Are there any true geniuses here? (IQ over 155)

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Callista
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15 Mar 2009, 9:48 pm

Why should geniuses be morally better than anyone else?

A genius sociopath would be downright dangerous.

Why should they be any better at social relations? Remember social skills are not measured on an IQ test.

Why should they be any better at connecting people?

Would they be any good at relating to the majority of average humankind?

A genius would easily fall into the trap of narcissism: "I am smarter, therefore I am better, therefore I know what is best for you, therefore your opinion does not matter. I am doing this for your own good." That is dangerous. See above re. variable moral quality of geniuses.

I think geniuses would generally make horrible world leaders--their intelligence would actually give them a disadvantage. Better: An IQ around 120, in the high-average range, and lots of people skills, such as what's necessary to negotiate compromises and truly understand those who do not think as quickly and thoroughly as a genius would.

In a very real way, someone with profound giftedness is as disconnected from the rest of the world as someone with profound mental retardation. Disconnectedness does not make good leaders.


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15 Mar 2009, 10:02 pm

I can think of a whole novel or screenplay in my head, but I'm on the lower-average side of intelligence.
I find that I cannot concentrate properly if a question has to much information, and I'm not given enough time to break it down in my head.
There's also performance anxiety and not being able to concentrate with distracting noises.

Callista is right though, so I'm glad I don't have a superior IQ in case I have that 'I'm-better-than-thou' attitude.



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15 Mar 2009, 10:09 pm

Verbal? Yes
Performance? Hell no



pezar
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15 Mar 2009, 10:10 pm

ZakFiend wrote:
My own take from being in a high IQ society is that I value character over raw intelligence any day of the week, like any tool, intelligence is only as good as the personality equipped to use it, it's not a badge of honor for me. Intelligence often comes with a curse of horrible and beligerant personalities, if the history of high IQ or ultra high IQ societies is any guide, extreme intelligence that is not balanced out by wisdom, age and experience is not a great thing.


I was wondering about that too, the kids that ABC interviewed all seemed to be really sweet, but they're all 13 and 14, and they're just kids. I think part of the problem is that a "genius" will grow up among non-geniuses and will be constantly told how smart he is, how wonderful he is, and sort of be given a pass on growing up or doing hard work. The inevitable end result is the same as with the high school's star quarterback who is allowed to float along, and then he gets knocked down by cold hard reality and can't get up. That's what's so intriguing about taking all these genius kids and putting them together-they are less likely to grow up with overinflated egos and therefore be less likely to be arrogant and unwilling to admit mistakes.

In a wider view, talent grouping of kids is less likely to result in exceptional kids growing up to be weak or arrogant. Right now America at least lumps everybody together by geographical location, so there's always the exceptional kids who are allowed to float along, and the "losers" who are constantly piled on, and the big middle that has to carry the whole load. Maybe it's no surprise that the American tax system for example works the same way-the rich cheat, the poor mooch, and the middle class pay for it all. We are told that "there are winners and losers", but this sort of social stratification doesn't do anybody any good.

Some people just float along their whole lives, always being given a pass, until they finally face adversity and can't handle it. The former US President, as well as the current one, seem to be counted among their numbers, as well as losing VP candidate Sarah Palin.

Having the youth face adversity early on seems to be a great character builder. Ever since challenges arose in the 1840s to the old system of European nobility, the "new rich" have struggled with how to build character in their kids. For a while, they literally manufactured adversities for them to overcome. John D. Rockefeller had his sons raise farm animals and sell them for slaughter.

The latest crop of rich, the ones who are being hammered now, didn't bother with even that, aside from a handful of strays. They simply gave their kids everything. The kids in turn were weak, and couldn't handle NOT having all that money someday. Welcome to reality, guys. No more new Bentleys.

Anything, athletic ability, artistic ability, intellectual ability, is subject to the same problem-if somebody is exceptional their whole lives, and never challenged, they can literally become the ruler of the world before they face true adversity. That's not a recommended way to learn.

THAT is why a genius school fascinates me-genius, properly trained, may have the ability to solve the world's problems. Most American geniuses aren't trained, they are left on their own, so they either become bitter and resentful like the Unabomber or they become arrogant and hateful like some people in High IQ societies.



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15 Mar 2009, 10:19 pm

The link I posted on page 4 of the link that Merle cited has some very good IQ tests but you have to take a serious look at all of the tests on that site to determine which ones are good and which ones are just fun. There are enough there to somebody busy for several days.


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15 Mar 2009, 10:27 pm

Also I doubt if truely intelligent people would want to dabble in something like the black magic and alchemy of political science.


