Negative Intelligence
Minor Crank
statistical mechanical definition of temperature
1/T = dS/dE,
a system in which increase in energy results in _decrease_ in entropy has a
negative absolute temperature.
Trivia Quiz: Most people reading this post are probably sitting within a
meter of a common technological artifact that operates at negative
temperature. What is it?
It is a peculiar fact that many of the worst crackpots in this newsgroup are
actually quite well educated and have studied the subjects in which they
exercise crankhood for many years.
With the majority of people, the more they study, the better the grasp they
have on the subject they are attempting to master.
With crackpots, however, the more they study, the more perverted their
theories become.
Our intuitive understanding of an intelligent person is one who is able to
quickly learn a subject. If G is grasp of a subject and E is effort spent in
learning, then the intelligence of a person, I, might reasonably be
expressed by the formula
I = dG/dE
This formula fits quite well our intuitive understanding of intelligence. A
highly intelligent person can achieve a high grasp of a subject with little
effort, while an unintelligent person requires considerably greater effort
to achieve understanding.
A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
considered to have negative intelligence.
Minor Crank
me...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>I was mulling over the phenomenon of negative temperature. Given the
>statistical mechanical definition of temperature
>
>1/T = dS/dE,
>
>a system in which increase in energy results in _decrease_ in entropy has a
>negative absolute temperature.
>
>Trivia Quiz: Most people reading this post are probably sitting within a
>meter of a common technological artifact that operates at negative
>temperature. What is it?
>
>It is a peculiar fact that many of the worst crackpots in this newsgroup are
>actually quite well educated and have studied the subjects in which they
>exercise crankhood for many years.
>
>With the majority of people, the more they study, the better the grasp they
>have on the subject they are attempting to master.
>
>With crackpots, however, the more they study, the more perverted their
>theories become.
>
>Our intuitive understanding of an intelligent person is one who is able to
>quickly learn a subject. If G is grasp of a subject and E is effort spent in
>learning, then the intelligence of a person, I, might reasonably be
>expressed by the formula
>
>I = dG/dE
>
>This formula fits quite well our intuitive understanding of intelligence. A
>highly intelligent person can achieve a high grasp of a subject with little
>effort, while an unintelligent person requires considerably greater effort
>to achieve understanding.
>
>A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
>learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
>considered to have negative intelligence.
>
Hmm, I always thought that it is just tending to zero. But, no
argument, your proof is convincing. I take it.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
me...@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
William J. Beaty
> >A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
> >learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
> >considered to have negative intelligence.
> >
> Hmm, I always thought that it is just tending to zero. But, no
> argument, your proof is convincing. I take it.
Genius!
:)
This explains the time-reversed brain functioning I frequently
see in crackpot threads.
We can start from a state of ignorance and then progressively
increase our understanding of a subject as we accumulate both
evidence and new insights connecting evidence into useful patterns.
But one typical crackpot tendency reverses this sequence by initially
latching onto a single narrow viewpoint and then using it as a
"filter" to reject contrary evidence and to fight against having
insights. Replace normal reasoning with confirmation bias.
Make the filter narrower over time.
If "stupidity" is defined as active rejection of useful concepts,
then people with negative intelligence don't replace zero knowledge
with positive knowledge, instead they replace zero knowledge with
stupidity; with hotly defended learning barriers. As you note,
they're worse off for having investigated a particular subject.
Slightly off topic: here's an excellent paper about one of the
fallacies which perhaps is a prime symptom of all crackpots. A
crackpot may or may not rail against Relativity or against hidden
persecutors, but if he's a crackpot, then he suffers from this one:
One-sidedness fallacy
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/onesided.htm
"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet
hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young."
- Konrad Lorenz
((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty http//staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/
Research Engineer UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74
be...@chem.washington.edu Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700
ph206-543-6195 fax206-685-8665
Spaceman
"William J. Beaty" <bi...@eskimo.com> wrote in message news:2251b4e6.0303...@posting.google.com...
> We can start from a state of ignorance and then progressively
> increase our understanding of a subject as we accumulate both
> evidence and new insights connecting evidence into useful patterns.
