Generalisations About IQ Tests

 

There's a lot of debate (or at least there once was) on the value and even “the meaning” of IQ tests.

To be facetious, one could say that the people who are good at IQ tests are the people who are good at IQ tests. Or, more clearly, the people who are good at IQ tests are often those who've simply done lots of IQ tests! In other words, they've picked up a particular skill through much practice – and that skill is being successful at IQ tests!

There will be many people with high IQs who offer nothing to the world. (They may be non-entities.) Similarly, people with fairly low IQs (within reason!) may achieve a lot in this world – even intellectually or academically.

I even once heard someone say that Albert Einstein had a low IQ. Perhaps he didn't mean in the sense of Einstein actually having been tested as such. He might have meant that had he been tested, he might not have scored very highly. Anyway, I later found out the Einstein had an IQ of 160+ - at least according to the image above. (That shows how little I know about IQ tests. Would that make me a bad candidate for an IQ test?)

I do know that Einstein did very badly at school. The teachers, as far as I can recall, didn't rate him very highly.

So perhaps IQ tests aren't good for geniuses in the sense that some geniuses are extremely specialised. And IQ tests test a lot of things which talented or creative people may not be good at. (How would Mozart, for one, have faired had he been tested by a 18th-century IQ test?)

To be honest, I know next to nothing about IQ tests. One, I've never had one. Two, I've never felt the need to have one.

What Do IQ Tests Prove?

Many people also rhetorically ask: “What do IQ tests prove?”

Well, IQ tests do “prove” at least one thing: they prove that you are good at the individual tests which are found within IQ tests. Since I don't know much about IQ tests, I can only guess that IQ mathematical tests can prove that some people are good at those areas of mathematics. Similarly with IQ spatial tests or puzzles.

However, the word “prove” should only really be used, strictly speaking, in maths and logic. (It isn't even used that much in science, except in a loose sense.) Perhaps 'demonstrate' or 'show' would be a better word, as in:

IQ test A demonstrates that Person X is good at Test A.

What follows from all that? It seems perfectly acceptable to conclude that if it's been shown that someone is good at certain areas of maths, “spatial awareness”, puzzles or whatever, then it may very well follow that they'll also be good at things that are very distant from such IQ tests. And that seems like a fair conclusion.

The Limitations of IQ Tests

One person said to me:

“IQ tests only help estimate a persons problem solving and rationalisation abilities. There's so many forms of intelligence that (again) IQ tests can't even assess.”

Yes, though do supporters (or defenders) of IQ tests necessarily deny all that? Won't they – or some of them – admit that IQ tests have their limitations? Surely IQ fans won't claim that they test everything. And if they don't claim that, then what's the big problem with them?

It all depends on how much importance people place on IQ tests. That's the issue. And of course it's precisely because of that that the issue has become politicised.

However, to test “a person's problem solving and rationalisation abilities” is to test a quite a lot. And it's also to test important things. That's not to say there's nothing else to test. The remaining question would be:

How effectively do IQ tests test a person's problem-solving and reasoning abilities?

My adversary then went on to say:

“Many psychologists dismiss the point of IQ testing because it's limited and research hasn't been furthered for its development.”

Of course IQ tests are limited! By definition they're limited. Though why would that automatically be a problem? All psychological and cognitive tests are limited. And perhaps “research hasn't been furthered” because of the political controversy associated with IQ tests. In fact I bet that's the primary reason.

David Chalmers on Type-B Materialism

 

David Chalmers argues that what he calls the “type-B materialist” simply says that although zombies are conceivable, “they are not metaphysically possible” (14). There can be no slide from conceivability to metaphysical possibility.

Why can’t there be such a slide? The type-B materialist happily accepts that there are indeed phenomenal truths. However, “these truths concern an underlying physical reality” (14). Simply by saying that phenomenal truths concern an underlying reality isn’t the epistemic gap still left in place by the type-B materialist? (This sounds like non-reductive physicalism.)

Forget the epistemic gap.