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15 Mar 2009, 10:40 pm

Modality wrote:
ZakFiend wrote:
If you want to see a real genius (as per you definition) see Chris langan video link below, most people are not going to score off the charts, you're talking about an extreme minority of people. Not to mention "IQ" as measured on different tests is measured differently, an IQ of 155 would be like 130 on another, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0


It's good that geniuses aren't defined by IQ. Langan thinks one can prove through mathematics the existence of an afterlife. This is rampant nonsense of the worst kind. Who cares about his IQ? What has he produced of any worth? (Those questions aren't directed at you, ZakFiend.)


That doesn't mean he's not a genius, don't confuse the fact that he has some bad ideas with the fact that he is definitely a genius, and other people have vouched for this fact. Isaac newton was a christian (hardcore, into prophecy and all that) and dabbled in all sorts of "useless" side pursuits, does it make him any less genius? You have to learn to lay off the perfectionistic idealization of genius, genius's are people too(tm).

Just because he is wrong (or we believe he is) on that one particular point does not mean that he isn't a genius. Another problem is that most intelligent people still unconsciously have adopted the ideas of the enlightenment philosophy whether they know it or not (i.e. reasoning is universal and accesable to every man), it is obvious that reasoning does not work in this way in the real world if you've read or studied any cognitive science at all, people develop their own unique forms of reasoning that are non transferable between people.

Like one of the earlier posters in this thread talked about his unique way of visualizing complex problems through visual metaphors, I know because I do the same thing, there are whole aspects of intelligence currently unseen and unmeasured which can only be accessed via someones internal mental world. I think a lot of people would turn out to be more intelligent then what some IQ test says they are because their thinking styles are different, I'm a visualist, almost all my thinking involves modelling what I am seeing in real time. I was constantly told in school I was extremely intelligent and that my marks didn't reflect my ability and my teachers were always on my case, but they never got the fact that was not bothered because much of school measures is completely irrelevant to someones ability to be intelligent. Intelligence is a lot more then the regurtitation and memorization of other peoples systems of thinking (especially in mathematics), I've been working on my own systems of alternative systems of understanding mathematics and logic in my spare time, which has implications for universal language translation. I no longer advertise the fact to intelligent people or are enthused about sharing it with others because when you are dealing with creating new knowledge you often cannot communicate across the language barrier because of academic resistance and tradition... and the inaccesability of other peoples minds to the data both conscious and subconscious in your head.

I can't tell you how many times I've tested the waters of intelligent people in academia and other places that just aren't as bright as they presume they are. IQ for me is irrelevant if your associative horizon is so extremely limited as to be in what I like to call "the cult of what I was taught" and inability to be creative and chase and develop alternative systems for it's own sake, because you know you it has implications others can't see. No one can see how they are useful and it's applications but the originator. It takes a lot of balls to flout the system it also takes courage, not everyone who is a genius is going to have a high IQ, many things that people produce also that are in fact genius are not recognized as such. Genius is not universally recognizable, it's a lot more difficult to recognize what is and isn't genius when dealing with non obvious things or things that have never been thought before. Lots of genius work is not recognized as such because it is mundane and everyday. Lets not confuse the social recognition of genius, with genius itself (truth)

I'm reminded of George Cantor

"Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive—even shocking—that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré[3] and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections."

"Poincaré referred to Cantor's ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics,[6] and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth."[7] Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong".[8] Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries,[9]
--

Developing new knowledge is highly stressful and many people crack under the pressure and conform because they simply give up on chasing their own insights despite the entire world or those in their surroundings who simply cannot see their thoughts.

It's a communication barrier, and if I were to get the most intelligent people on earth to do one thing, is to create mind to mind communication and the ability to grok the totality of other peoples thoughts and ideas and subconscious information that links these dispare things together.

In the end, thinking you are smart and knowing you are smart, and being successful in school and work are entirely different things. People act like intelligence is monolithic when it is more fragmented and dispersed, I see a lot of genius moments in people some would consider "less intelligent" then myself because of school, where they are in life in terms of social status, etc, one has to learn how to appreciate how little one knows and how ignorant one really is. The true genius recognizes he is a fool and to limit himself to monoculture of those as intelligent as himself is foolish because lack of life experience that produces humbleness of character in real genius, the genius's who are snobs, elitist and cliquish fools are ones we should avoid producing.



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15 Mar 2009, 11:06 pm

FireBird wrote:
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.

I find that hard to believe, Firebird. You are quite clever and appear intelligent enough...btw Lisa's my fave Simpson, besides Maggie, of course. Both of them are adorable!

Pezar wrote:
If you dig down deep enough on that site, you will find an old ABC interview where they talk to a couple students, as well as a teacher, and the billionaire funding it. Also, several print articles do extensive interviews. The Time Magazine article "Failing Our Geniuses" is interesting, and the University of Nevada alumni magazine did an in depth interview with three families and their experiences. A girl named Emma Schmeltzer seems to get interviewed a lot-at the time, she was 14 and had already written a novel and was taking 200 Level (advanced) courses at the university-and scoring 100's on the tests.

