The Pursuit of Intellygence

The plot of Gattaca is basically this. Hawke plays Vincent Freeman, in a future where genetic engineering has split the society into castes, those who have genetic engineering to whom everything is given, and the rest who have lowly jobs. In such a society, Freeman wants to be an astronaut, to go out into space, but his lot in life won't let him go. Yet, he is so driven that he will do anything to make it out there.

The story is basically about desire vs. innate ability, and in this film, it's argued that desire can win out over all. This is highlighted by a (yes) swimming race between Vincent, and his brother, and how he managed to win because he was willing to give it his all to win.

And this became the debate that some coworkers and I had. It amounted to whether desire was more than enough to beat innate intelligence. Before I discuss the merits of the debate, I should tell a story. One fellow said that he had seen a documentary about Einstein, a man he claimed had average intelligence, but superior desire, and therefore, his drive helped him to great accomplishments. Thus, drive could always win.

Having said that, Einstein's IQ has been estimated but apparently never measured, and numbers range from 160 to the mid 200s, which means brighter than the public to genius.

The problem is what is intelligence, and we never quite addressed what intelligence was. Roughly, it seemed to be "how fast can someone learn X", which is itself nebulous. But he felt convinced that with great desire, comes great ability.

My other coworker felt that there were innate abilities, and that even if he worked the rest of his life, he could not accomplish as great a thing as someone else.

There is some issue, of course, to why a person with more innate abilities (again, if it could be measured) should be less motivated than someone with less. Indeed, it even begs the question of whether being the best is a worthy goal or not. I recall a story of Gandhi, who had been married as a teen. He was a well-educated man, being a lawyer, but his wife was not. Furthermore, despite his attempts to educate her, she refused to learn, perhaps believing it was not right for a woman to develop her mind.

There have been some recent studies that show that people who believe intelligence is malleable, that you can be smarter, are more likely to become smarter (again, by some criteria of measurement, say, taking standardized exams).

Now, I've done some teaching, and there are people who do learn things more quickly than others, and because it takes less effort, they make more progress, but to be fair, they may indeed take more effort all along, but that once you have enough basic knowledge (more precisely, a way of learning new things), then that can save a bunch of time. Thus, having a well-organized mind, and being patient enough to extrapolate ideas makes it easier to accomplish things. And having a good memory.

Desire isn't enough because desire can be misplaced. You can spend a great deal of time trying to be good at something, but due to bad training, you end up hurting yourself. And this assumes that there are no distractions, such as family, disease, lack of money, shame, etc.

It does seem like many smart individuals (again, by some criteria of intelligence) that I've met agree with this notion. They are smart, while others are dumb. They treat it as some kind of rigid quantity that isn't malleable, but that's probably because, from most observations, it doesn't seem like it is malleable.

Indeed, effort is always given a premium in sports. For example, coaches preach giving 110%. They believe that winning and losing is only a matter of desire. They don't like to say that someone else is simply physically better and more talented. And there is something to be said. After all, sports is not just physically talent. There's also playing smart, fighting on when you're tired, and so forth, so one can try to maximize effort, even if, in the end, it's still not enough.

In the end, something gives. That may be desire, itself. Another film that sides on innate talent is Amadeus where Salieri has given his life to music, and yet, the impish brat, Mozart is so much more talented. He can act rude, and impertinent, but he's a genius. All Salieri can do (at least in the play) is to destroy genius.

While the coworker who believed in desire eventually gave way, the issue is that if the amount of work it takes is too much, people often do stop. You almost need an irrational belief to keep trying something to the exclusion of others to try and make progress, and in this process, you may harm other things, such as meeting people and working as a functioning member of society (again, that may not be that important).