"Intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework. [It may well be that,] raw intelligence [viz., IQ] isn’t so much the primary cause of future success but rather one of a series of causes of future success, a series that begins with capacity for self-control and capacity for delay of gratification. Rather than focusing on intelligence and whether it is mostly hereditary or can be changed, it may be more beneficial to study self-control and whether that is mostly hereditary or can be changed."
"The followers of [Ayn] Rand, for example, treat “A is A” not just as “everything is identical to itself” but as a kind of statement about essences and the limits of things. “A is A, and it can’t be anything else, and once it’s A today, it can’t change its spots tomorrow.” Now, that doesn’t follow. I mean, from the law of identity, nothing follows about limitations on change. [.. It is] completely unjustified so far as I can see; it’s illegitimate. [.. Are Randians] bold entrepreneurs? Yes. But bold exploration of ideas? No."
"I think that quantum mechanics and relativity theory might show us a surprising relativism about truth, that it is relative to time and place, and they do this on the basis of empirical results. That is an interesting and surprising possible connection between philosophy and science."
Robert Nozick
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