Does the mountain lifestyle make you smarter?

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Messages 21 - 40 of total 61 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
cintune

climber
the Moon and Antarctica
Jan 7, 2009 - 04:15pm PT
"Standing there in their Patagonia outfits totally lost."

That cracked me up. The horror.
dogtown

climber
Cheyenne,Wyoming
Jan 7, 2009 - 04:49pm PT
No just lucky.
hossjulia

Trad climber
Eastside
Jan 8, 2009 - 09:00pm PT
being eatin by a bear..............

hum, interesting
Captain...or Skully

Social climber
North of the Owyhees
Jan 8, 2009 - 09:05pm PT
I think, if you're being eaten by a bear, you can STILL be smarter.

Just Knott faster.
Jaybro

Social climber
wuz real!
Jan 8, 2009 - 09:52pm PT
Of course, you're smarter in the first place, if you take up the Mountain lifestyle, Duh!
Reilly

Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:34pm PT
Skip,
You know that is a true story, don't you? A 'reliable' Camp 4 source told it to me in Seattle in the late 70's. Perhaps one of the perps or a witness is lurking. Actually, I was told it was hot bacon grease poured over the offender's tent while he was dreaming of free-soloing the DNB. Did he get a rude awakening! Of course, we NW country bumpkins believed everything we heard from Valhalla. Perhaps that is cogent to the thread topic?
Dr. Rock

Ice climber
http://tinyurl.com/4oa5br
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:49pm PT
Hey, man, I ain't got no dang ol' problem here, man... tell you what, worry a little about that son of yours, man, carryin' a dang ol' burger on a pillow.
I... I don't wanna say nothin' 'bout dang ol'... Dad gum, where's the best man?
You know we talked about destiny and the big ol' dipper, man? Well, I'm just like the North Star, I'm always gonna be there, man... just like dang ol' UPS and Hertz Gold, man.
Now gime some fried filet of fried chicken... french fried side of fries... and some fried okra.
Captain...or Skully

Social climber
North of the Owyhees
Jan 9, 2009 - 12:27am PT
Damn but I do miss fried okra.

Mmmmmmmmmmm.
Captain...or Skully

Social climber
North of the Owyhees
Jan 9, 2009 - 08:45am PT
Hey, I resemble that remark.........Woot!
cowpoke

climber
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2009 - 08:48am PT
Jaybro gets to the heart of one of the two different questions people seem to be considering:

1. on average, do smarter people select to live the mountain lifestyle?

2. does living it make you smarter, regardless of your own personal baseline (or potential)?

...or both...or neither?

given that no one has yet randomly assigned individuals to live the mountain lifestyle, a within-person study of variations in smartiness would be cool = follow people who have lived both the mountain and urban lifestyle and ask: are there within-person changes in memory functioning or attention regulation?

by the way, I think Werner's patagonia outfitted folks are the perfect (lack of) practical intelligence example, although most disappointing to learn that those patagonia outfits don't make me smarter...but man, the catalogs are so pretty that it almost doesn't feel like materialism.

[oh yeah, and Tarbuster, I wonder if your argument that organically-fueled inspiration is more common among the moutain folk is really true? maybe, but seems like a lot of progressive stuff getting voted on in urban areas these days too.]
cowpoke

climber
Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2009 - 08:26pm PT
Paul Bloom (Yale developmental psychologist) summarizes recent work on interactions with nature and mental/physical health -- making the argument that nature makes us happier -- in this week's NYTimes magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-lede-t.html
cowpoke

climber
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2011 - 12:29pm PT
A friend and cognitive psychologist at Northeastern University, John Coley, recently completed a study that reminded me of this thread. [The final paper will be in a spring issue of the journal Child Development, but if you can’t wait: an early version of the paper is available on John’s web page http://www.psych.neu.edu/coley/pub/CFB2003.pdf]

But, in case you don't feel like reading anymore than absolutely necessary, here is the short story:

John found that children in rural, suburban, and urban settings are equally good at understanding taxonomic/biological relations among animals and plants. In their early elementary school years, for example, most children recognize that the biological characteristics of one bird species will be more similar to the biological characteristics of another bird species than to the biological features of a fish.

