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g3n1u5
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04 Aug 2008, 5:20 am

Wow, what an interesting question and a lot of very good replies.

I am a member of Mensa, and even Triple Nine and ISPE. They are for people who get iq scores in the top 10th of the top 1% of the population. That is way so much higher than Mensa. I am in the Australian Newspapers as a Genius, this is mainly because I got a perfect score on an IQ test.

People call me a genius, because I can see pattens, create, do a wide range of things, and inspire people around me.

I also have mild Asperger's. I failed school and had to repeat some exams several times, I had ADHD and have a very poor concentration span for much of my life. I still dont have a University Undergraduate degree, yet I am like Charlie form Numb3rs, I work in the Intelligence Community where I use Maths to solve law enforcement type stuff.

I run self help groups for Gifted Adults and Genius, because they have such a high divorce and suicide rate. We walk the place feeling different, alone, one persons calls it seeing colour in a black & white world, but imagine how hard it is to explain television to some one who has never even seen a movie or a film, let alone a TV set.

Genius is often seeing things that people dont, and then living with the disappointment that by time they do see it, your already a 1000 ideas past.

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Tony



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04 Aug 2008, 8:57 am

I question the assertion that MENSA takes people who score with IQ 130+. I think they take the top 2% scores, and I think its a bit higher than 130.


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04 Aug 2008, 9:23 am

I had thoughts that I could be a genous, I see things that others do not, my problem is that I am not incredibly smart, though people tell me otherwise. I often see the reason behind something and I can figure things out, I can not remember how many times in highschool I figured things out before they were supposed to be tought. I sometimes found my self ahead, as I had already sumerised things in my head, I seem to think of things differently to others. But I always make mistakes, it is like my brain has trouble reading questions, Also I think that the basic room in my memory is lower then others. I can not remember phonenombers and stuff, but it is like when I understand stuff, my brain creats some sort of intangible understanding rules to follow. For instance I was terrible at maths as I was being tought by the NT way of rote, but suddnly I started having an understanding behind things and now I can do them all quite well except for 8s and 7s. Within 5 years of learning a beter way of doing maths I am now doing accounting at uni, also I have found that my strange 'shortcuts' at maths made sense to my sister who suffers from a short term memory problem. It is like I can figure a way to explain easier to some people, but when I have tried to tell some people exactly how I do things it makes no sense to them. to my understanding a genous does not need to have a high IQ, I suck at tests and usualy do not get very high in IQ tests or tests in general but just my way of thought can be genous. In maths class I once figured created a graph that I thought would make understand intergration easier, and when the rest of the class saw it it helped them. My teacher even asked if he could use it to teach others with, I think they called it the Bradleigh clock.


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earthmonkey
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04 Aug 2008, 9:49 am

Bradleigh wrote:
I had thoughts that I could be a genous, I see things that others do not, my problem is that I am not incredibly smart, though people tell me otherwise. I often see the reason behind something and I can figure things out, I can not remember how many times in highschool I figured things out before they were supposed to be tought. I sometimes found my self ahead, as I had already sumerised things in my head, I seem to think of things differently to others. But I always make mistakes, it is like my brain has trouble reading questions, Also I think that the basic room in my memory is lower then others. I can not remember phonenombers and stuff, but it is like when I understand stuff, my brain creats some sort of intangible understanding rules to follow. For instance I was terrible at maths as I was being tought by the NT way of rote, but suddnly I started having an understanding behind things and now I can do them all quite well except for 8s and 7s. Within 5 years of learning a beter way of doing maths I am now doing accounting at uni, also I have found that my strange 'shortcuts' at maths made sense to my sister who suffers from a short term memory problem. It is like I can figure a way to explain easier to some people, but when I have tried to tell some people exactly how I do things it makes no sense to them. to my understanding a genous does not need to have a high IQ, I suck at tests and usualy do not get very high in IQ tests or tests in general but just my way of thought can be genous. In maths class I once figured created a graph that I thought would make understand intergration easier, and when the rest of the class saw it it helped them. My teacher even asked if he could use it to teach others with, I think they called it the Bradleigh clock.