Having an underlying physical reality doesn’t make phenomenal consciousness identical with such an underlying physical reality. Therefore the gap is still there. Is the gap also ontological in nature? Again, we need to explain this slide from the epistemic gap to the ontological gap. In addition, what does it mean to say that Mary “learns new facts in a new way” (14) when she leaves the room? This appears to be an argument that the facts are physical; though the experience of red doesn't add any new kind of facts. Thus there are no phenomenal facts or truths according to the type-B materialist.

What follows appears to be a statement that type-B materialists are in fact identity theorists. Chalmers writes that the

“most common form of type-B materialism holds that phenomenal states can be identified with certain physical or functional states”. (14)

How can the taste of milk or the experience of blue be identified with certain physical or functional states? Unless that identification doesn't mean:

the taste of mild = a certain physical or functional state.

It may simply mean that this identification amounts to the ‘underlying physical reality’ that subserves the taste of mild or the experience of blue. This, though, still leaves us with the epistemic gap, if not the ontological gap.

Now arguments by analogy reappear on the scene:

H2 O = water

DNA = genes

As we know, and as Saul Kripke has stressed, water is nothing above and beyond H2 O and genes are nothing above DNA. We can now say:

consciousness = functional/physical states, etc.

Can we slide from the functional and the physical to consciousness as we can slide from H2 O molecules to water and from DNA to genes?

Firstly we should say that the latter aren't “derived through conceptual analysis but are discovered empirically” (14). The concept [water] isn't the same as the concept [H2 O]. The concept [water] isn't ‘contained’ within the concept [H2 O] (to use Kantian terms). We discovered that water is H2 O and that genes are DNA. However, the former and latter concepts do have the same reference – they were “found to refer to the same thing in nature” (14). Does the concept [consciousness] refer to the same thing as the various physical and functional concepts? Doesn’t [consciousness] refer to, well, consciousness?

If the type-B materialist accepts the difference in concepts, though also the identity in reference, then he can admit to an epistemic gap; though also deny the ontological gap. This is conceptual pluralism and ontological monism in the manner of Spinoza and Donald Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’. Again, can we say that the analogy between H2 O and water is the same as that between functional/physical states and conscious states?

Chalmers goes into greater detail as to why these analogies don't work.

Take the case of genes again. To explain genes “we merely have to explain why systems function a certain way in transmitting hereditary characteristics” (14). In other words, the explanation is functional/physical and it doesn't leave anything out. A functional/physical explanation of consciousness, on the other hand, would leave something out. The analogy, therefore, breaks down. The slide from DNA to genes and from H2 O to water can be explained in terms of deduction. Given

“a complete physical description of the world, Mary would be able to deduce all the relevant truths about water and about genes by deducing which systems have the appropriate structure and function”. (14)

Though is even this slide correct? It is indeed the case that water is nothing but H2 O and genes are nothing but DNA. However, can we really deduce water from H2 O and genes from DNA? No! That is why Kripke has eloquently argued that these identities are a posteriori in nature, not a priori. Surely this means that there's no deduction of water’s qualities, or water itself, from H2 O. Science had to discover this identity empirically, not through any kind of strict logical deduction.

Chalmers finishes off this Kripkean argument by saying that

“we cannot coherently conceive of a world physically identical to our own, in which there is no water, or in which there are no genes”. (14)

Again, what has psychological conceivability got to do with this? H2 O and water may be ontologically identical, and necessarily so; though what has this got to do with conceivability? The identity is a posteriori and scientific, not psychological. Indeed, as I think that Kripke himself has said, we may well be able to conceive of water, or water’s wateryness, etc., without thinking at all about it being a collection of H2 O molecules. In fact what if someone didn't know about this a posteriori identity? Clearly he can conceive of water without at the same time conceiving of H2 O.

We can say that this emphasis on conceivability appears to be dangerously Cartesian in nature - or perhaps even empiricist (in the sense that all imaginings must be based on prior ‘sense impressions’ and ‘ideas’, even if they are juxtaposed, inverted, etc.).

Chalmers then begins to cover issues which are more scientific in nature. The issue if the connection between the physical and consciousness.