Yeah, I admire them Pezar, and find them fascinating too-geniuses. It's great that Emma does college work in high school and can move up at a faster pace. Leaves more time for research work and post grad degrees, several masters and a few doctorates. You can never have too many PhDs has always been my motto.
I had an interest in writing as a teenager but my confidence was low. Confidence is very important, it really is a factor in success.
What do you think of "Failing Our Geniuses"? I plan to look for that and read it. Is it about certain kids failing in schools geared toward average students?

Quote:
Why is it intriguing? Because I wonder if these ultra-smart kids, trained properly, couldn't pull the planet out of the mess it's in. We already had one moron president, George W. Bush, bring the globe to the brink of societal ruin, and his successor seems to be intent on finishing the job. The last time this happened, we needed to resolve it via war.

I think about that too. In the US, where access to a free education is often taken for granted, a lot of potential remains unharnessed and thus, lost. There's so much at work though. Part of the reason the planet is in a mess is misguidedness. People want items that require polluting the planet to make. Does anyone know how much pollution is created just to manufacture gifts at Christmas time? Everyone gets gifts but at what price? If we all work together we have the ability to stop wars.
Quote:
The end result was so horrifying that it largely prevented the Final War from happening, a nuclear war that would have eliminated most life on earth. If we need a war to resolve it now, it will likely truly be the war to end all war. I for one am not willing to throw away humanity to placate the egos of a small class of financiers. This time, there will be no hiding behind walls for the powerful.

I think I know where you are going here...globalcrats hand and hand with corporate America. I don't think they will cause a war, though. They figure out ways to make more money and the cost benefit analysis isn't always good for mankind. War mongerers? I doubt they are.

Quote:
I can't help wondering if a world run by Davidson graduates wouldn't function way better, and not need nuclear weapons to settle scores, incinerating billions while the financiers try to eke out time. It reminds me of the old Black Sabbath song War Pigs from 1970, which can be found on any free music download service. What would the world be like if we didn't have the war pigs and their financiers running the show? Will we ever find out?

Pezar, I am glad you started this thread, this is stuff that should be discussed. Mexico seems like it's on the verge of a serious crisis which I hope is resolved as peacefully as possible, which is fairly close to home. We should question what we have gotten ourselves into.
Think of the weapons out there and if the G 20 ever decided to use them on us, which I don't know why they would, but it's scary.
What if suddenly they decided the earth would be better off without us and they want there to be less people. I hope this is just paranoia but you have to wonder...why do we really need so many weapons of mass destruction? It's probably the biggest threat to us as a species and we don't even realize it.



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15 Mar 2009, 11:16 pm

Has it occured to you that true geniuses may not have any interest in world affairs or govenrments or suffering people or ecological disasters?


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15 Mar 2009, 11:18 pm

Genius isn't measured by IQ test. That is a 20th century (mainly American) myth.

Genius is the abillity to do what nobody has ever done before, in new ways. To create works of novelty, beauty and importance.

Einstein, Mozart, Galois, Da Vinci, Archimedes.

Genius doesn't give better answers.

Genius finds better questions.



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15 Mar 2009, 11:32 pm

ZakFiend wrote:
Modality wrote:
ZakFiend wrote:
If you want to see a real genius (as per you definition) see Chris langan video link below, most people are not going to score off the charts, you're talking about an extreme minority of people. Not to mention "IQ" as measured on different tests is measured differently, an IQ of 155 would be like 130 on another, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0


It's good that geniuses aren't defined by IQ. Langan thinks one can prove through mathematics the existence of an afterlife. This is rampant nonsense of the worst kind. Who cares about his IQ? What has he produced of any worth? (Those questions aren't directed at you, ZakFiend.)


That doesn't mean he's not a genius, don't confuse the fact that he has some bad ideas with the fact that he is definitely a genius, and other people have vouched for this fact. Isaac newton was a christian (hardcore, into prophecy and all that) and dabbled in all sorts of "useless" side pursuits, does it make him any less genius? You have to learn to lay off the perfectionistic idealization of genius, genius's are people too(tm).

Just because he is wrong (or we believe he is) on that one particular point does not mean that he isn't a genius. Another problem is that most intelligent people still unconsciously have adopted the ideas of the enlightenment philosophy whether they know it or not (i.e. reasoning is universal and accesable to every man), it is obvious that reasoning does not work in this way in the real world if you've read or studied any cognitive science at all, people develop their own unique forms of reasoning that are non transferable between people.

