The IQ Test

Ok, so I had to "classify" a box of bones. Easy, right?

Well, considering that I know almost nothing about anatomy, not so easy. I wasn't sure what type of animal these bones were from, or even if they were all from the same type of animal. How was I supposed to find out? I suppose I could find some books on animal bones...

And how should I classify them, anyway? By size? Shape? Body part? Species? Who could say? Mr. Phillips was out of the library all day, so I could not ask him for clarification. I only had a one-word command: CLASSIFY.

Was this some kind of intelligence test? A lesson in the difficulty of classification? If it was the latter, then I can say that I learned my lesson well. When you know next to nothing about bones, classifying bones is a near impossible task.

Well, I started out the best I could, organizing them by general size and shape, what looked like leg bones here, what appeared to be vertebrae there...

But this approach soon became complicated. At some point it becomes hard to know how to group things, what to put together and what to keep apart. Which is more important, the similarity or the difference? At one extreme, you just have to lump them all together as "bones"; at the other extreme, each bone is a unique individual specimen. Is every object a prime number, divisible only by itself and one? Are there really "kinds" of things, or are all classifications arbitrary? It seems there would have to be real kinds... all of these objects are obviously bones. But what about different kinds of bones? Are the divisions between different types of bones as definite and clear as what divides bones from non-bones? And of what greater thing are bones just one kind? Is there only a single group to which they belong? Can't we say that bones are a kind of this thing, but also a kind of that thing? And wouldn't everything that exists ultimately have to be a "kind" of one ultimate thing? A kind of what? Thing? What is a thing, anyway?

While my head swirled with such vertigo-inducing philosophical questions, the bone classification exercise became increasingly difficult and frustrating. Just when I thought I had a good system down, the next bone specimen would throw a wrench in the works and I had to rethink all of my assumptions.

Where did Mr. Phillips get all these stupid bones, anyway? Why does he have them? Just to torment me?

Mr. Phillips finally stopped by right before 5 o'clock to look at my work. "Interesting," he said.

"Well?" I asked. "Did I get it right?"

He gave me a funny look. "Right? Why, young man, you miss the whole point. As I told you, classification is an art." He shrugged nonchalantly. "There's no right answer." He chuckled and turned to leave. Needless to say, I was smoldering.

I almost didn't want to believe him. I didn't want to believe that I had just wasted eight hours of my life trying to find something that didn't exist. I wasn't sure if I should be more angry with Mr. Phillips or with myself. So last night I sulked.

Today, I started to think that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Phillips was wrong.