A lot of that sounds familiar to me; I've scored between 77 and 145 on performance IQ, and 93 and 130 on verbal IQ. I used to be good with rote memory, but now am very poor with rote memory and much better at figuring things out on the spot, and am not good with arithmetic anymore, but still am good with more advanced math.

I've been described as exceptionally bright and occasionally a prodigy, though when there was something that I didn't understand, especially when it was perceived to be simple like sequences and instructions, then nobody believed I had genuine difficulty with these things and ignored it or said I was playing games or making it up.

I don't consider myself a genius, and I agree that if someone's a genius, they ought to have something to show for it, like an invention or a theory or something like that. Also should account for genius beyond what IQ tests measure, like musical genius.


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04 Aug 2008, 12:15 pm

Before the ceiling was put in I scored 192 on the IQ test. However I would never say I am a genius, I have many talents, but I always feel I am doing useless things. I think you're only a genius if you know how to use your intellect to the greatest.
And there are different kinds of intelligence - for example I know a Williams Syndrome guy who is a musical genius, and a social genius definitely.


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grain-and-field
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04 Aug 2008, 12:33 pm

wow, I sure should need good money to read anything in this thread...



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04 Aug 2008, 1:22 pm

I think genius is a word. Not a person.

Just a fancy word for subjective importances that will not mean anything to another person.

I never met a genius.

Maybe except me... but you can't meet yourself haha.

In all earnest, the word genius is meaningless to me. Genius is like the word intelligent, cool and gross. Who thinks smoking is gross and who doesn't? Who thinks AS is cool and who doesn't?

Who's right?

Language means nothing if it is based on something that can't even be defined by nobody than a single person, because everything if such abstract nature is a model and not even real.

I also still do not understand what IQ means - or why exactly is it easier to score higher on an adult's test than on a kid's test and why exactly is one person with a certain IQ score extremely intelligent and a high achiever while another with the exact same score isn't? People always claim to notice IQ which I sincerely doubt unless their definition of intelligence is that of Wechlser or Binet.

I mean, I called a person who's in the low average range extremely intelligent an a person whose IQ is about 160 an idiot. Because, they were. Not for their characters, but from what I saw as 'intelligent'.


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g3n1u5
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04 Aug 2008, 2:27 pm

G'day,

IQ simply means Intelligence Quota, but it is hardly that at all. It was first developed to identify mental disability not mental ability, that came along after. There are lots of different IQ tests, and they all try to do the same thing, but in reality all they do is measure just how well a person does in a specific test. If you dont know your history or language, then you get marked down, etc.

The only all round test there is is called Ravins Matrixes. This one is cool, because it has no language and no maths, it is just visual spatial patterns, and you chose the next piece in the sequence, which is based on geometric shapes, etc.

I think when your trying to figure out what is intelligence have a look at Multiple Intelligences, they make a lot more sense.

Cheers
Tony



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04 Aug 2008, 5:24 pm

Sora wrote:
I also still do not understand what IQ means - or why exactly is it easier to score higher on an adult's test than on a kid's test and why exactly is one person with a certain IQ score extremely intelligent and a high achiever while another with the exact same score isn't? People always claim to notice IQ which I sincerely doubt unless their definition of intelligence is that of Wechlser or Binet.

I mean, I called a person who's in the low average range extremely intelligent an a person whose IQ is about 160 an idiot. Because, they were. Not for their characters, but from what I saw as 'intelligent'.


Yeah, I mostly agree with Binet that IQ should be used for purposes of helping in academics for those who struggle rather than as trying to define intelligence.

Even so, caution must be employed for this usage, as such tests can be deceiving, particularly in autistic people. I varied on subtest scores from 1 to 14 on WAIS, and the items I remember doing very poorly on (which was usually pretty easy to tell, as the questions for those sections stopped very quickly, whereas the ones with pattern finding and matching, seemed to go on forever until I got too tired of paying all that attention and focus), don't directly bear on me having less potential to learn, though the testing did provide information about my weaknesses, like working memory and auditory and visual processing.

