Neil C. Warren on intellectual similarity as a matchmaker and intellectual dissimilarity as a deal breaker:

"Interestingly, there is no clinical or empirical evidence proving that two people will fare better in marriage if they are extremely smart. Nor is there evidence that a couple will do poorly in marriage if they are "not so bright." What does matter immensely is that the partners possess intellectual levels that are near the same. If one partner has a high intelligence quotient and the other partner's IQ is substantially lower, the couple are likely to be miserable together, regardless of how many other good traits they may have.

My own mom and dad fell victim to the disparity in intelligence levels. ... Amazingly, they remained married for seventy years! But for seventy years, they experienced the consequences of being mismatched intellectually. They seldom talked to each other beyond the obligatory "How was your day?" type of questions. They had difficulty discussing the important events of the day, or even the deeper tenets of the religious faith they shared. Although they loved each other and were irrevocably committed to each other, their conversations were limited to mundane, everyday things. This is fine if it's the level on which you and your partner want to communicate. But when you run much more deeply, and your partner is not able to go there with you, it can be a frustrating experience for both of you."

Neil C. Warren

founder of eHarmony

Es ist ein faszinierender Umstand, dass man, sobald man einen Menschen besser kennt, scheinbar automatisch von ihm abgefasste Texte mit dem für ihn eigentümlichen Stimmklang lesen kann.

Sonderstellung des Menschen:

Der Mensch zeigt als einziges Lebewesen Bedürfnis und Fähigkeit, ein umfangreiches sprachliches Wissen über diese Welt zu generieren.

William James on Genius:

"Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."

[Wikipedia]

Rekursion:

Mit Rekursion assoziiert Michael C. Corballis nicht bloß die Fähigkeit, sich vorübergehend gedanklich vom "Hier und Jetzt" wegzubewegen, um sich frei durch Raum und Zeit zu bewegen, sondern ebenso das Vermögen, das vom Mitmenschen Erlebte am eigenen Leib zu erleben: d.h. vorübergehend so die Welt zu erleben, wie sie der Mitmensch erlebt oder erlebte.


---

Recursive Mind
M. C. Corballis (2014)

William James on Attention:

“Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatter-brained state which in French is called distraction, and Zerstreutheit in German.”

The Principles of Psychology

William James (1890)

Informationsüberflutung

Wikipedia: Informationsüberflutung

[Siehe auch: Signal-Rausch-Verhältnis]

[Eine "Überflutung" mit Reizen hat voraussichtlich zur Folge, dass die Reize im Schnitt sehr ineffektiv verwertet werden. D.h. in einer Überfülle an bewusst registrierten Informationen ist es dem Menschen kaum mehr möglich, wirkungsvoll Unsicherheit bezüglich den Phänomenen der Um- und Innenwelt abzubauen // wirkungsvoll sich ein solides Wissen um Phänomene seiner Um- und Innenwelt zu erwerben.]

Episodic Memories:

On the whole, my most vivid and colorful episodic memories are memories about personal conversations.

"That your experience largely depends on the material objects and mental subjects that you choose to pay attention to or ignore is not an imaginative notion ..."

Winifred Gallagher

William James on Alcohol and the Physical Sciences:

"The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man."

"No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance. ... The talk of believing by our volition seems, then, from one point of view, simply silly. From another point of view it is worse than silly, it is vile. When one turns to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared; what thousands of disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its mere foundations; what patience and postponement, what choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness, - then how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke-wreaths, and pretending to decide things from out of his private dream!"

Lectures 16 & 17 [Essays and Lectures]

"The evidence shows, in fact, that people spend more time thinking about the future than about the past."

Michael C. Corballis

"We have a remarkable capacity to mentally relive past events, imagine future ones, and even invent fictitious ones. This mental escape from the present allows us to plan our futures, deliberate on the past, and find inspiration in imagined scenarios. ..."

A new book by Michael C. Corballis:

The Truth about Language: What It Is and Where It Came From
Michael C. Corballis (May, 2017)

How to crush creativity...

