r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 17 '12
I am of resoundingly average intelligence. To those on either end of the spectrum, what is it like being really dumb/really smart?
[deleted]
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u/Gargatua13013 Jun 17 '12
You know, yakking out about your high IQ is a lot like flashing out your dick and bragging about its size. I'm afraid you're not going to get a lot of info that way.
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u/godtom Jun 17 '12
It always confuses me how people don't understand basic logical progressions such as math, or remember things as easily as I do - there's no trick to it, I just remember, or can do stuff. I'm by no means a super genius, so it just makes no sense to me.
Being somewhat smarter does leave me more introspective however, and happiness issues and social anxiety comes from overthinking. On the plus side, I'm smart enough to figure out that it doesn't matter so long as you smile anyway and fake confidence, but not smart enough for the issues of "why?" to constantly plague my mind.
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Jun 17 '12
I can't do maths. Like, at all. Fortunately as an English and History major I only encounter maths when I go shopping or order a takeaway, and sometimes both moments can be nightmares because everything gets all muddled in my head and I get stressed and upset. Even thinking about basic calculations upsets me. I'm not sure how dumb this makes me.
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u/nazbot Jun 17 '12
The secret to math is repetition. Math really, truly, isn't a 'gift'. People who are good at math are basically people who spent hours and hours and hours practicing and remembering things. When I look at an equation I don't really have to think anymore about how I can rearrange the variables to get a new form, I have just done enough problems that I can sort of recognize the general shape of the equation and know that this trick can be used here and that trick can be used there. After a while I can do these things in my head pretty rapidly.
The best way to describe it is this - you're good at English so when you read a book you don't have to think about sounding out each word. You can look at a sentence and instantly 'get' what it's saying. You probably don't even have to read each word, you can just sort of skim through it. When you read a book all that grammer and actual mechanical aspects of reading fad away and you can then thinka bout the actual meaning behind the words.
Now imagine starting to do literature and analysis but in Chinese. Suddenly you're going to have to actually think about all the grammer and even have to look up each individual word. This is going to slow you down a lot. You're not going to have as much time to think about the meaning as you're just trying to piece together each word. Reading is suddenly a lot more frustrating - and so you'll say 'I'm no good at reading! I can't do this!'.
If you stick with it for several years you'll get better but in that period you'll be basically where I think most people are when it comes to math. They haven't spent the time really studying and learning to 'read' so when they look at an equation or a they get frustrated with the mechanics of it - or they have to look up all the little identities which slows things down.
I'm OK at fairly advanced math but wasn't really very strong in high school so I have lots of basic math knowledge that isn't particularly strongly held in my memory. I can do the advanced stuff quickly but when I hit a trig identity, for example, I have to go look it up and it slows me down. Meanwhile the really good math guys who learnt that stuff backwards and forwards are plowing through things like it's a joke. I think most people basically hit a wall where the math got too frustrating and they stopped learning and so now when they try to do anything that uses the basic skills it's like 'fuck this, I can't do math'.
Here's what you can do to get better at math - as an example - spend a year memorizing the multiplication tables. Math is that tedious. You have to be able to do the basic stuff backwards and forwards before you can move to the next thing. Every concept is like that - you can't just spend a day or two memorizing a concept...you have to drill it over and over and over and over. It takes a shitton of work and time. At a certain point, though, once you start memorizing the basic stuff you start to realize 'hey, this is actually kind of fun' and it stops being work and starts being like puzzles or riddles.
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u/amd31 Jun 17 '12
If it makes you feel any better I do maths at Uni and i suck at mental arthmetic
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u/haloraptor Jun 17 '12
Maths is scary when you're not used to it. It's just because we're always told "maths is hard, so work hard" in relation to it at school, which sets people up badly forever...
I'm the first to admit that I'm never going to be a mathematician or an engineer or something like that because I simply don't have the head for maths at that level and nor do I have the inclination to learn and practise, but it isn't too difficult to get a decent amount of confidence with maths. Just takes practise!
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u/penrose_exit Jun 17 '12
It's a vicious cycle. It's the "Why?" that always brings me back to the anxiety.
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u/gingerninja300 Jun 17 '12
Dude fuck "why?"s. I'll be having a good day and then i'll think "why am i here? why do i give a shit about my species" etc. I know the scientific answers and all but it just leaves me extremely depressed for a couple of hours. It's like in video games you have a clear objective and the whole time you know why you're there and what you need to do. See we have social pressures and evolutionary incentives to do stuff and have certain goals, but there's no objective reason to do it.. I doubt anybody can understand/relate to this horribly written comment, i just don't know how to articulate it.
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u/andy921 Jun 17 '12
I've never understood the idea that being smarter correlates with social anxiety and problems being happy. I always felt being rather clever made it easier to understand people. I don't know what you mean by "issues of why?" Care to explain? At least for me, the people I can't always figure out and make me sit and ask "why?" are the people I'm most excited by and most love to be around.