Physicicists that start from the ignorance such as GR,SR,QM and String theory
are only increasing thier ignorance by still working on the ignorance.
The clock malfunctioned.
You ignore the science of measurement to increase you ignorance of such.
You ignore the circular cause you have a as a base.
"time changing causes time changing"
and by doing such,
you increase your ignorance exponentially.
therefore,
You increase your "negative" intelligence.
:)
--
James M Driscoll Jr
Spaceman.
www.realspaceman.com
EL
> me...@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote in message news:<09yda.92$L4....@news.uchicago.edu>...
>
> > >A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
> > >learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
> > >considered to have negative intelligence.
Ok, just let not a psychology professor hear you saying it or read you
writing it. :)
After all you are improvising onto a well defined discipline.
> > >
> > Hmm, I always thought that it is just tending to zero. But, no
> > argument, your proof is convincing. I take it.
[EL]
I beg to differ.
>
> Genius!
>
> :)
[EL]
Get serious. :)
>
> This explains the time-reversed brain functioning I frequently
> see in crackpot threads.
[EL]
You have every good reason concerning a fact regarding a phenomenon.
But "time-reversed brain functioning" !!!!
Let us not get carried away and fall infected by what we frequently
read. ;-)
>
> We can start from a state of ignorance and then progressively
> increase our understanding of a subject as we accumulate both
> evidence and new insights connecting evidence into useful patterns.
[EL]
We are always ignorant my dear.
Firstly, we are ignorant of what we are ignorant of.
Secondly, by learning what we are ignorant of, we are motivated to
learn it but we stay ignorant until we do.
Thirdly, after we learn what we were seeking we either "loop back" to
"Firstly" or we discover a new set at an extended "Secondly".
Knowledge is like an expanding volume within a sphere, the more we
contain more knowledge within that volume it expands due to the
transfer of what was without to become within. Yet as our knowledge
sphere expands, the surface area on the outside must be expanding too,
thus we also increase our knowledge of our increasing ignorance.
Let knowledge be denoted by "K" and ignorance be denoted by "I", then
K is directly proportional to I such that:
I = c K, where c is a constant of proportionality.
> But one typical crackpot tendency reverses this sequence by initially
> latching onto a single narrow viewpoint and then using it as a
> "filter" to reject contrary evidence and to fight against having
> insights. Replace normal reasoning with confirmation bias.
> Make the filter narrower over time.
>
[EL]
Your intuition here is superb!
What we label as "crackpots" are usually *obsessed* by a very specific
idea that they cannot shake off their minds.
Obsession only does not explain their full misbehaviour because they
are critically classified as "One-sided-mentality".
They have a very deep doubt buried inside and they do not look for
correction but rather confirmation.
Ok, we need to be more professional when we handle psychologies.
Generalisation is a bad thing to do here.
We need to be more specific.
There are *Ignorant Crackpots* who are usually insulting, nonsensical
and trolling.
You may mark them by finding them in opposition of a numerous majority
of posters.
They disregard critical comments and they never consider the counter
reasoning because they do not even see it. :)
There are *Educated Crackpots* who could be engineers or computer
programmers who were subjected to some ideas and got obsessed with.
This category of Crackpots may be also called *Semi-ignorant* and
their main feature is biting more than they could chew.
Out of embarrassment, stubbornness and a very bad attitude towards the
learning process, they block any corrective information that
contradicts with their ill founded beliefs.
Therefore I must be in agreement with you completely on your last
paragraph, which I am responding to here.
Through my own experience as an educator, I find that mastering
"languages" is empirically critical to communication.
Languages here are not limited to English and national tongues but
extends to mathematics, art, philosophy and any means of acquiring
information and transmitting the same.
Therefore, a crackpot would be usually incompetent regarding means of
communication.
The last class of "Crackpots" are the frauds.
The frauds may be highly educated and specialised in a single narrow
slot of a discipline, yet pretend to know more than they really do.
Those can be tracked down by noticing that most of their posts are
URLs, where they pretend to be educating others by referring them to
knowledge sites. Usually they do not even read the contents of the URL
they are posting. The frauds are also usually insulting and frequently
"Show-Off".
