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  • Currently I think there are eight intelligences that I’m very confident about and a few

  • more that I’ve bene thinking about. I’ll share that with our audience. The first two

  • intelligences are the ones which IQ tests and other kind of standardized tests valorize

  • and as long as we know there are only two out of eight it’s perfectly fine to look

  • at them. Linguistic intelligence is how well youre able to use language. It’s a kind

  • of skill that poets have, other kinds of writers, journalists tend to have linguistic intelligence,

  • orators. The second intelligence is logical mathematical intelligence. As the name implies

  • logicians, mathematicians, scientists have that kind of intelligence. Theyre able

  • to do mathematical proofs. Theyre able to do scientific reasoning and experimentation.

  • And it’s great to have language and logical intelligence because most tests really focus

  • on that. And if you do well in those tests as long as you stay in school you think youre

  • smart. But if you ever walk out into Broadway or the highway or into the woods or into a

  • farm you then find out that other intelligences are at least this important. So the third

  • intelligence is musical intelligence and that’s the capacity to appreciate different kinds

  • of musics, to produce the music by voice or by an instrument or to conduct music.

  • And people say well music is a talent. It’s not an intelligence. And I say well why if

  • youre good with words is that an intelligence but if youre good with tones and rhythms

  • and timbres nobody’s ever given me a good answer which is why it makes sense to talk

  • about musical intelligence. And at certain cultures over history musical intelligence

  • has been very important. The fourth intelligence is spatial intelligence. That’s the intelligence

  • which allows us to handle and work in space that’s close by. A chess player would have

  • spatial intelligence. A surgeon would have spatial intelligence. But there’s another

  • variety of spatial intelligence which we use for a much broader navigation. That’s what

  • an airplane pilot or a sea captain would have. How do you find your way around large territory

  • and large space. Similarly with the fifth intelligence bodily kinesthetic intelligence

  • it comes in two flavors. One flavor is the ability to use your whole body to solve problems

  • or to make things. And athletes and dancers would have that kind of bodily kinesthetic

  • intelligence. But another variety is being able to use your hands or other parts of your

  • body to solve problems or make things. A craft person would have bodily kinesthetic intelligence

  • even if they weren’t particularly a good athlete or dancer.

  • The sixth intelligence and seventh intelligence have to do with human beings. Interpersonal

  • intelligence is how you understand other people, how you motivate them, how you lead them,

  • how you work with them, how you cooperate with them. Anybody at any workplace with other

  • people needs interpersonal intelligence. Leaders hopefully have a lot of interpersonal intelligence.

  • But any intelligence can be used in a pernicious way so the salesman that sells you something

  • you don’t want for a price you don’t want to pay, he or she has got interpersonal intelligence.

  • It’s just not being used in a way that we might prefer. The seventh kind of intelligence

  • is difficult to assess but it’s very important. It’s intrapersonal intelligence. It’s

  • the understanding yourself. If we go back a way in history and prehistory knowledge

  • of yourself probably wasn’t that important because people did what their parents or grandparents

  • did whether they were hunters or fisherman or craftspeople. But nowadays especially in

  • developed society people lead their own lives. We follow our own careers. We often switch

  • careers. We don’t necessarily live at home as we get older. And if you don’t have a

  • good understanding of yourself you are in big trouble.

  • So that’s intrapersonal intelligence. The eighth intelligence which I added some years

  • ago is the naturalist intelligence. And that’s the capacity to make important relevant discriminations

  • in the world of nature between one plant and another, between one animal and another. It’s

  • the intelligence of the naturalist, the intelligence of Charles Darwin. I missed it the first go

  • around when I wrote about it but I tried to atone by adding it to my list. And by the

  • way you might say well but nature isn’t so important anymore. But in fact everything

  • we do in the commercial world uses our naturalist intelligence. Why do I buy this jacket rather

  • than another one? This sweater rather than another one? One hair style rather than another?

  • Those all make just the naturalist intelligence because the brain is very adaptive. And when

  • an old use of a brain center no longer is relevant it gets hijacked for something new.

  • So were all using our naturalist intelligence even if we never walk out into the woods or

  • into the savannah of East Asia. The two other intelligences which I’m interested in, one

  • of them is called the teaching or pedagogical intelligence. The intelligence which allows

  • us to be able to teach successfully to other people. Now you could have two people who

  • have exactly the same expertise and knowledge in the field but one is a very good teacher

  • and the other isn’t. That probably doesn’t surprise individuals so much. But what got

  • me fascinated was as young as two or three kids already know how to teach. Now what does

  • that mean? You show a child how to do something let’s

  • say a three or four year old and then you ask the child to explain it to an older person

  • or to a younger person. And even the three or four year old will explain it very differently

  • to a young person, will go through details, point things and speak slowly. And with an

  • older person it would be much more elliptical and say well you do this and that and then

  • you can figure it out. So that shows as young as three let’s say we already have teaching

  • intelligence. The other one is one which I think is going to be difficult to prove to

  • a skeptic but I call it existential intelligence. And existential intelligence is the intelligence

  • of big questions. Philosophical questions, artistic questions. What does it mean to love?

  • Why do we die? What’s going to be in the future? My pet bird might have more musical

  • intelligence. The rats who are scurrying around the floor might have more spatial intelligence.

  • But no other animals have existential intelligence. Part of the human condition is to think about

  • questions of existence. And I like to say every five year old has existential intelligence

  • because five year old are always asking why this, why that.

  • But the difference between a five year old and a philosopher is the five year old doesn’t

  • pay too much attention to the answer whereas philosophers and other people who develop

  • existential intelligence are really very interested in how we attack questions like that. So again

  • where there’s eight intelligences or ten or twelve is less important to me than having

  • broken the monopoly of a single intelligence which sort of labels you for all time.

  • I think if we lived forever we could probably develop each intelligence to a very high degree.

  • But life is very short and if you devote too much attention to one intelligence youre

  • not going to have much time to work on other kinds of intelligences. And so the big question

  • is should you play to strength or should you bolster weakness? And that’s a value judgment.

  • Scientists cannot give you an answer to that. If, for example, you want to be a jack of

  • all trades and be very well rounded then probably youre going to want to nurture the intelligences

  • which aren’t that strong. If on the other hand youre dead set on really coming to

  • the top of some particular heap then youre probably going to find the intelligences that

  • youre strongest at and really push those. And, you know, if a parent came to me and

  • said well should we supplement or should we accentuate I would say well tell me what you

  • would like your child to do. Or better let the child tell you what he or she wants to

  • do rather than say well science says you should do one or the other. I think it’s a question

  • of values, not of science.

  • Some people think there’s such a thing as humor intelligence. But, in fact, I don’t. I think humor intelligence is simply the operation

  • of a logical intelligence in some realm like human nature or physical nature or the workplace.

  • And what happens is in humor there’s a certain expectation and you flip that expectation

  • so it’s logic but it’s logic that’s played out in different kinds of ways. People

  • had mentioned there’s such a thing as a cooking intelligence, a humor intelligence

  • and a sexual intelligence. And I quipped well that can’t be intelligences because I don’t

  • have any of them.

Currently I think there are eight intelligences that I’m very confident about and a few

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