We begin with fundamental laws of nature. Such things are deemed primitive. They can't be “deduced from more basic principles” (15). What has this to do with consciousness? Just as we have talked of the ‘primitiveness’ of the fundamental laws of nature, now we can talk of the “epistemically primitive connection between physical states and consciousness as a fundamental law” (15). This basically means that we can't explain that connection between the physical and consciousness. Perhaps there is literally nothing to explain because of its very basicness.

There can be a materialist position that accepts phenomenal states and consciousness generally. However, what they do require is that “physical states necessitate phenomenal states” (16). What this means is that “it is metaphysically impossible for the physical states to be present while the phenomenal states are absent or different”(16). This type-B materialist position is clearly a case of non-reductive materialism in that they allow phenomenal states and don't see them as identical to physical or functional states. More particular, like the supervenience theorist, the type-B materialist argues that if two physical states are identical, then their corresponding phenomenal states must also correspond or be identical. And just as we had epistemic entailment earlier on in the discussion, now we have physical, or ontological, entailment, in that

P – Q

must be necessary – physically and ontologically necessary.

Why is this entailment from P to Q ‘necessary’?

Here we must rely on Kripke again and his a posteriori necessary identities and truths. It is the case, according to Kripke, that “some truths are necessary without being a priori” (16). Traditionally, it was thought that all necessary truths can only be known a priori. In Kripke’s case,

“he argues that ‘water is H2 O’ is necessary – true in all possible worlds but not knowable a priori”. (16)

At every possible world, if there is a large collection of H2 O molecules there will be some water. Or, conversely, if there is some water there will be a large collection of H2 O molecules.

Now we have that epistemic gap again.

If we can only know the necessity of ‘water is H2 O’ a posteriori, that engenders an epistemic gap on our part from our knowledge of water to our knowledge of what makes up water. We can't know that ‘water is H2 O’ by a priori means. There is, again, an epistemic gap between water and H2 O.

However, if

necessarily water = H2 O

then there can't be an ontological gap because water just is H2 O!

David Chalmers on Type-A Materialism

 

Type-A materialists (David Chalmers' term) claim that it isn't conceivable

“that there be duplicates of conscious beings that have absent or inverted conscious states”.

This can't be a logical argument because surely this could happen. It must be a scientific or physical argument that states that if P, then Q.
 

Type-A materialists also claim that Mary isn't ignorant of any phenomenal ‘truths’ inside her black and white room. As with ‘facts’, what does Frank Jackson mean by ‘phenomenal truths’? There are some things Mary is ignorant of; though are they ‘facts’ or ‘truths’? And what does it mean to say that she “gains an ability”? Does it mean the ability to, say, discriminate red from green?

 

The materialist can accept that there's such a thing as consciousness; it’s just that he can define ‘consciousness’ in his own peculiar technical way.
 

For example, analytic functionalists or logical behaviourists define ‘consciousness’ in terms of “wholly functional or behavioural terms”. More specifically, they talk in terms of “certain sorts of access to information, and/or certain sorts of dispositions to make verbal reports”. Of course intuitively these definitions are far from acceptable and they simply leave out - amongst other things - the question of what it is like to be conscious – that is, they leave out entirely the first-person reality of conscious states.
 

How can consciousness only be about behaviour or functional states because a zombie or a machine could – at least in principle - replicate our behaviour and functional states. Similarly with accessing information and ‘overt behaviour’.
 

Thus this seems like a simple stipulative definition of ‘consciousness’ on the analytic functionalist or logical behaviourist’s part. And why not?
 

More relevantly, type-A materialists believe that there's nothing further to be explained about consciousness over and above explaining the various functions. If this is the case, then Daniel Dennett, for one, has indeed explained consciousness! Though only by stipulating that there's nothing, in fact, to be explained!
 

To be clear: what precisely are these functions?
 

They include the “capacities for access, self-monitoring, report, control, and their interaction”. Importantly, a being’s environmental relations and neurobiology will also be of importance to such materialist accounts of consciousness.
 

There are three responses to the above:

1. Such functions are irrelevant to an explanation of consciousness.
2. Functions are relevant to a story of consciousness; though there's something above and beyond functionality to also explain.
3. Functions, neurobiology and environmental relations will tell us all we need to know about consciousness.

