As far as I can understand the MHC, it is more of a skillset whereas IQ is more set in stone. There certainly is a range that your IQ can fall into based on genetic limits, but there are certain things that can make give (Iâm leaving that mistake in because it is hilariously ironic) you a higher IQ. Itâs difficult to really say what that means because these are constructs based on tests of, primarily, mathematical-logical ability. The research seems to indicate that when we say IQ we do tend to mean some sort of genetic limit on âintelligence,â but itâs a little more complicated than that.
I do know of one study that found a 15 IQ point increase after a several year intensive training program in late adolescents. What this means for adults hasnât yet been researched, but I think engaging your mind, educating yourself, being healthy, in brief, self-improving, can lead to an increase in, âintelligence.â
Returning to the MHC however, it is a skillset that is very likely correlated with IQ. It is a model of task complexity and so people with higher intelligence will be able to learn the skills faster and likely with a greater fluency than less intelligent people. As a skillset, you MUST be able to operate at the lower stages before you can move on to the next stage because each subsequent stage orients the skills of the previous stage in a non-arbitrary way. You certainly donât need to be a grandmaster at formal-operations to go to systematic, but you should at least have some level of fluency with it.
As mentioned in the article you posted, parrots taught how to speak are essentially operating with a sentential level of cognitive development. Was this parrot thinking creatively at this level? Itâs difficult to say because its IQ or âhorsepowerâ driving the skillset likely made it incredibly difficult to do so. Compare this to a 3 year old human who can achieve a far greater degree of fluency and creativity because its IQ is high enough to allow for faster thinking at this level.
Perhaps thatâs the key distinction here. IQ as the horsepower of the MHC decreases the amount of time and effort necessary to be creatively fluent at a certain stage. You may be able to get a person with average IQ to a stage like metasystematic, but it would take a lot of effort for them to think at that stage. It also doesnât guarantee that someone of high IQ will always be at higher MHC stage, because they may not have developed the skillset. They are merely at a higher degree of creativity and fluency at a lower stage.
This is especially true if there is a lot of emotional weight behind the two systems they are trying to synthesize. Metaystematic implies that the Left and Right are not mutually exclusive. With the polarization going on right now, how many people are willing to really consider the other side enough to synthesize a higher order system with it?
I think with the MHC, we need to train people in this skillset earlier in life because it acts as a bulwark against polarization. The way our current education system is going, we are just headed toward indoctrinating our children into polarized thinking. At best, we educate children to judge their cognitive abilities based on their percentage scores on memorization tasks. Thatâs hardly a way to teach higher cognitive complexity.
This is why I love the Metamodern distinction between cognitive development and symbol stage development. A Metamodern symbol is the Both/And heuristic. It represents the kind of thinking one has at metasystematic. If we can convince people of the utility of the Both/And heuristic we certainly donât guarantee an increase in complexity, but we do at the very least increase the likelihood that theyâll get better at the type of thinking that may lead to that increase in complexity.
The concept of downward assimilation is very important in this regard because as we become developmentally aware we need to be conscious of how the symbols created by the higher stages are downward assimilated to the lower stages. The failure of the Hegelian dialectic is a perfect example. Or the breakdown I gave of what âsystemic racismâ looks like at systematic, formal-operations, and abstract. Itâs a very poorly designed symbol because it isnât downward assimilated very well. We need symbols that are not only downward assimilated effectively, but also increase the likelihood of people being upward assimilated to the higher stages.
I think Iâve mentioned this before on this forum. Hanzi has argued that the success of Capitalism over Communism was because Capitalism was able to be downward assimilated far more smoothly. It can be used very effectively by the egocentric, ethnocentric, and worldcentric stages of moral development. Communism canât be used by anyone lower than worldcentric, and even then we have some issues. It requires someone to have a very large circle of empathy to be able to function properly.
That kind of turned into an info dump so Iâll leave it at that!