"Give us an example of how to crush creativity ... ?"

"Quit daydreaming!"

[Source]

"Uncertainty-related anxiety appears to be maximized in situations where there are no clear frameworks for constraining action or perception."

Psychological Entropy

J. B. Hirsh et al. (2012)

"there are two primary domains of uncertainty that must be contended with from a psychological perspective: uncertainty about perception and uncertainty about action."

Psychological Entropy

J. B. Hirsh et al. (2012)

On the size of sex differences in personality:

"When sex differences across multiple traits are combined using multivariate statistical methods, the global difference between the average profiles of men and women ranges between two and three standard deviations. This means that the personality distributions of males and females overlap by about 10%, which is close to the anatomical overlap between male and female faces (Del Giudice, 2013; Del Giudice et al., 2012). The comparison between faces and personality profiles is illuminating: while the sexes look fairly similar if one considers one anatomical feature at a time (e.g., the size of the eyes, the length of the nose), the difference becomes obvious as soon as one starts looking at whole faces of men and women."

The evolutionary context of personality development Marco Del Giudice (2017)

'Flow':

Momente, Stunden und Tage, wo dem menschlichen Denken und Erleben vorübergehend nicht mehr die Erdenschwere anzuhaften scheint. Wo sich die Aufmerksamkeit entschieden auf pos. Möglichkeiten anstatt auf Gefahren, Notwendigkeiten und Problematiken richtet.

"The evolution of language—another defining adaptation of our species—permits the exchange and transmission of information on an unprecedented scale."

Marco Del Giudice

"an improper or outdated or otherwise invalid attachment—such as the attachment to an inappropriate pattern of behavior or belief—turns the world into waste"

Jordan B. Peterson

Romantic Love and Sexual Desire as Separate Relational Processes

Romantic Love and Sexual Desire in Close Relationships
Gian C. Gonzaga et al. (2006)

"Two schools of thought converge on the notion that romantic love and sexual desire are independent relational processes. Relationship researchers have long grappled with the question of how romantic love and sexual desire emerge and evolve over the course of intimate relationships (Aron & Aron, 1998; Hatfield, 1988; Hatfield & Rapson, 1993; Hatfield & Walster, 1978; S. S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992; R. J. Sternberg, 1986). Within this tradition, researchers differentiate between companionate love (or romantic love, in our terminology), which involves deep feelings of commitment, intimacy, and connection, and passionate love (or sexual desire, in our terminology), which involves powerful feelings of attraction, desire, passion, and infatuation (Diamond, 2003; Hatfield, 1988; Hatfield & Rapson, 1993; Reis & Shaver, 1988). Within this framework, romantic love fulfills a commitment role, sustaining long-term bonds by promoting intimacy, connection, and the formation of mutual long-term plans (e.g., Aron & Aron, 1998; Diamond, 2003; Dion & Dion, 1973; Ellis & Malamuth, 2000; Hatfield & Rapson, 1993; S. S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992; R. J. Sternberg, 1986). In line with this thesis, romantic love relates to an interest in being close to a partner (Aron & Aron, 1998; Hatfield, 1988; Hatfield & Walster, 1978) and encourages self-disclosure (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, & Heyman, 2000; S. S. Hendrick, Hendrick, & Adler, 1988; Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999). Moreover, the feeling of falling in love involves a rapid expansion of the self to include the partner (Aron & Aron, 1997), and perceptions of increasing love across the duration of a relationship predict later relationship continuation (Sprecher, 1999).

In contrast, sexual desire—and related feelings of passion and infatuation—fulfill an initiation role, motivating sexual interest, proximity seeking, and initial contact. By motivating proximity seeking, sexual desire promotes contact and allows commitment to grow (e.g., Hazan & Zeifman, 1994, 1999; Zeifman & Hazan, 1997). In line with this thesis, passion— or sexual desire—tends to peak early in a relationship (Aron & Aron, 1991; Berscheid, 1985; Regan, 1998; R. J. Sternberg, 1986), and behaviors motivated by sexual desire, such as sexual contact or certain kinds of touch, are less frequent in more established relationships (Sprecher & Regan, 1998).