Is consciousness like everything else in nature? Type-A materialists argue that it is and they argue by analogy.

 

For example, in explaining life “the only phenomena that present themselves as needing explanation are adaptation, growth, metabolism, reproduction, and so on”. We can now say:

 

life = adaptation, growth, metabolism, reproduction, etc.

Though can we say? -

 

consciousness = mental access, control, report, self-monitoring and environmental relations, neurobiology, etc.

The vitalist, of course, argued that there's more to life than the list above. What about consciousness? Is there more to the list above? What if consciousness is somehow unique? What would make it unique? Phenomenal experience? And is this over and above the list above?

 

Dennett seems to argue that if the old-fashioned vitalist was wrong about life, perhaps non-materialist philosophers are wrong about consciousness. Is the analogy exact? David Chalmers cites Broad (who was a vitalist about life). Broad believed that the (biological?) functions “would require a non-mechanical explanation”. Broad also had something to say about the analogy with consciousness and argued that life and consciousness aren't the same. Indeed his position on life appears to be behaviourist in orientation. He

“held that in the case of life, unlike the case of consciousness, the only evidence we have for the phenomenon is behavioural, and that 'being alive' means exhibiting certain sorts of behaviour”.

This seems a thoroughly behavioural account, as I've already said. Why did he also say that “functions would require a non-mechanical explanation”? This isn't really explained in Chalmers’ paper.
 

We can also see an explicit behaviourist account of qualia.
 

Rey argues, for instance, “that there is no reason to postulate qualia, since they are not needed to explain behaviour” (12). The obvious and immediate riposte to this argument is the question: Why should we see behaviour as everything that is the case? And even if qualia aren't needed to explain behaviour (or don't even cause behaviour), why should this be the end of the story? There's still something it is like to taste milk or experience an orgasm.

 

Dennet offers a similarly behaviourist account of consciousness. It is verbal reports that are of prime importance to Dennett. And, of course, overt behaviour is behaviour.
 

Again, why stop at verbal reports? Isn’t there something else to add to this story of consciousness? Even Quine was only a semantic behaviourist in that examples of overt behaviour were the sole grounds of meaning and other semantic properties. The semantic can only be known through what is said and what is written. Though this isn't psychological behaviourism. Would Quine have rejected the need for an explanation - or even an acknowledgement - of qualia and other non-semantic phenomena? Is Wittgenstein’s ‘private language argument’ also applicable to the phenomena we call ‘qualia’?

Chalmers on the Explanatory, Conceivability & Knowledge Arguments

The Explanatory Argument

David Chalmers says that the “easy problems” of consciousness explain “only structure and function”. They don't explain consciousness. Therefore “no physical account can explain consciousness”.

The Conceivability Argument

We can conceive of a physical system that is note-for-note identical to us but which doesn't have consciousness. (Though what has the psychological notion of conceivability got to do with the problem of consciousness?)

Such as system would therefore be a zombie. Alternatively, it may be a zombie-invert in that some of its experiences are inversions of those of human beings.

The invert-zombie has the same nuts and bolts as us; though nevertheless it has different experiences. So the inverted zombie is still allowed his experiences.

There is also the conceivability of a partial zombie who also has experiences; though not as many as those of human beings – perhaps he can only feel pain.

The point is that all these zombies are physically identical to us from the third-person point of view and their behaviour will also be indistinguishable.

What about their first-person point of view? What is it like to be a zombie of whatever kind? Well, there's nothing it is like to be a bona fide zombie!

On a larger scale. What about a physically identical universe that doesn't, however, give rise to consciousness; though which does give rise to zombies? We can say that such zombies are indeed "naturally possible". However, according to our laws of nature, they probably couldn't exist. That is, given identical physical and bodily facts, then such a universe couldn't help but give rise to consciousness. (This is what some non-reductive physicalists and supervenience theorists believe.)

Let’s take this further.

There could be an identical universe that didn't give birth to consciousness. If this were the case, then consciousness must be something above and beyond the physical if such a counterfactual scenario were possible. In addition, if we can conceive of such zombies in our world or at other worlds, then Chalmers claims that it is "metaphysically possible" that there could be zombies.