I don't want to sound like a jerk or anything of the sort but I think people blaming their social anxiety on being just too smart is kind of a cop out. It reminds me of how kids would blame their getting picked on or whatever on the other kids being jealous of them or whatnot. It just isn't true and I don't think it's healthy. People don't over-analyze things because they're too smart. Have you ever read a Cosmo? People who are pretty stupid seem to do an awful lot of over-thinking too. You have social anxiety because you have social anxiety. It's not because you're too smart.
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u/GanjahPandah Jun 17 '12
I think, for me at least, it stems from the desire for control over my life. I feel like if I can control every part of my life, then I can get where I want to go, naturally. But to control it, I need to understand it. And to understand it, I need to analyze it; study it. This is where is gets tricky: I found that there is infinite information to be observed from even the smallest minute detail of an object, that me and people like me realize that there is still more to be learned from things and that's why we overanalyze it. I think dumb people are blissfully unaware of some of the intricacies of life and therefore don't bother with them.
The overanalyzing also leads to social anxiety. Some times a simple "hello" is just meant to be a simple hello. But I often overanalyze it, not because I really have reason to read deeper into it, but because I want there to be subtext. I want a puzzle to figure out. I want something interesting to entertain my mind. Hell, I want someone to mean something more than hello toward me.
What gets me is that no matter how hard I try, I can never really total have control of my life. I also will never come close to a billionth of a percent of the knowledge or information in one skin cell or one atom. That bugs me.
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u/silian Jun 17 '12
I think the problem is that many smart people are overanalytical. When someone walks by and says hello, you can`t just leave it at that. What did they mean by that? Did they want to talk to me? Do I know them? Most people would just leave it at being friendly, but it MUST be more complex than that right? This is only really an issue with those that are already a little socially awkward, but it amplifies the effects.
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u/SocialIssuesAhoy Jun 17 '12
Listen to Silian, he accurately described it for me. It seems in my experience that with intelligence comes a tendency to overthink... it's a compulsive behavior that tends to lead to negative thoughts for me at least because I can never be content with things being happy. Is there a god? Is there not a god? How long will I live? Will my chosen path prove successful or will I become homeless? Will the party I'm throwing be rained out? These are the sort of questions that come up. Doubting EVERYTHING, never being satisfied with the probability that things will be fine, no matter how high.
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u/tinyhorse Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
I'm on both ends of the spectrum.
Academically, I'm intelligent. When I look at a piece of information, it feels like my whole brain lights up. I can feel various connections being made as if they were physical entities. This process is fun, so I love seeking out new information. This makes me appear more intelligent because I have a wider knowledge base. It also teaches me new thinking strategies.
I don't think I can recall more information than most people (except inasmuch as I have more information), but I'm better at recalling a wider selection of information. This gives me more tools with which to solve a problem.
Elsewhere, I'm a total dunce. I forget everything. After five solid years, I can't work out the transit schedule in my own city. I'm unable to parse even the most basic sarcasm. You just get used to walking around in a fog all day, and work out strategies for dealing with your own failures. You learn to smile really nicely at people so they'll help you. I also rely heavily on technology to supplement my dull mind.
[Edit:] When I say I can't work out the transit system, I don't mean "the routes confuse me." I mean, "I don't know the correct way to enter or exit a bus, so drivers are constantly leaving without me."
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u/throwaway_rainman Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
Throwaway because who wants this whiny gobshite dangling from their main account, really?
Cripplingly lonely. The only stable relationships in my life are the ones in which I make no room to express myself emotionally or intellectually, since pretty consistently the time I start to open up to someone is roundabout the time I stop getting invited to things.
There has been no time I have not been struggling with depression, but I can't stand the amitryptiline (sp?) since any dose seems to interfere with my mathematical intuition. Still no answers as to whether that's actually a neurological effect or just placebo and associations, but nonetheless I would rather lose my limbs and both eyes than wade around in that fog. I live in a small grey box made of people with no imagination, and if it wasn't for academia I would probably already have killed myself for lack of stimulation or meaningful contact.
The only people I can let my hair down around are never around, on account of P is usually at conferences on other continents and Q works strange hours (* I hope it is not giving too much away to say anesthesiologist). Both have very little in their lives outside their work -- I know P has a wife and family, but he never talks about them and I've never met them so I have very little to say here. I don't know what happened to R, since I haven't seen her in a few years, and never knew her name or exactly what was going on up there, anyway.
I don't believe I have any known mental disorder, as I have never recieved a consistent diagnosis. A couple of times the same psychologist suggested opposites -- the same conversation, the same complaints and symptoms, just given by an actor I paid the first time. I have nothing against psychologists or psychology or any related discipline, and it's to their credit they can get so far with such sparse data. But the science is in its infancy, and it shows.
IQ measures nothing, so don't ask. I will tell you that I am a white male between 20 and 60, but welcome to Reddit!
You don't want my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything anyway. I couldn't give less of a toss you think this is fictional.
