I figured I just couldn't leave it as it is. The argument isn't complete yet. If you were to read everything I've written from the viewpoint of one who has always believed in a fixed IQ and limited memory potential and cognitive capabilities, then you might point out the following:
--Basically, what I've written is something like, it doesn't benefit you to believe that you can't improve, it doesn't make sense to me that it wouldn't be possible, and there are some recent studies that say that you can improve. Well the first two points are no support. Which view is most beneficial for one to believe has no impact on which view is more accurate, and the fact that I can't see how it makes sense doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense. And the studies that say it's possible? Well anyone can go out and find plenty of studies that say it's not possible. Why should one place more faith in the particular studies I chose to pick out, rather than all of the other studies out there that say it can't be done?--
In other words, you probably wouldn't be convinced. You probably shouldn't be convinced. It's not a complete argument. There's still more to be said.
If you follow the progress of any competitive game, you'll probably see the same trend. It'll start out, and there will be things that no one is able to do. Those things will be so hard, you'll hear a lot of people saying it's impossible. (Or the other thing is OP or IMBA and so on, depending on what type of game it is.) But then, you come back a year later and those things are a joke. It's like, what, that strategy went out so long ago because everyone can counter it. Or, the average good player can pass that level now.
Now, again, this doesn't complete the argument. There are two points I want to highlight though. One, when people improve in something, it usually takes a lot of time and effort. Two, it is very difficult to set an accurate limit. Not just difficult. It's something that cannot be calculated from results. The only way to set a correct limit is to have justifiable reasoning from an understanding of the task and the people who are trying to do the task. With these points in mind, I question the methods of every study that tries to set a limit on mental abilities.
Now, I don't actually know how the studies are done, so it's possible that I could make incorrect assumptions, but at least part of the argument doesn't depend on that anyway. Anyway, here's the argument: the results of the studies are nowhere near the true limits of human abilities, unless you assume that it's true that people's abilities are mostly fixed. Here's why. If you do the study with random people, then the results are not going to tell you anything about what is possible, they will only tell you about the average. You wouldn't try to determine the hardest Dance Dance Revolution song that was possible to pass by asking random people what the hardest song they could pass was. You would ask the best in the world. And even then, even if you studied the best in the world, you would have to wait until the best in the world reach the limit of their ability. Most people don't do serious memory workouts or optimal brain training every day. So even if you tested the people with the best memory or the highest IQ or so on, these people would have to put in the time and effort to improving until you could find the limit. Still, just testing the best would be a better estimate than testing random people. Unless. Unless. It was a true fact that people's abilities are mostly fixed. Then it would kind of make sense. It would make sense to test a bunch of average people and see what their limit was because people can't improve much, so you're finding the a limit that will hold for most people. It would make sense to do a single test rather than test people after a long time and a lot of training because people can't improve much. Well I'm here to say that that's a bad assumption.
Here's my challenge to anyone who wants to believe that people cannot make significant improvements in memory or mental ability. Name one task that you believe people will not improve upon through practice. Because for most tasks, it would sound absurd if you said you didn't believe people could improve much through practice. Any instrument, any sport, any school subject. You hear someone playing the piano really well and they say, "Well I've been playing for 10 years," and you say, "Well that shouldn't matter, you can't improve much through practice. You must just be really talented, because I'm sure this is about as good as you were 10 years ago." That would be absurd to say that! Just the fact that classes and lessons exist and people take them shows that, for these things, people believe you improve through practice. If you fail a class and retake it, you usually do better, not the same. You don't go into a class thinking, "I hope I'm talented in this area so that I am able to use my static level of talent and ability to pass the class..," you go in expecting to learn something and know more at the end then you knew at the beginning. So what about memory? What about intelligence? Well if all these brain games and brain training websites are not committing false advertising, people do better at the games, and some are focused specifically on memory, so you can say that people improved their memory. And when they do certain memory or IQ testing (I know I read it somewhere but I can't remember where exactly), one challenge is making sure that people aren't just improving at answering the test questions or at playing one specific memory game (because the idea is to test overall intelligence or overall memory). Well the fact that this is a problem shows that people expect that if you practice for the test or practice the game, you'll improve.
So the challenge stands. If you can't name a task that people will not improve upon through practice, then, no matter what test you try to use to test memory or intelligence, people will be able to improve on the test. No matter what test it is. You might as well just say that people are improving their intelligence if that's the case.
And no, that's not a proof that there is no area in which people cannot improve. I can't prove that. But I can say that out of everything I've seen, so much of it supports the idea that people improve with practice. People improve over time. And I can't think of any mental task in which I've seen any support for the idea that people cannot make significant improvements (not that my view is particularly broad, but still). Talking about myself, I've seen my own memory improve on a tough memory game, and not even from practice on the game itself. If you are going to tell me that you believe that people cannot significantly improve their cognitive abilities through training, then I want to hear what you have seen that supports the idea, keeping in mind these things: it often takes a lot of time, it often takes a lot of effort, and it often takes the right kind of effort (like, if you want to improve at logic, it's better to put effort into understanding the why's and the reasonings, rather than put effort into memorizing logical statements and such).