Yeah, I've met people in GATE who have said things less intelligent than things I've heard from average or above average or below average IQs. Also, even where someone has greater ability for a particular way of reasoning, that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to use it, and that's where I see stupidity coming to play - failing to use cognitive resources that are well available to you at the time.


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04 Aug 2008, 5:51 pm

g3n1u5 wrote:
IQ simply means Intelligence Quota...

No. It stands for "Intelligence Quotient".


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04 Aug 2008, 6:08 pm

A genius is 2% smarts, 33% thinking outside the box and 65% dumb luck.


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05 Aug 2008, 5:46 am

I qualify for Mensa, but I'm no genius. As others have said, Mensa accepts the top 2%, based on IQ scores, so it's not really all that rare to qualify for it.

I do think though that just having a high ability to think logically makes one a bit of an outcast all on its own, even without the other social difficulties that come with Asperger's (which I think I qualify for but only mildly). I've found that being able to see things logically makes people uneasy or even angry, especially when it comes to group interactions, because groups are swayed by charisma and manipulation, so that if you point out that they are putting their faith in someone who is mistaken or is misleading them, they just get angry.

So one doesn't have to be a genius to be marginalized for their intelligence or ability to use logic, and I think many of us here may have experienced that.



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11 Jul 2010, 6:23 am

I am better late than never but...

There have been a lot of points made on this topic in this thread. But quite uniquely, certainly for internet forums, I cannot find one of the posts that has an ill thought out point or is simply wrong (this may be testament to the people who are writing it :-). So I am going to just clarify a few things that I think may also need to be taken into account. This is in addition to what has been said already and hopefully is not contradictory to the posts. I acknowledge that some of this may be stating the comparative obvious. Be warned this is huge! Probably the longest single post I have ever put on any forum. None of this is directed at anyone.

As a 'social' definition of genius, the idea that it is a subjective measure is completely true. What is worse for standardised definitions, is the slightly more enlightened may see that genius is as a result of what people do, in particular contexts, rather than who they are as a whole. So those in physics may consider, say, Einstein, Bohr or Hawking to be geniuses when in other facets of their life they may have not been. Given we only 'publicise' the genius aspect of a person, we can never get a true reflection of the 'genius' as a person. However, does it actually matter?
Moving on to measures of intelligence, the older IQ tests are a culturally specific test in most contexts. For example, the verbal reasoning part in particular relies on that fact that you take a test in a specific language, so you inherently you get an automatic bias against those who do not speak the language the test is taken in. Given the IQ was (and in some circles still is) regarded as a 'general' score of intelligence, the almost 'averaging' process that is used to score it means that it will bring down what could be high levels of performance IQ to rather more average and maybe everyday levels. In order to intuitively make the test more accurate you then have to remove this element (which makes it more specific to performance elements) or supply the test in every language (admin costs and nightmare?), including those which may not officially be recognised as one.