Evolutionary and attachment-related accounts of relationships have similar claims about romantic love and sexual desire (e.g., Diamond, 2003; Fisher, 1998; Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Romantic love is thought to be part of a pair-bonding system, which keeps partners together in long-term relationships that are oriented toward raising vulnerable, dependent offspring to the age of viability (Buss, 1988, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Fisher, 1998; Kenrick & Trost, 1997; Simpson, 1994). As a part of the mating system and with the primary goal of reproduction, sexual desire responds to cues of reproductive readiness, such as physical markers of fertility or status (Buss, 1994).

This evolutionary, attachment-related approach is best encapsulated in Diamond’s (2003, 2004) biobehavioral model of romantic love and sexual desire. Diamond argued that romantic love and sexual desire serve different functions, namely to promote pair bonding and sexual behavior, respectively. In support of these claims, Diamond reviewed evidence showing that the subjective experiences of romantic love and sexual desire are functionally independent: Individuals can feel romantic love but not sexual desire, or sexual desire but not romantic love, toward another person. Romantic love and sexual desire, Diamond claimed, also appear to be mediated by different physiological processes: oxytocin (OT) and endogenous opioids in the case of romantic love, and gonadal estrogens and androgens in the case of sexual desire. ..."

Ordnung und Information:

Eine geordnete Umwelt ist weniger informationshaltig als eine chaotische Umwelt:

Wenn jemand in einer ordentlichen Wohnung sagt, dass sich die Butter im Kühlschrank befindet, so hat diese Aussage einen geringen Informationsgehalt. Wir nehmen ja bereits im vorhinein an, dass sie sich im Kühlschrank oder gegebenfalls auf dem Esstisch findet.

Wenn wir in eine restlos ungeordnete Wohnung gehen, d.h. in eine Wohnung, auf deren Fläche sämtliche Gegenstände restlos chaotisch verteilt sind, so ist die Nachricht, dass sich die Butter unter dem Sofa, der Kopfpolster in der Küche, und der Heftklammerapparat im Badezimmer finden, hochgradig informativ.

Im zweiten Fall können wir nicht effektiv im vorhinein urteilen, an welchen Stellen der Wohnung wir Gegenstände mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit antreffen.

"Das Prinzip, das wir weiterhin kurz Redundanzprinzip nennen wollen, besagt folgendes: Der Mensch (und wohl auch jeder andere wahrnehmungs- und lernfähige Organismus) ist bestrebt, die objektive Information der Außenwelt auf verschiedene Weise subjektiv zu verringern. ... Redundanzprozesse haben dabei den Sinn, dem Menschen (bzw. dem Organismus) die Außenwelt so informationsarm zu machen, dass eine Orientierung und ein geordnetes Verhalten darin möglich wird."

Felix von Cube

"Als übergeordnetes Lebenskriterium erscheint bei allen Organismen ihre Fortpflanzungsfähigkeit. Alle übrigen Charakteristika sind entweder Voraussetzung oder Folge dieser einen zentralen Eigenschaft."

P. Sitte et al.

Zweierlei Unsicherheiten:

Vereinfachend lassen sich die Unsicherheiten, mit denen der Mensch konfrontiert wird, in zwei Kategorien einteilen:

(A) in eine Unsicherheit bezüglich dem, was sich in der Vergangenheit erreignete; bezüglich dem, was sich künftig erreignen wird; darüber, welche Beziehungen zwischen diversen Ereignissen, Phänomenen oder Gegenständen bestehen; etc.

(B) in eine Unsicherheit darüber, wie wir uns in der Situation, in der wir uns befinden, zu verhalten haben

Die zweite Unsicherheit lässt sich nicht mehr als eine rein kognitive Unsicherheit bezeichnen, und bezieht sich bereits auf den Menschen als ein wollendes und handelndes Lebewesen.

