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Milty's Mag, September 1941
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Milty's Mag page five the ability to read English, being equal. Another example: Several people were riding in an automobile and talking. There was considerable noise, the person speaking was rather indistinct, and it was difficult to understand him. One of the listeners required nearly every sentence to be repeated, while the other, sitting at the same distance, was able to perceive the meaning the first time. Depending upon the relative hearing abilities of the two individuals, this ability [to] perceive a meaning from an almost unheard sentence may also be a measure of "intelligence." Likewise the ability of extrapolation from known facts to a picture of a general situation. The quickness with which ones says, "Oh yes, I see," in the course of listening to an explanation is a related measure, dependent, of course, upon obvious conditions. How these things are related, and how they relate to other factors, is a matter for important study. If we want our Superior Man to be well balanced, it is important this his superior traits lie in the direction of those mentioned above. And, to correct a mistaken impression which I may have given above, it is important to be exact in the knowledge of just what the primary traits are, for I spoke of perception and reasoning as if they are primary traits in themselves, but I see that arithmetic reasoning, word meaning, sentence meaning, and paragraph meaning are given different tests in a certain examination, and different scores made in them. (Lester del Rey suggests that a major advance in mechanism of thinking will be the eliminating of logic. The Superior Man will not have to reason things out, but will simply know the answer. To put it differently, the reasoning process will take place in lower centers of the brain, leaving the cerebrum free for who knows what processes? Del Rey believes that he, himself, thinks in that manner up to a certain point, and it is probably that the so-called intuition consists of sub-cerebral reasoning, in which factors of a problem -- both factors and problem may hardly be conscious -- are worked upon by the sub-conscious mind. This theory is logical, since the tendency of evolution is to relegate processes continually from the higher to the lower parts of the brain. So far we have been speaking of the development of certain desired traits which are already in existence. We have not even discussed the proportional part which heredity plays in the very existence of these traits. I'd rather not go into the matter. How about new traits, to take us to the Superman, himself? it is this that everybody speaks of when they tell us that it is impossible to conceive of a Superman. For it may be that it is impossible to conceive of a trait which we do not already possess in a small measure. This is a point upon which we can well speculate into the far hours of the night, and I hope for no experimental verification. What abilities has any science fiction Superman ever had that we don't have? Telepathy? Extra-sensory perception? I think we already have that. We may even have somewhere in our epidermis the rudiments of Slan's tendrils. We don't know that tendrils or any like mechanism is necessary, actually. Come, boys and girls, name me an inheritable trait, characteristic, or ability which a Superman might have that we don't already have in
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Milty's Mag page five the ability to read English, being equal. Another example: Several people were riding in an automobile and talking. There was considerable noise, the person speaking was rather indistinct, and it was difficult to understand him. One of the listeners required nearly every sentence to be repeated, while the other, sitting at the same distance, was able to perceive the meaning the first time. Depending upon the relative hearing abilities of the two individuals, this ability [to] perceive a meaning from an almost unheard sentence may also be a measure of "intelligence." Likewise the ability of extrapolation from known facts to a picture of a general situation. The quickness with which ones says, "Oh yes, I see," in the course of listening to an explanation is a related measure, dependent, of course, upon obvious conditions. How these things are related, and how they relate to other factors, is a matter for important study. If we want our Superior Man to be well balanced, it is important this his superior traits lie in the direction of those mentioned above. And, to correct a mistaken impression which I may have given above, it is important to be exact in the knowledge of just what the primary traits are, for I spoke of perception and reasoning as if they are primary traits in themselves, but I see that arithmetic reasoning, word meaning, sentence meaning, and paragraph meaning are given different tests in a certain examination, and different scores made in them. (Lester del Rey suggests that a major advance in mechanism of thinking will be the eliminating of logic. The Superior Man will not have to reason things out, but will simply know the answer. To put it differently, the reasoning process will take place in lower centers of the brain, leaving the cerebrum free for who knows what processes? Del Rey believes that he, himself, thinks in that manner up to a certain point, and it is probably that the so-called intuition consists of sub-cerebral reasoning, in which factors of a problem -- both factors and problem may hardly be conscious -- are worked upon by the sub-conscious mind. This theory is logical, since the tendency of evolution is to relegate processes continually from the higher to the lower parts of the brain. So far we have been speaking of the development of certain desired traits which are already in existence. We have not even discussed the proportional part which heredity plays in the very existence of these traits. I'd rather not go into the matter. How about new traits, to take us to the Superman, himself? it is this that everybody speaks of when they tell us that it is impossible to conceive of a Superman. For it may be that it is impossible to conceive of a trait which we do not already possess in a small measure. This is a point upon which we can well speculate into the far hours of the night, and I hope for no experimental verification. What abilities has any science fiction Superman ever had that we don't have? Telepathy? Extra-sensory perception? I think we already have that. We may even have somewhere in our epidermis the rudiments of Slan's tendrils. We don't know that tendrils or any like mechanism is necessary, actually. Come, boys and girls, name me an inheritable trait, characteristic, or ability which a Superman might have that we don't already have in
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