Generalising this a little further, the current view in psychology, as I understand it, recognises a number of different intellects. There are about 8 of them (depending on separation of concerns) which include intellects such as body kinaesthetic intelligence, musical, inter/intrapersonal, existential etc. as well as the more standard IQ type tests of mathematical/logical, spatial and linguistic. The standard IQ test as a result of being statistically similar is not then a true measure of an all round intellect and is indeed regarded as somewhat specific (in that a person doing well in one dimension of an IQ test, will generally be found to do well in all. Including many who in, statistical norms, would be regarded as doing well in performance IQ elements who actually hold their own quite well in verbal reasoning also. This is referred to as the 'general intelligence factor' or g factor. As an aside, specific training can cause a g-loading which will bias that otherwise normal individual to a few particular components of the IQ test over others. So you can 'train' to take an IQ test despite the initial reasons for the creation of the more unbiased tests - this is with reference to the point in its history where the IQ test generalised to the wider population as opposed to being just a test of knowledge and limited abstract capabilities that was required in the original general intelligence tests that were used to 'filter' for army recruits may decades ago).
Mensa takes on or above the top 2% of the population. In the UK this translates to an IQ of 130+ on Cattell culture fair (or equivalent) scales or 145 - 148+ on other Cattell based tests. Note there have been a few numbers banded about in this thread of measures where the scale has not been given, which actually in statistical terms is almost meaningless. The only commonality that these numbers have (and even this is an assumption) is the 100 'average'. There are scales that exist that would put Mensa at points of about 170+ on them, so those who have been adjudged to have an IQ score of 160+ which sounds good, if taken on the above tests wouldn't actually qualify for Mensa let alone qualify as a genius. So it is important not to neglect the testing 'scale' in the publishing of the result. The key is not usually the score, but the occurrence in the population. So maybe a more meaningful statement to be given is '...you fit in to the top x% of the population. An occurrence which is generally regarded as being genius under these tests'. Just for completeness, my understanding of a genius in general IQ terms is one who scores 160+ in a test where the top 2% is at 130. Note this is just IQ. This also does not always generalise from country to country. A 100 in the UK may not be the same as a 100 in China or a 100 in America. This just adds to the cultural bias.

There have been many occasions in contemporary human existence where the IQ test has proved to be severely deficient. Not least the savants and some others on the autistic spectrum. Additionally, a paradox pervades in certain societies where the definition of autism, for example, as 'an illness' defines the person wholly in societal terms. Thus (rightly or wrongly) we take care of them, which necessitates, given our respective cultures, taking control of the affairs of that individual. This often (but not always) leads to a disparity of 'power' where the person caring, who may be average, is regarded as being 'in control' of those who they care for (even if the carer and cared for don't think so) who may be regarded in societal terms as gifted or genius. If emphasis is placed on the intellect of the individual as a form of social status, then this is effectively a dissonance in societal thinking which we use the closest of the carer-cared relationship to us to empathise with and thus restore cognitive consonance (a double blow for the cared for, for example, as they are genius - which no average can empathise with - and they have autism - which no average can empathise with by definition. It is an automatic 'win' for the carer). So, to draw on my experience as an example, I work with a number of individuals who know Stephen Hawking better for his wheelchair and his talking computer than his science. They 'pity' him. Indeed, in some younger individuals they don't even know he is a scientist, they just know the disability (thus abnormality, which again is paradoxical as the occurrence of genius, by definition, is abnormal).

I have focussed so far, on just one definition of genius. Indeed, all the quantitative measures that exist focus on the things that can be measured. However, another definition exists which is currently completely immeasurable in objective terms, and that is creativity.
Before I go into a monologue on this, we need to ditch our preconceived ideas of a traditionally creative mind. So no art/science biasing. We are all very versed in abstract thought so this should be very easy for us to do (not so Mr and Ms Average, I can tell you).
Consider two types of required thinking style, those of convergent and divergent thinking (these are psychological definitions). The first of those often manifests itself is a process in which an almost 'step-by-step' (or generally logical) approach is taken towards a specific goal (like some forms of mathematical proof). The general scientific method is one form of this so for example Theory->Hypothesis->Plan Experiment->Test->Get empirical results->Evaluate (there may be several iterations of this) indeed software development is similar regardless of methodology. This does not detract from creative 'sub-processes' (such as experiment design in the above scientific method) but the wider-process is inherently convergent.

The second form of thinking style is divergent thinking. This is when the definition of the best solution (or even any solution) is most important as there is simply no right one. You may be given constraints to work with, but the end goal is not defined. This has necessitated a certain creativity over the years and you often get a 'feel' for what is right as opposed to just a process of step-by-step work.

