Anna Merikin's Journal: Intelligences

IQ tests (Benet's, etc.) used to measure eleven different kinds of intelligence (logic, spatial relations, etc.) of the twenty-two that had been identified at the time. Perhaps now more have been discovered.

On a parallel line, I am reading a book by a man (now long dead) who I saw lecture on perception in Boston at the annual meeting of the Association of Humanistic Psych ologists around 1970, Julian James. His topic then was "Personality is Perception," and, as his speech sparked many insights, I made note of the book he said was "soon to be released," "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind."

In it, he flatly states there is only one way we think: in words. I had to stop there, as I knew from experience as a photographer that I sometimes thought in terms of transforming images, and, as a t'ai chi player that I sometimes thought in terms of convergant movement.

Listening to Fresh Air on US PBS yesterday, I heard an author, who had been diagnosed as autistic as a child, describe the way she saw the world: As an animal did, she claimed. Sudden motion produces fear, she said. An animal is always afraid of sudden movement.

This is not what I experienced in t'ai chi defense against a gang of muggers, however. I was not afraid. I was able to use my newly-discovered and trained facility to "see" converging movement and position myself to use it to my own advantage.

The idea that we humans can think in many different ways is at the core of humanistic psychology and should become prominent in years to come, as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs became prominent -- but corrupted by culture to fit its own needs for Status.

The Hierarchy (for those interested)
1. Survival (Food, shelter, etc.)
2. Security
3. Ego gratification
4. Status
5. Self-esteem
6. Self actualization.
(I suspect there is one missing. Sorry, Abe.)