Multiple Intelligences in the Social Imagination...

According to Psychology Today, article by Dr. Neel Burton, from Nov. 28, 2018 (updated June 7 2019), there is no agreed upon definition or model of intelligence. By the Collins English Dictionary, intelligence is ‘the ability to think, reason, and understand instead of doing things automatically or by instinct’. By the Macmillan Dictionary, it is ‘the ability to understand and think about things, and to gain and use knowledge’.

Ah, there is the key phrase (agreed upon) and thankfully right from the 'get go' = start.  If you don't know my position by now you will. Which is... there is no social reality nor social imagination without agreement. How does that work exactly? Well, our entire life, which exists in the social imagination, is entirely based information received and exchanged and is so because it is either agreed on or not in the place we are in over a period of time. That means, in order that something becomes a 'real person/place/thing' information has to be received and agreed on as having meaning to us in the place we are.

When you take time to really consider and apply what is going on...all information (no one thinks alone) is socially acquired, agreed on and shared in the social imagination. Once that happens, it is applied and becomes a kind of meaningful product (including concepts such as: liberty, justice, love) which over time is/are continually used to sustain the one and the many in the place where they are;  and, it is especially strong in its original form thus becoming deeply embedded into the social imagination as an/the absolute truth.

All those that claim to truly understand a truth in something is only through agreement and once that happens they circulate that truth. Interestingly, in its most original form one might consider that arriving at a truth is quite remarkable even intelligent. But, it never happens in as an isolated event.  What anyone in a group or the group as a whole determines as a truth is so because it works for them in the place where they are: village, town, country, and nation. Such 'truths' create the shape of what we imagine as  'culture'.

This is in fact the only measure of 'intelligence' within a group is that it understands what/who it is and is not in a place over time within the scope of its continual engagement and agreement in its social imagination... which becomes its social reality.The human mind is like a computer, either accepting bits of information or rejecting. Meaning is a product of that process. And, it can become a future framework for accepting or rejecting new or other information.

Now, this brings me to a theory which for unknown reasons I just came across yesterday. Probably, it is because having studied in Europe and studying classical social thought, not wild notions like 'multiple intelligence would explain it. Having already been informed of what intelligence is, how could anyone, think or imagine multiple intelligences?

What are  multiple intelligences?  Supposedly, multiple intelligences are specific 'modalities' but let us say categorized abilities and or strengths: spatial, visual, musical, emotional, linguistic, artistic and so on. Now, perhaps one can agree that it takes an innate talent to bang two sticks together with some degree of syncopation on a box and when certain people hear it they like it. But that is not an example of intelligence. There really aren't any multiple intelligences.

Of course, each person has certain abilities or strengths that another might not have. But as you read, strengths and abilities/learned skills are not actually intelligences but rather people agreeing that some activity is either useful, pleasant or generates more leisure, wealth, and or health. Now, having a skill or ability or strength as an individual is not just the individual's doing because every individual is shaped by the group the larger social imagination in a place over time; a social imagination that belongs to him/her and the group. A social imagination that introduced from the very beginning of life and it always starts in a mother's womb and then in her arms.

Does race, ethnicity, gender play into this process, this social imagination (locus of the mind) in a place, that produced usable truths for the one and the group? Yes! What I am saying is that they may or may not have a recognized skill or strength without the group agreeing on its role and or purpose in the place they are. So to say that there a multiple intelligences doesn't really explain anything in the social imagination, the social reality.

If you were a pearl diver but lived in the mountains, you would never have the chance to be what you seem to have an intelligence for. No one in your group/culture/society or we should rather say 'social imagination' would ever agree that you had a talent because it would never be useful in the mountains... in the place where you are/they are. 

Does that mean we could potentially all have the same talents/skills/intelligence? Maybe... Its just not that easy to say.. How long would it take for you to become a successful pearl diver even if you went to the place where they are and studied pearl diving which if you potentially could do if given a chance and even be good at it. Well, in 'their' social imagination, they would likely not accept you as a 'pearl diver' on the same level as they are.

Do multiple intelligences exist? No, and its dangerous to think that multiple intelligences exist as isolated phenomenon without a proper context like the social imagination. Doing so leaves out the very essence of what a human being is and is not... a composition of 'information' acquired from interpersonal 'social' interaction in a place over time. 

Without that context, there is no reality, no reason for intelligence whatsoever. Because, it has no role and or impact to make and how could such a thing or concept be appreciated as such without social context and place. Multiple intelligences are really no more than different skill sets, abilities, talents one or many can acquire or learn but again such things exist in agreement in the social imagination. 

In saying that, I should ask is there more than one social imagination in the world? Yes, of course. 

*Note ~ The last blog dealt with agreement reality and how its possible to have 'mutual' agreement with other cultures/groups on certain things either as they are absolute truths or that there is an advantage in agreeing on something outside of ones own culture residing in another; ... "though, we have a few things worldwide that everyone can agree on, we are still not fully in agreement on everything. For not all things appear the same to everyone in exactly the same shape or form. 

Yet, we all do seem to agree that the sun is a star.  Now, in relation to this blog discussing 'multiple intelligences', agreeing on the sun being a star is rather a no brainer since most everyone in the world seems to agree. :-) on that which hardly qualifies such agreement as an example of multiple intelligences arriving at the same conclusion. 

But, certainly in order for the sun to be a star in any social imagination it has to be agreed on which still is not an example of multiple intelligences arriving at the same conclusion; but rather illustrates that certain absolute truths stand alone...without agreement by anyone. Human beings everywhere can recognize an absolute truth when they see it because stems from the absolute intelligent source... The Creator's.