These have traditionally laid themselves across art and science boundaries to the general public. However, lets muddy the water a bit. Let us consider engineering (I mean true engineering, not the 'technician' level definition of engineer that is banded about loosely which wholly incorrect). The engineering process is somewhat similar to the scientific one in the eyes of Joe/Jane Public. However, although you are given constraints, the end goal applicable to those constraints is not always clear. A part may be given constraints such as weight, size, shape etc. but the actual design is not often obvious. This is often no more pertinent than in software engineering (with the averages) where a client may say "I want this to do that" and the parameters are so loose that the engineer almost has free reign, only to deliver the final solution and it is not what the client wanted.
Applied mathematics, for example, acknowledges this difficulty and allows for methods such as linear programming to find optimal solutions where more than one exists (usually 'corners' on linear graphs in 'd*mb**s' terms) or the calculus of variations where, usually, a single optimal solution exists. By extension engineering also has a certain divergent/creative process to it in that parts may be designed almost intuitively (ignoring computer aided engineering) and then tested in scientific fashion (maybe including computer simulation) to determine if it performs as expected and to spec.

Now, the crux of this argument is that a distinction, as an entire field, of what is counted as creative (which cannot currently be measured. The 'bucket test' for example - many other names for it exist, still requires you to know what the objects or outcomes are that you suggest, so creativity is not separated from knowledge) and what is mechanical, is pretty hard to find in some fields. Indeed, the distinctions in the processes maybe completely meaningless. This includes 'pure' subjects such as art and science. Mathematics, for example, has many instances where a creative mind has proved very important axioms which may have remained conjectures if it wasn't for this creative element. The example that first pops into my head is Georg Cantor's proof of infinite sets in the mathematics of the infinite (by extension that you can perform additions of infinite sets to other infinite sets to get BIGGER infinite sets, so next time your son/daughter - assuming you are 'lucky' enough to have one - says 'infinity plus one' in an argument, you can argue 'infinity plus infinity' as a response and hope they don't know to carry on, otherwise it is a case of continuing ad infinitum or until they get bored whichever is the earlier ;-). There is a mathematical thinking process in there but there is a creative step which allowed the rest of the proof to flow.

Personally, (I am shooting myself in the foot here) I think that you cannot get a genius step from purely procedural elements. As an analogy, making a cake by following a recipe doesn't make you a genius, whilst making a cake when you created the recipe may. So the genius, has to have at least SOME creative element to it if not be purely so. This says nothing of the prevalence of it though.

Moving on. In general society, the term skill is bounded about a lot, sometimes in the context of genius. I made a decision a very long time ago that Skill is effectively socially defined (in the very loosest sense) as the product of Intelligence and Knowledge (Simply put mathematically S = IK :-) so you see people who have a lot of knowledge, maybe regarded as a 'genius' (I have not covered this, but sponges don't seem particularly smart to me :-), but cannot apply it due to deficiencies in abstraction and problem solving, so their skill level is average. The converse is true in that you see a few people who possess 'genius' level IQ's but have little knowledge (a 3 year old with a 150-160 IQ does not always know a lot about the world) thus their skill level is also average. This 'skill' level is probably a more useful social measure, but it is also susceptible to large doses of luck before automatically translating into a higher social status :-) This is ignoring the possibility that Joe/Jane Average may not have the fundamentals to understand your work so, will simply think you are weird because they cannot bridge the gaps in skill elements.

Personally, I have always had a high IQ in the traditional sense. Compared to the 130 Mensa thresholds of Culture Fair etc. My general IQ sits at max 145 (allowing for error) brought down (believe it or not) by my verbal reasoning (which in itself, is under Mensa level, but still average). Performance IQ regularly hits or surpasses 160 - not including 'timing' differences - on a good day (full marks in most general tests) but I attribute that to the work I do and the kind of life that I had growing up more than just pure ability, which gave me a mathematical and logic bias with scientific and engineering ones by extension. I solve problems much much harder than those which require these sort of problem solving skills every day, indeed I was solving harder problems requiring that sort of thinking when I started programming computers at 9 years old all those years ago (but I acknowledge that it may be easier to have an IQ relative to the population at that age, of the levels I had).

