Growing up Smart

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The higher your IQ, the lower your chances of feeling satisfied with what you are taught. You may be able to win debates, but still get nowhere, just because you are seen as a challenge to authority.
Logic, science, and engineering have transformed our world, and many people claim to be logical and rational, when there only skill in that department is simple one-step rationalizations. When you point out their errors, they are not grateful, like proper scientists, but vengeful, like inquisitors. That makes it easy to get in the habit of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and never finding the underlying truth.

There are thousands of books on poetry, but it is rarely defined as a data preservation format that sacrifices accuracy and versatility to a repeating pattern that serves as a framework to reduce duplication errors. Writing made it obsolete as a way to preserve cultural traditions, but the esthetic component is stil celebrated for stories, and the extra symmetry gives an aura of correctness to advertising jingles.

I could write pages more - anybody interested?

Still trying to figure out how most people rationalize stuff. It appears to just be whatever is simpler and plays out to make life more interesting.

People also can't comprehend anything as just information they can't detach themselves from it emotionally so everything is seen as an attack at them. It is just one of the big difference the problem is trying to get them to see the difference there between NT and AS.

The title of this caught my eye. I was captivated by the first paragraph, and I understood the second, but didn't see their connecting factor. I am actually working on a piece called "She suffers from 'gifted' ". I would very much be interested in hearing more from you about the ideas expressed in the first paragraph. Where does your IQ test, if you are comfortable sharing?

If we define intelligence as the ability to entertain and manipulate abstractions, then the less intelligent do poorly at arguments involving abstractions. I'm not putting these people down, since we all have gifts in different areas.

It is also true that most people have an almost boundless ability for self-deception, and no amount of evidence will persuade them that they are wrong. My guess is that the ability to deceive ourselves is a protective mechanism. When all seems bleak and dark--like there is no use going on--we can lie to ourselves and think things are better than what they are. And more often than not, things do get better.

As far as poetry and alliteration are concerned, they are just not my thing.

I wasn't told officially, but I think my High School had my IQ rated at 154. There are, of course, many kinds of intelligence. I read a book on emotional intelligence, and barely recognized anything on the list of normal formative experiences.

The second paragraph was just an example of how the basics of a subject are often ignored. I don't like poetry very often, but can appreciate its strength as a memory aid. I was also very dismayed over having to memorize an arbitrary gender for each noun in French. Decades later, I realized that when trying to extract signal from noise, knowing the gender of a noun cuts the possibilities in half.

I think it is safe to assume that everyone harbors at least one irrational thought. One of the most famous astronomers thought our noses pointed down to avoid dust from space, as if he had never watched dust floating in the air. Even if I think I'm being completely rational, I stay that way because it makes me feel good. As a boy, I imagined merging with a machine, but realized there would be no sense of enjoyment.

Emotion seems able to short-circuit logic very easily. When stuck in a rationalization that feels right, any contrary information seems like it must be wrong. When I was a boy, my grandparents had bought me a new Meccano set for each birthday, starting with the #2 set, and getting one better each year. Eventually, I had plenty and was losing interest. I was also getting a sense that I was not "getting it" socially, and had been falling behind since an early age. Somehow, these factors combined, and I insisted that for my next birthday, I wanted the #1 set. Nobody could convince me that the #10 set would have everything that #1 did, plus more. I had lost interest in the sets, and was just beginning to search for what I was missing.

"The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that there are limits to intelligence."

Often, people assume that intelligent people will be able to take care of themselves and figure stuff out. However, we may be handicapped by never suspecting liars around us in time. Stupid people are not necessarily ineffective. Bullies who are too dull to ever get a joke can find a peer group in a security operation, and take out their frustrations on anyone who tries to make a joke, assuming it is at their expense. People who have to fake their way through life assume that science is just a different style of lying.

I can relate. I'm on a higher plateau. Dropped out of school at 16. Stopped going full-time at 13. I'm rather intelligent, I'd say. Not book smart, but street smart, and art smart. I do every type of art I can get my hands on and do it well. High school just was not for me, or my kind. People like me are on a higher plateau, mentally, but below socially. Much like almost everyone on this forum. I don't have any friends. I don't need friends. I got my books and my music and paper and pen. That's all I need to be happy. Maybe the occasional affection from a lady friend.

The smarter you are, the lower your chances of getting help with your questions. Early intellectual independence sometimes feels threatening to parents. They are likely to base privileges on emotional maturity or tradition, rather than actual ability or individual situations. Maintaining control can seem far more important to them than the flowering of something they will never really understand.

Many adults are firmly in the grip of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome. They are not even smart enough to realize that they have gotten older, but not smart. They cheat their way through school, and into jobs they don't understand. They can only assume that everyone else is also doing the same, despite not being able to do many jobs that take a bit of thinking, such as repairs. Fuzzy analog thinking can still manage images enough to give them a lot of options and power.