Crackpots are not necessarily "bad" people but they are certainly
having a psychological disorder.
Normal people are usually nice, communicative, apologetic,
considerate, non patronising, friendly and informative.
But "negative intelligence" is a joke of course. :)
Only stubbornness had been anciently defined to be "stupidity that
harbours more stupidity."
Stubbornness is a form of self defence usually stood by vulnerable
entities as a last sort of defence before dying. :)
Perhaps that is what seem to be a time relevant phenomenon that Minor
Crank calls "negative intelligence".
Negative here should be in the sense of denial or negation of
intelligence, which is a contextual stupidity arising from masking
intelligence by stubbornness, which is a psychological refusal to
resort to reason and flexibility.
When a crackpot is informed with his/ her ignorance, an attempt to
learn may or may not take place but usually such attempt fails and
that is why a confirmative attitude replaces admitting ignorance and
stubbornness possesses their souls.
By learning what crackpots are, we should either *Ignore them* or be
kind to them as much as we can in hope of helping them through.
Kind regards.
EL
Peter John Lawton
>
> I was mulling over the phenomenon of negative temperature. Given the
> statistical mechanical definition of temperature
>
> 1/T = dS/dE,
>
> a system in which increase in energy results in _decrease_ in entropy has a
> negative absolute temperature.
>
> Trivia Quiz: Most people reading this post are probably sitting within a
> meter of a common technological artifact that operates at negative
> temperature. What is it?
>
> It is a peculiar fact that many of the worst crackpots in this newsgroup are
> actually quite well educated and have studied the subjects in which they
> exercise crankhood for many years.
>
> With the majority of people, the more they study, the better the grasp they
> have on the subject they are attempting to master.
>
> With crackpots, however, the more they study, the more perverted their
> theories become.
>
> Our intuitive understanding of an intelligent person is one who is able to
> quickly learn a subject. If G is grasp of a subject and E is effort spent in
> learning, then the intelligence of a person, I, might reasonably be
> expressed by the formula
>
> I = dG/dE
A lovely idea, but needs a bit if refinement.
There comes a point when more effort produces zero change in grasp. Has
your intelligence decreased to zero?
> Minor Crank
Uncle Al
Brillant insight and empirically sound! (We wait with excitement for
Spaceshit to add real world major support to your thesis.) Write it
up to about ten pages with dense emphasis upon thermodynamics vs.
psychology. The farceurs are always desperate for equations to
validate their squalid discipline. Then,
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html
"Quantitative Thermodynamic Model of Refractory Intellectual
Dysfunction."
Mean syllables/word alone qualify it as a winner.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
me...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>me...@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote in message news:<09yda.92$L4....@news.uchicago.edu>...
>
>> >A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
>> >learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
>> >considered to have negative intelligence.
>> >
>> Hmm, I always thought that it is just tending to zero. But, no
>> argument, your proof is convincing. I take it.
>
>Genius!
>
>:)
>
>This explains the time-reversed brain functioning I frequently
>see in crackpot threads.
>
>We can start from a state of ignorance and then progressively
>increase our understanding of a subject as we accumulate both
>evidence and new insights connecting evidence into useful patterns.
>But one typical crackpot tendency reverses this sequence by initially
>latching onto a single narrow viewpoint and then using it as a
>"filter" to reject contrary evidence and to fight against having
>insights. Replace normal reasoning with confirmation bias.
>Make the filter narrower over time.
>
>If "stupidity" is defined as active rejection of useful concepts,
>then people with negative intelligence don't replace zero knowledge
>with positive knowledge, instead they replace zero knowledge with
>stupidity; with hotly defended learning barriers. As you note,
>they're worse off for having investigated a particular subject.
>
>
>
>
>Slightly off topic: here's an excellent paper about one of the
>fallacies which perhaps is a prime symptom of all crackpots. A
>crackpot may or may not rail against Relativity or against hidden
>persecutors, but if he's a crackpot, then he suffers from this one:
>
> One-sidedness fallacy
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/onesided.htm
>
Dirk Van de moortel
"Minor Crank" <blue_whal...@attbi.com> wrote in message news:oNwda.123485$L1.17357@sccrnsc02...