I hold postgraduate a qualification in mathematics despite not having a mathematics undergraduate degree (software engineering was my bachelors) and I am quite good at what I do, having reached the heights of software architect by my early-mid twenties in large blue chip organisations, mainly because of my ability to problem solve as well as being assessed by certain tests claiming to show 'objective measures' in programming languages at 'guru' level developer by 24 (alas, although me and the top end software development community preferred this language to a certain product by a much bigger competitor - naming no names, the bigger competitor allegedly 'poached' the architect of the language for their own products and since then the language has stagnated. The poached employee I would, without a shadow of a doubt, consider a genius in this field). However I am also weary of those measures as it is a measure of knowledge more than intelligence.
So in societal terms I am considered by those who know me as being a 'genius' (despite my insistence that I am only borderline, indeed including verbal reasoning I am merely 'gifted') but my attitude always let me down, in that I had always grown up 'knowing' this relative to other children and then adults. Indeed when I went to uni. this came with me, so I often got into very theoretical arguments with the lecturers and academics where I would approach things from different angles, but in industrial as well as academic terms (given I had a paid job as a real programmer when I was 19 during uni, but had other, more informal roles, earlier in life).

I was stubborn, which was a double edged sword, in that I couldn't simply swallow the information and regurgitate it, so I didn't always get on with the academics as I was always questioning. Some academics appreciated that their view was ONE view and not THE view (which given the partially 'divergent' nature of my field should really be the consensus) and thus allowed that with justification, but others, who were less secure didn't like that at all. The stubbornness, also allowed me to take, as a 'dare', statements like "Nobody has ever got 100% in a project. The highest we have had was 81%..." so predictably... A record that stands to this day (and will stand forever, given the university has merged with another, even ignoring the fact that you can't get higher than 100% ;-). However, in other subjects which I didn't care about, I would walk into the exam and deliberately fail in protest. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Did/Do I wonder the world alone? More or less yes. I get limited by others (I even publically proclaim "I have never been involved in any capacity with a stupid person where it hasn't cost me!" - But loosen the definitions and ditch social stereotypes and you will see who the stupid ones are ;-). Having said that, I have some very good friends who I have had since school, college, and uni who were competing at high levels themselves who I am ashamed to say, have turned away from academia just because of me (But they have known me long enough to have figured out how to deal with me, and in some cases keep me 'grounded'). Indeed, even those who have gone on to get PhD's in related subjects almost left, given the levels they claim they were trying to compete against. This one PhD graduate friend of mine, almost turned his back on academia altogether during our undergrad course because of the level he assumed the industry to be at by the way I used to conduct the work and myself. It was only 3 months before our undergrad course was over when he actually saw that the levels of other students wasn't actually that high. Indeed he was considered very capable in his own right. 'Luckily' for him I moved into industry at that point and he tore off on his own for the better, I am delighted to say. This has happened a few times with different university friends. Indeed, out of the circle I used to hang around with in university half have gone on to get PhD's after losing contact with me (but that is only testament to the size of the circle ;-)

I met a number of academics who were pretty dim (my own father has a PhD and is an academic, but I have my doubts on his claim to the title of genius ;-), whilst others, who didn't even have a PhD who I considered to be well worthy of the term. This one lecturer in Uni. stands out, as he was thinking and talking in very abstract terms, however he just 'looked odd' (deep tan and porn-star moustache. Was he moonlighting by lighting moons? :-). As software engineers we had missed the prerequisite course of his which effectively led on to this, so were at a distinct disadvantage over the computer science students. Also, nobody understood him because of the abstract nature of his lectures. I initially got wrapped up in the fact that we had were not given the preliminary course. However, when I actually listened to what he said, I found that he was actually pretty smart! I did use the term that he was a 'genius' at the time, but everybody thought I was as 'nuts' as him. They had switched off a long time ago and written him off completely. Indeed, some had put in a formal complaint.

