effort to self-observe, then the infant's mind will only gather rudimentary information subconsciously, and never will the child become an adult who is able to think intelligently because the adult will not have developed their mind to think logically.
A well-known example is of some MIT graduates 'with degree in hand' not being able to make light with a battery, wire, and bulb. Education cannot make a person intelligent. The only path to intelligence is through the self-effort to self-learn.
Compare self-learning to what college professors claimed in Xunzi: "#1: "In studying there is nothing better than being intimate with a worthy teacher. (Homer Dubs)". "In learning, no method is of more advantage than to be near a man of learning. (John Knoblock)." It is an almost universal belief within western cultures that education is capable of increasing one's intelligence. The proof of the belief being false, is found within the teachers themselves being unintelligent.
The aforementioned nine step process is a good example: even when a person is told that they must self-learn, still they expect to be told and educated on how to self-learn. All schools teach it, all philosophies teach it, and all religions teach it, but almost no one ever self-exerts the self-effort to self-learn, which in turn always has the same result: the people remain unbettered.
It is basic physics: each moment of self-learning, adds to the sum of one's intelligence, but, almost everyone on earth denies the laws of physics.
Increasing Intelligence as an Adult
Nothing is set in stone. Some people do improve a degree of intelligence when older, but as a general rule of thumb, no, once an individual's mind has been formed upon the belief that external education enables internal intelligence, the likelihood of further development permanently stops.
When young (pre-birth infant through toddler), what a person self-learned on their own, and by how much effort the person applied to self-initiate self-learning, will become the foundation of all future thinking. Once a foundation is established for anything, it cannot be changed. Examples: putting motor oil into bread dough will always pollute the bread; the oil cannot be removed. Having purposefully harmed other people when young, will remain a negative tone of one's adult intelligence. Likewise, if a young mind does not self-initiate and self-create the self-ability to think multi-conceptually, then the individual cannot magically think multi-conceptually as an adult.
The common tests for 'fluid intelligence' never exceed 2D thinking, because, the test designers themselves were unable to mentally process 3D+ thinking. Specialized tests (i.e. the SQ test) have proven that over 99.95% of all participants (irrespective of IQ (including individuals of 160+ IQ)) were unable to score above a zero on a test of mental cognition that requires 3D+ analyses.
Nevertheless, a person ought to be able to improve their self-intelligence, but, the process would require self-effort, which is a thing that few humans will do.
Proof is found within several different specialized tests that focus primarily on the ability to mentally assemble and to rationalize several different related elements simultaneously. An excellent example of the absence of self-intelligence is found within how some 'psychics speak to disembodied souls'. All science-believing skeptics claim that the psychics are just making stuff up, but, no skeptic is mentally able to apply intelligence to what they see with their own eyes. The skeptics loudly proclaim the science of physics to be true truth, but no skeptic is mentally able to relate science's physics to what the skeptics are witnessing. One act of 'psychics speaking to disembodied souls' includes no fewer than five simultaneous 'physics'. The individual acts of physics are known (memorized) to skeptics, but mentally constructing five or more simultaneous effects is not possible for skeptics.
Regardless of whether or not the psychics actually speak to disembodied souls, the point of interest is that the science-believing skeptics ought to have recognized the 5+ simultaneous acts of physics, and from the recognition the skeptics ought to have been able to form a rational thought of what the psychics were doing. The specific 'psychic act' has been well-known for centuries, but has become more popular during the past hundred years. It is worth noting that no skeptic, no scientist, no known author, and no known psychic has ever so much as hinted of the 5+ physics effects. High degrees of self-thinking are rare, very rare, and never exhibited by science believers.
If education were able to enable the mental ability to reason, then there would exist evidence of it having occurred within science and academia: the evidence does not exist, nor has it historically existed within any known culture.
Nevertheless, if a person were sincere in wanting to think more intelligently, then it might be possible for the person to slowly acquire the ability through specific methods of self-training, but the effort required is far beyond what most people will exert. People might invest 10,000 hours to become skilled with a violin, but almost no one on earth will invest so much as an hour towards self-learning how to be rational.
Scoring at the ceiling of IQ tests was easy for some individuals, but the only 'reward' was to be hated on and physically abused by teachers, envious students, and even by family (a good lesson learned, is to never speak of one's own IQ scores). Anyone can get a few IQ points higher on an IQ test, simply by exerting the effort to think (or cheat as what some individuals are known to have done), but IQ scores do not relate to functional intelligence. Again, tests of individuals with IQs of 160+ still resulted in their scoring zero on tests of mental cognition.
Spiders are More Complex Than Flat Thinking
The article Panpsychism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness has a mention of the spider event, which structured a multi-layered self-intelligence. One spider, eight legs, one body, one head, floor trim, movement towards the south, level of the floor trim, height of the floor trim, plus numerous ambient aromas, sounds, and sights. One thought process per each item, sums to no less than twenty different conscious mental processes occurring simultaneously, each of which are reasoned to the others simultaneously. The self-learning event became a permanent foundation for future functional self-intelligence. Normal intelligence only functions with one or two events (2D), with all others being processed in 2D sequence.
Without the early self-learning, an individual will have never applied simultaneous self-thinking, and as an adult the person will still not be able to think many thoughts simultaneously. Memorizing words is linear, flat, and in sequence; no self-intelligence is involved. Education is linear, flat, in sequence, and permanently dumbs-down the student. Greater quantities of education cannot enable self-intelligence.
If a person believes that they are able to explain the movements of a spider, then intricately explain each of the spider's movements simultaneously as they are in the process of occurring.
Normal Nature
Most people want to be told a word that is the answer of a question. Almost no one on earth wants to self-learn answers. Self-intelligence is what was self-learned, and does not include memorized words. If a person will not self-exert the self-effort to at least attempt to find answers on their own, then the person is lazy, and lazy people do not deserve to be told word-answers.
On this website, and for several reasons, definitions of words like 惡, 善, and over a hundred others will never be given. People would benefit themselves — and increase their self-intelligence — if they stopped memorizing 'ear to mouth' words, and instead began exerting the mental effort to think for themselves.
Sum
The high IQ fellow asked wrong questions which were based upon a wrong knowledge that was acquired from the wrong sources. The value in the fellow's question is that it is but one more of the countless trillions of similar questions spoken by unlearned philosophers of all systems of belief. For as long as people refuse to self-observe and to self-learn, their intelligence will always remain flat.