So if you accept the idea that you can improve your memory and your intelligence, then the next question is, what is IQ? What does intelligence mean? I view mental abilities and memory capabilities and the like as a ladder. Your height on the ladder is a result of how high up you started, and how much you climbed. So what does intelligence mean here? The three variables that could be described as intelligence all seem a little strange to label as such. Is it your height on the ladder? If so, you could say something like, "Well a few years ago when I was studying a lot, I was really intelligent, I was really high up on the ladder, but I haven't done any mental workouts in the past few years so other people have gotten more intelligent than me, I'm not as comparatively high up the ladder anymore." Is intelligence where you start out? That sounds like talent. "I was born really intelligent, but I didn't train, I didn't study at all, so a lot of people who are less intelligent than me (started out lower than me) are more mentally capable than me." Or is it how fast you climb? "Originally my performance was very poor, but because I was so intelligent, I quickly surpassed everyone else." The idea of intelligence changes some when you allow for mental improvement. Another question to ask is: are they related? Do people who start higher up on the ladder tend to climb faster as well? And I don't know, I can't answer that yet.
That concept of intelligence, however you define it, is maybe not such a crazy thing. People think of it as though it's magic, and you're either born with the magical powers of a genius, or you're not. But really, maybe it's just something really simple. Something as simple as... memory, and logic. With a strong memory and strong logical thought, the amount of areas in which you can excel are so numerous that that alone might make you a genius. Consider that. You can easily master any school subject if you have the memory to remember that which you are asked to remember, and you have the logical strength to understand that which you are asked to understand. Now if you look at intelligence as memory and logic, well, you can improve your memory. At least, I know for a fact that I can, and I have seen nothing that would suggest to me that you, the arbitrary reader out there that I know nothing about, can't. As for logic, well, they even have classes on logic. As I said before, you wouldn't go into a class on logic thinking, "Well I hope I was born with good logic skills so I can succeed in the class." No. Well at least, I don't think that's what most people do. You go into a class expecting to have learned something from it, to have improved at the end. And even if you don't take a class on it, you would surely improve if you just practiced thinking logically. For one way to do that, you can always do something I'd recommend: continue asking, and attempting to answer, the question "why?" about anything and everything, without being satisfied with a partial answer or an incomplete answer, and with an awareness of the areas where you might be wrong, because you won't improve your reasoning if you always reason about things in the same way and you always come up with the same answers (you may think you're right, but you're most likely either missing the other side of the argument, or the topic's too simple). But really, I think it is that simple. You could be like a genius too if you have a very strong memory and can think very logically, and you can improve your memory, and you can improve your logical thinking. Now, those are surely long and difficult processes, so if you were to say, "Well I don't think I'll ever become smarter because I don't want to commit the time and effort required to improve my memory and my logic," I'd say, "Okay, sure, I can understand that." But if you were to say, "Well I don't think it's possible for someone like me to become a smarter person," then I'd say, "I don't believe you. How hard have you tried? How much effort have you put in? Given that it usually takes a lot of time and effort to improve in most things, what have you seen that would make you believe that? Because I don't think it's true."
Now on limits. A limit exists. It does. There's a limit to how smart you can become, and there's a limit to how much you can memorize (just set some outrageous target, like memorizing 1 billion numbers in 1 billionth of a second, there's a limit that people will never reach, and there's surely easier targets that can't be reached as well (unless people develop photographic memories that can memorize in 1 billionth of a second)). There's a limit to all of that, both for you as an individual and for the human race in general. Yes, there's a limit, but the point to remember is that it's hard to predict a good limit and it's impossible to verify without perfect knowledge of the mind and the task. If you tell me, "This task is impossible for me to achieve. I've been trying for 5 years without success," then I can say, "Well that's not a proof. How do you know you won't become able to do it next year? Maybe if you had worked harder, trained more efficiently, or just trained more, maybe you would have already achieved it. Maybe you're just going through a very long period of little to no improvement before you suddenly see a sharp rise in ability. So how do you know you can't?"
And it's not just "how do you verify a limit?", it's also "why do you search for it?" What does it mean? If the limit exists, then what does it prevent you from doing? Maybe it's true that your working memory can only manage 4 objects or however many at a time. But what does that mean for your actual memory? I mean, you're limited to 2 eyes for vision, but the amount that you can see is amazingly large. You're limited to 2 ears, but you can process a lot of sound. Maybe you are limited to 4 objects, but if you can hold an extremely large amount of information inside of those 4 object containers, then it doesn't seem like a particularly meaningful limit.
To summarize, I think that improvement is possible, both in a narrow sense (pick one specific task) and a broad sense (memory or intelligence in general). It's not something I can prove completely, although I have seen my own memory improve, and also there are so many areas in which you will see people improve over time, and none that I can think of where I would expect people to never improve. And I guess that's the core of the argument. There is no mental task that people would not perform better on with practice. This is not something that can really be proven, but if it holds true often and has never been proven false, then that's very good support. If improvement is possible, then it makes no sense to try to develop a limit by testing random people only once or only a few times. You would want to test the best in the area after they have put in a lot of effort to improve, and then you would get a better idea of the limit. And while a limit does exist, it's hard to justify and it's not always useful, so it's probably not worth it to try and set a limit.
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