Like one of the earlier posters in this thread talked about his unique way of visualizing complex problems through visual metaphors, I know because I do the same thing, there are whole aspects of intelligence currently unseen and unmeasured which can only be accessed via someones internal mental world. I think a lot of people would turn out to be more intelligent then what some IQ test says they are because their thinking styles are different, I'm a visualist, almost all my thinking involves modelling what I am seeing in real time. I was constantly told in school I was extremely intelligent and that my marks didn't reflect my ability and my teachers were always on my case, but they never got the fact that was not bothered because much of school measures is completely irrelevant to someones ability to be intelligent. Intelligence is a lot more then the regurtitation and memorization of other peoples systems of thinking (especially in mathematics), I've been working on my own systems of alternative systems of understanding mathematics and logic in my spare time, which has implications for universal language translation. I no longer advertise the fact to intelligent people or are enthused about sharing it with others because when you are dealing with creating new knowledge you often cannot communicate across the language barrier because of academic resistance and tradition... and the inaccesability of other peoples minds to the data both conscious and subconscious in your head.

I can't tell you how many times I've tested the waters of intelligent people in academia and other places that just aren't as bright as they presume they are. IQ for me is irrelevant if your associative horizon is so extremely limited as to be in what I like to call "the cult of what I was taught" and inability to be creative and chase and develop alternative systems for it's own sake, because you know you it has implications others can't see. No one can see how they are useful and it's applications but the originator. It takes a lot of balls to flout the system it also takes courage, not everyone who is a genius is going to have a high IQ, many things that people produce also that are in fact genius are not recognized as such. Genius is not universally recognizable, it's a lot more difficult to recognize what is and isn't genius when dealing with non obvious things or things that have never been thought before. Lots of genius work is not recognized as such because it is mundane and everyday. Lets not confuse the social recognition of genius, with genius itself (truth)

I'm reminded of George Cantor

"Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive—even shocking—that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré[3] and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections."

"Poincaré referred to Cantor's ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics,[6] and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth."[7] Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong".[8] Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries,[9]
--

Developing new knowledge is highly stressful and many people crack under the pressure and conform because they simply give up on chasing their own insights despite the entire world or those in their surroundings who simply cannot see their thoughts.

It's a communication barrier, and if I were to get the most intelligent people on earth to do one thing, is to create mind to mind communication and the ability to grok the totality of other peoples thoughts and ideas and subconscious information that links these dispare things together.

In the end, thinking you are smart and knowing you are smart, and being successful in school and work are entirely different things. People act like intelligence is monolithic when it is more fragmented and dispersed, I see a lot of genius moments in people some would consider "less intelligent" then myself because of school, where they are in life in terms of social status, etc, one has to learn how to appreciate how little one knows and how ignorant one really is. The true genius recognizes he is a fool and to limit himself to monoculture of those as intelligent as himself is foolish because lack of life experience that produces humbleness of character in real genius, the genius's who are snobs, elitist and cliquish fools are ones we should avoid producing.


An interesting and insightful post - I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, thanks ZacFiend!

As far as IQ goes, I have no idea what mine is. I think one online test I did was 130-something, but I'm not sure it was accurate because a. it was an online quiz, b. the participant's intelligence was tested by the time it took them to answer each question, and I solved each question in my head twice before answering it (because I am a compulsive double checker, and tend to repeat things unnecessarily), thus effectively taking twice the amount of time it actually took me to solve the question.

I think, comparative to other people I've met in my life, I'm very smart, but not quite on a genius level.


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15 Mar 2009, 11:34 pm

I hover in the low 130's...but my strength lies in the sort of creativity that is not measured in standard iq tests...



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16 Mar 2009, 12:04 am

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16 Mar 2009, 1:31 am

VMSnith wrote:
Genius isn't measured by IQ test. That is a 20th century (mainly American) myth.

Genius is the abillity to do what nobody has ever done before, in new ways. To create works of novelty, beauty and importance.

Einstein, Mozart, Galois, Da Vinci, Archimedes.

Genius doesn't give better answers.

Genius finds better questions.


BEAUTIFUL! The most accurate statement on this thread.


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16 Mar 2009, 1:42 am

My sisters older son is a real Genius? never been diagnosed as an aspie but when younger I had to look after him a lot because we both got on and no one else could handle him, 100% aspie to me, he is so advanced he will always live in his own world, he does work too advanced for most at Cambridge / Oxford Universities to even understand and the work he now does he is not allowed to speak about, not that you or me would understand. When he was very young he would ask me questions like how many miles was one star from the next and I thought he was joking, but he knew all the answers 8O

Modality wrote:
I don't think IQ is the correct way to measure genius. One is known as a genius for producing works of genius, not by a score on some test.
I so agree... and we all also know how ever good you are as you get older we then to score less, but often have more knowledge 8O


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16 Mar 2009, 4:51 am

Ravenchild wrote:
I have to admit, I always refused to join mensa on the grounds that they expect you to pay a membership fee...


I don't mind membership fees it is HOW MUCH the Mensa membership fee is that defies reason...