A nice TYGem:
http://users.pandora.be/vdmoortel/dirk/Physics/ImmortalGems.html#NegInt
Thanks to Mike Varney for drawing this to my attention,
I had missed the thread.
Dirk Vdm
Martin Hogbin
> learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
> considered to have negative intelligence.
In the other hand, negative temperatures may be regarded as being
hotter than infinity. Does that mean that the crackpots are really
super smart?
Martin Hogbin
Minor Crank
"Martin Hogbin" <sp...@hogbin.org> wrote in message
news:b5dfu9$oej$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
I dunno about super smart, but crackpots are definitely unstable, far from
thermodynamic equilibrium. In analogy to lasers which exhibit population
inversion, crackpots exhibit concept inversion.
Minor Crank
Tom Potter
Actually, the folks that some people refer to as "crackpots"
are the only original thinkers.
Even pigeons and other lower animals
can be conditioned to give fixed responses
to stimuli, but pigeons and lower animals
do not have the capacity to come up
with "crackpot" ideas and to exploit
"crackpot" ideas to improve their control over their situation.
The "crackpot scale" ranges from zero to paranoiac,
where the zero's parrot what they have been conditioned to,
and the paranoiacs see correlations that are extremely unlikely,
and maybe at the extremes even see correlations in randomness.
Thank God for the right of center "crackpots"
as they are the thinkers and creators,
and thank God for the zero "crackpots" as
trained monkeys and pigeons are needed
to give stability to society.
--
Tom Potter http://www.tompotter.ws
Ype
William J. Beaty <bi...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Slightly off topic: here's an excellent paper about one of the
> fallacies which perhaps is a prime symptom of all crackpots. A
> crackpot may or may not rail against Relativity or against hidden
> persecutors, but if he's a crackpot, then he suffers from this one:
>
> One-sidedness fallacy
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/inflogic/onesided.htm
>
I don't use many words, therefore I am a crackpot.
TB
news:b5dvc7$28hq0l$1...@ID-188019.news.dfncis.de:
> Actually, the folks that some people refer to as "crackpots"
> are the only original thinkers.
Yeah, but there is certainly no correlation between what you are calling
originality and anything resembling sense, logic, or most of all,
reality.
>
> Even pigeons and other lower animals
> can be conditioned to give fixed responses
You mean like, "the clock goofed you fuchen lost-in-spacetime parrot"??
Or, "you're just mad I killed your clock God <LOL>"?
Yes, you're right, lower animals can certainly give fixed responses! :-)
> to stimuli, but pigeons and lower animals
> do not have the capacity to come up
> with "crackpot" ideas and to exploit
> "crackpot" ideas to improve their control over their situation.
I.e. pigeons and lower animals cannot troll in sci.physics the way our
crackpots do.
-- TB
Spaceman
"TB" <tbrow...@yahoo.NOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:Xns93489CF78EE8C...@199.171.54.213...
> You mean like, "the clock goofed you fuchen lost-in-spacetime parrot"??
Still can not grasp the simple fact huh TB?
Tom Potter
> news:b5dvc7$28hq0l$1...@ID-188019.news.dfncis.de:
> >
> > Actually, the folks that some people refer to as "crackpots"
> > are the only original thinkers.
>
> Yeah, but there is certainly no correlation between what you are calling
> originality and anything resembling sense, logic, or most of all,
> reality.
We agree that there is "no correlation between what <I am> calling
originality and <snip> logic", as originality extends man's knowledge,
and forces him to extend or amend his logic.
We disagree in that I assert that "originality" arises when someone
recognizes a low correlation between "sense" and "reality"
( The input from their "senses" does not correlate with the
"reality" of the "conventional wisdom" they have been exposed to.).
> > Even pigeons and other lower animals
> > can be conditioned to give fixed responses
> > to stimuli, but pigeons and lower animals
> > do not have the capacity to come up
> > with "crackpot" ideas and to exploit
> > "crackpot" ideas to improve their control over their situation.
--
Tom Potter http://www.tompotter.ws