The examination came along and we all sat it. We got the results back and this one set of 'geeks' who had sided against the lecturer (and me by extension, though I was not 'fighting' his corner as such) had pinned their hopes on their 'best man' (considered gifted IQ wise) who came out with a certain mark. I hadn't picked up my marks by that point, but admittedly I was a little apprehensive. I got my mark to find that I had beaten this 'geek' by 20% (well, 21%, but who's counting ;-) a first level in the course and the highest before this chap who was next down. Needless to say, a lot of face rubbing went on and the geeks abandoned him (to me 'unfortunately') :-D

As for my PhD? I was offered one about two and a half years ago with scholarship. In the end, I turned it down because of the prevailing attitude in the industry here that PhD's make you 'overqualified' and the stigmatic view that you will then job hop. I have and do job-hop anyway, so that wouldn't have changed, but it probably would have hurt my career if I was to have accepted it.

The moral of those stories is that genius is a blessing and a torment. It means you never fail. That is generally good, until the time that you actually might or do. Then the dissonance hits you, and you panic that the world isn't what you thought it was and your position in it is under threat etc. etc. You try to calculate your way out of the problem in search of consonance, sometimes with no success, and then you find you are screwed. Not by anyone else, but by your own intelligence! This is where the 'dumber ones' have one over on us. They have failed before and, in fact, may have got used to the idea of failing. So they cope with this much better than us! Especially if they did so at a young age. Indeed, they may even be blissfully unaware that there are even other ways to live your life to them. So some of us give up, even if we have had our opinions of ourselves as geniuses challenged, may still be regarded in our fields as one. We simply stop. Others may get spurred on, but some of us will stop.

Just to be morbid, on our death beds we will look back on our lives and ask the question of whether it was worth it. Did we change the world? Even if we did, has society moved to a position for or against what we did? Did we give up love or happiness just because of this? Did we push away those chances? We have two major choices at that point if we didn't succeed, either decide we wasted our lives and die, or decide at this point we don't care and die, when it comes, indifferent. Personally, I am going for the latter. Indeed, if I do make a world changing contribution to my industry or not, I don't want to be remembered at all. No headstone, no grave, nothing. I wouldn't sign off the rights to someone else to take credit for, but I wouldn't put my name to anything consciously and would challenge those that do on my behalf. The purity of the contribution(s) will be enough for me. I want nothing more. There is a lot of jealousy and competition for places in the history books, however, I am taking my real-name out of the ring regardless of what I do.



LostInSpace
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11 Jul 2010, 11:20 am

earthmonkey wrote:
I question the assertion that MENSA takes people who score with IQ 130+. I think they take the top 2% scores, and I think its a bit higher than 130.


http://www.mensafoundation.org/Content/ ... Scores.htm

Look near the bottom under "Tests administered by private psychologists." The Wechsler tests are probably the most commonly given IQ tests in the US, probably followed by the Stanford-Binet.


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11 Jul 2010, 11:28 am

There's no official definition. I've seen everything from IQ >130 (about 2% of the population) to IQ>180 (less than 300 people in the entire world, most of whom have probably not been tested). Most Gifted classes require either IQ >130 or IQ >145, but I've been talking to some people lately who say that some kids in Gifted classes are merely shoved into them by their influential parents, and aren't actually gifted at all, even by the 130+ criterion; and that many kids who are in Gifted classes are outgoing and good at socializing, while many introverted kids who ought to be in them, aren't, because they're introverted and people don't think of them as gifted.

It's a bit silly, to me, because "130" doesn't mean very much for anybody who has pronounced strengths or weaknesses. The average person without such strengths and weaknesses might be judged "gifted" at 130, but it loses its meaning very quickly for people who don't have the average cognitive profile--and that's important, because when you get a brain unusual enough to be called "genius" by some definition or other, you're almost certainly going to get those pronounced strengths that will be so much more important, and so much more useful to develop, than overall ability.

Overall high ability? You can just skip the kid up a grade or two. Gifted classes should be for kids who have unusual ability in a smaller area, one that would be best served by staying in their usual classes most of the time and being pulled out to develop their specific talent.


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11 Jul 2010, 11:28 am

You need the potential, then you need to see it through.