What does metaphysical possibility add to the notion of conceivability?Chalmers codifies and simplifies this with a logical argument:

i) It is conceivable that P & not-Q.
ii) If it is conceivable that P & not-Q, then it is metaphysically possible that P and not-Q.
iii) If it is metaphysically possible that P & not-Q, then materialism is false.
iv) So materialism is false.

(Can a mere possibility make materialism false?)

Again, we can see Chalmers’ slide from conceivability to metaphysical possibility. Why should it be that simply because we can conceive of something then that something is metaphysically possible? This has an almost empiricist ring to it in that all conceivables (or ‘ideas’) must come from somewhere or entail metaphysical possibility.

Can we conceive a round square? No. Then it isn't metaphysically possible. Can we imagine a man with five legs? Yes. Then it's metaphysically possible.

The Knowledge Argument

To put the case simply. We could never, and have never, deduced or inferred consciousness from the sum of all physical facts. Though, then again, the same can be said about water. We could study H2 O until the cows come home; though we would never deduce (or infer) the reality of water - its wetness and drinkability - from such physical facts. We can only do so a posteriori – in this case, through science, which tells us that water is indeed H2 O. Though no scientist has ever (or could ever) infer or deduce water’s wetness, etc. a priori. (Or could they? Is water’s transparency an emergent property?)

Does Mary lack knowledge about red? She obviously lacks the experience of red. Is the experience of red a ‘fact’? What sort of fact would it be? Frank Jackson argues that if she finally came to actually experience red, she would learn a ‘new fact’ about red which must be over and above her knowledge of its physical basis and even beyond her powers of deduction from such facts. That is, experience emerges from the physical; though it can't be read off from the physical. That is the essence of emergentism.

Jackson concludes that Mary does indeed know all the physical facts; though not all the facts. There must be non-physical facts (one of which is consciousness).

The strong conclusion to all this is that

i) If there are more than physical facts

ii) and that these things can't be deduced from physical facts

iii) then materialism must be false.

That's because materialism only allows physical facts in its world-picture.

The Shape of the Arguments

Chalmers then attempts to codify and simplify the arguments in strictly logical terms.

Firstly we can think in terms of epistemic entailment, deducibility, explicability and conceivability.

Let us take epistemic entailment.

This is a priori entailment or implication in that it doesn't depend on (further) experience. If we have

P ⊃ Q

we have a material conditional from the physical facts to an arbitrary phenomenal fact. When we know that P is the case, then we must also know that Q is the case without further experience.

In the case of consciousness, P doesn't entail or imply Q a priori. We can't deduce Q from P. Similarly, we can conceive of P without thereby also conceiving of Q. Or, in functional terms, if P is functional, then we can't deduce Q from P because consciousness “is not a functional concept” (as we saw earlier in this debate).

These logical uses of the material conditional can also be applied to the conceivability argument, the knowledge argument and the explanatory argument.

Taken one by one.

If we can conceive of zombies, then zombies are metaphysically possible. If we can't deduce consciousness from all the physical facts, then some facts - those of consciousness - aren't physical. If physical explanations aren't adequate, then there must be non-physical facts that require non-physical explanations.

Now we can talk of another kind of entailment: ontological necessitation.

We can say that P necessitates Q. In the material conditional P ⊃ Q, we can say that P can't hold without necessitating Q. It is ontologically necessary that P necessitates or entails Q. Again, if this were the case, then materialism would be false.

The other interesting point about these arguments is the movement from an epistemic gap to an ontological gap. More precisely, we can argue that:

1. There is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths.
2. If there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths, then there is an ontological gap, and materialism is false.
3. Materialism is false.

The obvious point to make here is the slide from the epistemic gap to an ontological gap. What does that mean?

If we can't slide from our knowledge of P to Q, then that must be because P and Q are ontologically different. If P and Q were ontologically of the same order, then we could move, epistemically, from P to Q.