Informationsgehalt von Vorträgen:

Es verhält sich keineswegs so, dass Personen bloß Vorträge als langweilig empfinden, die einen geringen Informationsgehalt aufweisen. Ähnlich häufig werden Vorträge als langweilig empfunden, die über einen sehr hohen,  für diverse Zuhörer zu hohen, Informationsgehalt verfügen.

Unsicherheit:

Unsicherheit kann bestehen:

(A) über dasjenige, was sich in der Vergangenheit erreignete

(B) darüber, was sich künftig erreignen wird

(C) über die Beziehungen der Objekte oder Phänomene zueinander

...

Denken im Sinne von Informationsverarbeitung zielt darauf ab, Unsicherheit zu reduzieren.

Intelligenz:

Intelligenz ermöglicht (A) Beziehungsgeflechte der eigenen Um- und Innenwelt aufzudecken, (B) Wissen um Zusammenhänge und Beziehungen schlussfolgernd zu verwerten.

Major findings on g’s impact on job performance

g, Jobs and Life; Linda S. Gottfredson (2003):

Utility of g 

(1) Higher levels of g lead to higher levels of performance in all jobs and along all dimensions of performance. The average correlation of mental tests with overall rated job performance is around 0.5 (corrected for statistical artifacts). 

(2) There is no ability threshold above which more g does not enhance performance. The effects of g are linear: successive increments in g lead to successive increments in job performance. 

(3) (a) The value of higher levels of g does not fade with longer experience on the job. Criterion validities remain high even among highly experienced workers, (b) That they sometimes even appear to rise with experience may be due to the confounding effect of the least experienced groups tending to be more variable in relative level of experience, which obscures the advantages of higher g. 

(4) g predicts job performance better in more complex jobs. Its (corrected) criterion validities range from about 0.2 in the simplest jobs to 0.8 in the most complex. 

(5) g predicts the core technical dimensions of performance better than it does the non-core “citizenship” dimension of performance. 

(6) Perhaps as a consequence, g predicts objectively measured performance (either job knowledge or job sample performance) better than it does subjectively measured performance (such as supervisor ratings). 

Utility of g relative to other “can do” components of performance 

(7) Specific mental abilities (such as spatial, mechanical or verbal ability) add very little, beyond g, to the prediction of job performance, g generally accounts for at least 85-95% of a full mental test battery’s (cross-validated) ability to predict performance in training or on the job. 

(8) Specific mental abilities (such as clerical ability) sometimes add usefully to prediction, net of g, but only in certain classes of jobs. They do not have general utility. 

(9) General psychomotor ability is often useful, but primarily in less complex work. Their predictive validities fall with complexity while those for g rise. 

Utility of g relative to the “will do” component of job performance 

(10) g predicts core performance much better than do “non-cognitive” (less g-loaded) traits, such as vocational interests and different personality traits. The latter add virtually nothing to the prediction of core performance, net of g. 

(11) g predicts most dimensions of non-core performance (such as personal discipline and soldier bearing) much less well than do “non-cognitive” traits of personality and temperament. When a performance dimension reflects both core and non-core performance (effort and leadership), g predicts to about the same modest degree as do non-cognitive (less g-loaded) traits. 

(12) Different non-cognitive traits appear to usefully supplement g in different jobs, just as specific abilities sometimes add to the prediction of performance in certain classes of jobs. Only one such non-cognitive trait appears to be as generalizable as g: the personality trait of conscientiousness/integrity. Its effect sizes for core performance are substantially smaller than g’s, however.

Utility of g relative to the job knowledge 

(13) g affects job performance primarily indirectly through its effect on job-specific knowledge. 

(14) g’s direct effects on job performance increase when jobs are less routinized, training is less complete, and workers retain more discretion. 