Children growing up in more rural areas, however, develop an earlier understanding of ecological relations that complements their understanding of taxonomic relations. Compared with children growing up in urban areas, for example, children in more rural areas demonstrate an earlier understanding of the fact that a bird and fish sharing a habitat (e.g., a pond) may also share diseases. Interestingly, John finds that the rural children's understandings are similar to the ways that adult experts use both taxonomic and ecological relations to understand relationships between animals and plants (e.g., he has studied the way that commercial fishermen classify relations among fish).

Here is the real kicker (in my opinion): for urban children, time spent in structured activities with parents such as visiting science museums did NOT help them compensate for their lack of experience with nature, at least with regard to the tasks John had children complete. It appears that unstructured time living the mountain lifestyle (or, at least, the rural lifestyle) is key to developing an understanding of ecological relations at an early age.

And, related, a review of some empirical work demonstrating positive associations between children's experiences with nature and their cognitive self-regulation (i.e., attention/concentration abilities) as well as positive emotional outcomes:
http://jmfs1.ortn.edu/myschool/JBeard/Web/Wilderness%20Connections/env%20edu%20research/FaberTaylorKuo2006.pdf
mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Nov 3, 2011 - 01:43pm PT
Smarter maybe, poorer definately.
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Nov 3, 2011 - 02:01pm PT
you want my coin?
the mountain lifestyle wears you down in a dignified manner.
splitting firewood.
dragging fallen timbers cross slope to your hope,
shouveling snow,
midnight fire stoke,
outsmarting power outages,
farming,
canning winter food supply,

much other common (uncommon?) toil accompanies living up in the elements.


the city life wears you down with shame.
traffic haste,
convenience stores climbing into bed with you,
noise,
smog,
punches in the eye,
kick's to the groin,
puke on your frontsteps manana..

i've done both and i value both experiences.
i wouldn't want to raise my kids in the deep city, no.
i do like them to selectively experience that shite though.
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Nov 3, 2011 - 02:12pm PT
the ohh tear thought,
the warrior thought,

is that if you really want to soar with wisdoms unthinkable,
and if you really want to behold a fortitude that shy's the mountain,

then get married and have kids.

a woman and her kids, er, our kids,
have honed my person more than any other exposure that has wrecked into me.

great, now im broke,
i gave you my last two cents.

now i gotta go earn somemore.
Rhodo-Router

Gym climber
the f#%*!n couch.
Nov 3, 2011 - 02:50pm PT
We ain't many!

-Kesey


Thanks Norwegian. Im'a dig that one up right now.
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Nov 3, 2011 - 04:01pm PT
i think it might be halloween, 1991. not sure of the year, but definately a hallow's eve show...
Oplopanax

Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
Nov 3, 2011 - 05:47pm PT
Isn't "the mountain lifestyle" dumbed down climbing clothing for Boulderites?
MH2

climber
Nov 3, 2011 - 10:02pm PT
Harvard's 1650 charter explicitly states its intention to promote the "education of English and Indian youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness."
For some years... the rough-hewn Cambridge campus was a place where Indians and whites pursued knowledge side by side. Both were required to know Latin and Greek to win admission. And wampum was legal tender for tuition - the cost of a year at Harvard was 1 pound, 6 shillings, 8 pence in English currency. Or roughly 1,900 beads of purple quahog and white whelk.



Upon being invited to send another group to Harvard, one tribe replied:

"We are very grateful for the opportunity of instruction in the ways of the white man. But when our young men returned from their years at your great school, they could neither hunt, nor fish, nor fight, nor find their way in the woods, and were in fact good for nothing. However, if you would like to send us some of your students we will endeavor to instruct them in all the skills necessary and becoming of men."

(rough paraphrase from memory from Touch the Earth, by T. C. McLuhan)
Jan

Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
Nov 3, 2011 - 11:31pm PT
Good one. Meanwhile, if you have any doubts about the mountain lifestyle enhancing intelligence, just check out the "What is Mind" thread.
Messages 21 - 40 of total 61 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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