Why does a lack of epistemic movement from P to Q entail ontological difference? Couldn’t that epistemic gap be accounted for simply in terms of our epistemic limitations or our inadequate knowledge or physical devices? We at one time couldn't move from H2 O to the wetness of water. That epistemic or scientific gap didn’t engender an ontological difference between H2 0 and water or even water’s wetness. Does a lack of knowledge about X entail the fact that X is ontologically weird or irreducible?

David Chalmers on the Hard & Soft Problems of Consciousness

 

David Chalmers makes the helpful distinction between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ problems of consciousness.

The soft problem includes the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report information, or to monitor internal states, or to control behaviour. Prima facie, you can see that these problems can be accounted for in third-person or scientific terms. For example, someone can tell us how they discriminate stimuli with his verbal reports. All this can also be explained neurobiologically. The same goes for the reports of information that we can achieve or carry out. (The problematic ‘easy problem’ is the monitoring of internal states which, prima facie, doesn't seem scientifically kosher.)

 

The ‘hard problem’ is the problem of experience. There is something it is like to experience this, that or the other. What does that mean? It means that we are phenomenally conscious of this, that or the other. Mental states also have their own feel, as it were. When we are having a mental state (if we do indeed have distinct mental states), there is something it is like to be in that state.

What are conscious states in the first place? They include states of perceptual experience, bodily sensation, mental imagery, emotional experience, occurrent thought, etc. There is something it is like to perceive a red apple. There is something it is like to feel a toothache. There is something it is like to imagine Tony Blair. There is something it is like to feel depressed about something. There is even something it is like to make an arithmetical calculation. Of course we will now need to explain what exactly we mean by saying that ‘there is something it is like to…’ and why this makes consciousness ‘unique’ and something non-reducible to the physical.

Chalmers is more precise about this phrase ‘what it is like’. He introduces explanatory technical terms to do so.

For example, conscious states have a phenomenal character with phenomenal properties that characterise what it is like to be in that state.

What, then, are phenomenal properties? The conscious state of perceiving a red apple has phenomenal properties. The properties include the experience of the colour red or the feel of the apple. A toothache can be ‘nagging’ and other pains can be sharp or blunt. The mental image of Tony Blair will have certain phenomenal properties, such as the redness of his face or the emotional responses to the image. Similarly, depressions may be painful or tiring and may engender other phenomenal properties such as lethargy or anger. And even an arithmetical cognition can be accompanied by certain emotions such as that of excitement or tedium.

Chalmers then asks a fundamentally different and equally important question about consciousness.

“How and why do physical processes give rise to experience?”

Intuitively, consciousness, experience or mentality doesn't seem physical at all. How is my mental image of Tony Blair in any way physical? Is my sensation of the red of a red apple in any way physical? And so on. The relation between the physical and the mental is problematic because we can imagine that all the physical processes and events could happen without giving rise to any conscious experience. Such functions and processes “could occur in the dark”. Chalmers calls this problem the “central mystery of consciousness”.

Let's get back to the ‘easy problems’.

What are the easy problems and why are they easy?

These problems are about certain behavioural or cognitive functions. If we lift one leg and are conscious of lifting one leg this can be explained in neurological and neurophysiological terms. As for cognitive functions, these too can be explained in neurological terms, or at least in principle they could be. More explicitly, we can talk in terms of the causal role of a function in a cognitive system and how such causal roles, within the brain, cause us to lift one leg or make a logical inference from p to q. The function takes on the form of a causal role in the production of behaviour and we need only see what exactly the mechanisms within the brain and body are that carry out such causal roles.

In terms of the brain, Chalmers states that such mechanisms are neural or computational in nature (why computational?). As for examples of these functions or causal roles, we can site discrimination, integration, access, report and control. We can intellectually distinguish a cow from a horse. We can integrate new knowledge with old knowledge. We can access our memory system or even past mental images. We can report internal states and past perceptions. We can control our behaviour through cognition as when we build a house. Though, alas, why are any of these mental functions accompanied by experience?

And so we have ventured on to the hard problem of consciousness.

What is the relation between these physical functions in the brain and experience? Such a relation would need to abide by ‘natural principles’ if it is to stand the test of materialism or physicalism. What is it about physical processes that bring about states of consciousness? Why do they do so in the first place?