(15) Job-specific knowledge generally predicts job performance as well as does g among experienced workers. However, job knowledge is not generalizable (net of its g component), even among experienced workers. The value of job knowledge is highly job specific; g’s value is unrestricted. Utility of g relative to the “have done” (experience) component of job performance 

(16) Like job knowledge, the effect sizes of job-specific experience are sometimes high but they are not generalizable. 

(17) In fact, experience predicts performance less well as all workers become more experienced. In contrast, higher levels of g remain an asset regardless of length of experience. 

(18) Experience predicts job performance less well as job complexity rises, which is opposite the trend for g. Like general psychomotor ability, experience matters least where g matters most to individuals and their organizations.

Affektives Vorausleben:

Der Mensch denkt nicht nur voraus, sondern lebt auch voraus. Er ist nicht bloß in der Lage, sich die Zukunft abstrakt-theoretisch auszumalen, sondern seine Voraussicht geht mit einer anderen Emotionalität: mit neuen Sorgen und Ängsten, mit Sehnsüchten, Träumen, Wünschen und Hoffnungen einher. Zeitlich ausgreifende Affekte bestimmen sein Leben, wie das keines anderen Tieres. Er denkt nicht nur in die Zukunft. Er lebt auch in ihr.

Möglicherweise besteht ein Vorteil der episodischen Voraussicht gegenüber der abstrakt-sprachlichen Voraussicht darin, dass uns anschauliche Vorstellungen eine verhätnismäßig wirkungsvolle affektive Bewertung von Situationen ermöglichen.

Spezifisch menschliche Fähigkeiten:

(A) die verbesserte Fähigkeit anschaulich vorauszudenken
(B) die Fähigkeit abstrakt-sprachlich vorauszudenken
(C) die Fähigkeit zeitliche Fernziele zu fixieren und anzustreben
...

Martian Dunes:

nasa

Richard Alexander on Scenario Building:

"People in the arts are by definition the best storytellers among us. What they tell us is never superfluous, impractical, or trivial unless we, the audiences, allow it to be. We gain mightily from knowing how and when to listen, to whom to listen, and what to do with the experience afterward. For the arts are theater, and theater in all its guises represents the richest, most condensed, and most widely understood of all cultural contributions to our patterns of social scenario building through consciousness and foresight. These scenarios, which we build, review, and revise continually everyday of our lives, are obligate passports to social success, and perhaps the central evolved function of the human social brain. We use them to anticipate and manipulate the future - the ever more distant future in ever greater detail."

Evolutionary Selection and the Nature of Humanity

Darwinism and Philosophy (2008)

The Abilities of Man, Spearman quotes Strasheim:

"The great difference between the 'dull' and the 'bright' testees was that the former relied mainly upon reproduction, while the latter made use of eduction."

"We construct our idealized world, in fantasy, according to all the information we have at our disposal. We use what we know to build an image of what we could have and, therefore, of what we should do. But we compare our interpretation of the world as it unfolds in the present to the desired world, in imagination, not to mere expectation; we compare what we have (in interpretation) to what we want, rather than to what we merely think will be. Our goal setting, and consequent striving, is motivated: we chase what we desire, in our constant attempts to optimize our affective states. (Of course, we use our behavior to ensure that our dreams come true; that is healthy “adaptation.” But we still compare what is happening to what we want—to what we desire to be—not merely to what we cold-bloodedly expect.)"

Maps of Meaning

Jordan B. Peterson

Über menschliche Intelligenz:

Menschliche Organismen sind dazu fähig, bewusste Gedanken bzw. sprachliche Aussagen über Phänomene ihrer Um- und Innenwelt zu generieren. Von Mensch zu Mensch unterscheidet sich die Rate mit der solche Gedanken bzw. Aussagen generiert werden (in Einheiten pro Zeiteinheit), und die generelle Akkuratheit der generierten Gedanken bzw. Aussagen (d.h. in welchem Ausmaß diese tatsächliche Verhältnisse der Um- und Innenwelt widerspiegeln). Intelligenztests messen zwischenmenschliche Unterschiede in der Effektivität des Denkens.