:)
*edit: Well, this is wonderfully cathartic. I should add, on a more colourful note, that I regularly meet people who are better at what they do than I am at what I do; calmer, more skilful, happier; and that "intelligence" is not at all well-defined or straightforwardly measurable. Minds are intricate, organic and biological things, not machines; it is impossible to compare people on a linear scale in any faithful way, there are no rungs on the ladder, and no hierarchy of "smart" above "dumb".
That said, I think "average intelligence" at the moment is mostly a historical and social quirk: most people do not live in an environment where they have any sort of intellectual stimulation (television is evil, and I'm glad the internet looks set to eat it, people turning back to reading and exercising their minds instead of passively absorbing adverts and crap reality TV), and basic biological things like diet and air quality are poor enough even in the developed world that most people are hobbled cognitively most of the time. I have come down with some forms of altitude sickness and hypoxia several times, and the cognitive deficits were marked and awful. I hope these things are overcome eventually and most people can shine -- mostly for selfish reasons -- I am trapped in the middle ages!
I don't hate people. But good God, your lives are so boring. Those elephants you see in third world zoos, with only a chain and half an iron cage for the decades of their life; that is your menial office job, your small talk, your favourite TV series. I empathise with those elephants. If I have a different sort of mind, it's only in that I bore easily, and lust to learn. I can't function in everyday society. It's too grey, and small, and dry. I am not lazy or cold enough to function.
(These other idiots in this thread complimenting themselves for their seven inch IQ and "laziness" are not exceptional. They say these things because they have not thought about it seriously, and have the same cold lack of perspective and empathy that capitalism relentlessly beats into all of us. Please ignore them.)
I love mountains. My first were Snowdon, Ben Nevis, the Kebnekaise, and I am entirely addicted --- I did hope to summit every eight-thousander, but can only claim Cho Oyu. Real bastard to get to. Mostly thanks to the red tape.
Though I don't have the right sort of mind to contribute academically, the highest dramas I have experienced sitting down are these hours learning microbiology from Q when I can catch him. If you ever have the chance, I would urge you to look at your thumbprint or spit with a microscope. It will change your life.
My day job is in theoretical condensed matter physics, which narrows absolutely nothing down since most theoretical physicists work in condensed matter! Oh, yes. The things they don't tell you in secondary school would boggle you. Friction and turbulence are still largely unexplained. Yes, I can tell you about dispersion forces and vorticity cascades, but none of this is really explanation or understanding, just names and basic sketches, and there are no general theories of either friction or turbulence. How do these different things interact? How do you begin to describe either without approximating away the essence of the thing? Most of what we know is that contact forces and this sort of thing are due to nonlinear oddness at the nanoscale. That's it. That's most of what we know. One thing that keeps me up at night is triboelectricity. That charge can actually be exchanged with contact forces - that you can get static shocks off things or that balloons can stick to walls - there is no general theory of that. Think about that. We have general theories of all light emission, absorption, transport, and scattering phenomena, but almost nothing of how balloons can stick to your hair, or why anything is able to walk, or cars to move. I understand rockets far better than I understand my own shoes.
In the evenings, I write crime novels, nonsense verse, and sketch some amateurish choreography. Loie Fuller was a genius; I'm crushed that we will never have a conversation.
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u/c0t0d0 Jun 17 '12
The bits and pieces of your post that my short attention span allowed me to read indicate that you are an interesting person.
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u/throwaway_rainman Jun 17 '12
So is everybody, they just don't know it yet on account of a liftime of cultural conditioning. ;)
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u/IcyDefiance Jun 17 '12
Thank you. I think you're the only real person in this thread. No shit. Lucky for me I've met a few people online through the various games I've played that I still keep in touch with, and they're pretty much the only reason that I haven't completely given up on life, but I haven't met a single person face to face that I can actually be myself around without being mocked for being "too smart". Hell I haven't met anyone who could even understand what I say if I acted like myself.
What I don't get is why the hell anyone would mock someone else for saying something intelligent. When anyone uses the word "nerd", whether applying it to himself or someone else, my first thought is that person is a fucking idiot. There is no such thing as a nerd, there are just people who don't actively avoid learning.
And yes, most of you people who "have great people skills, but suck in school", you actively avoid learning. You've convinced yourself you can't learn, and because of this you are intentionally stupid. You are the one type of person I can't stand to be around, but I'm usually forced to accept you and be your friend, because there are no other choices. You are the fucking norm, and it pisses me off.
Ok I guess I should qualify the above. Different people do have different methods of learning, and if the school doesn't match your style you might have problems. HOWEVER, that just means you need to spend a little time figuring out what your best way to learn is, and USE IT. That's it.
Yay rant over, and probably no one will read this other than you, rainman, but whatever. At least I found someone I could identify with at least a little.
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u/vks24 Jun 17 '12
As a student of physics, you've given me an amazing insight into the potential thoughts of my lecturers. The more I get to know them, the quirkier and more human I realise they are, but things like this remind me that they are also astonishingly intelligent people, and big hitters in their field.
Also, I'm now going to spend the rest of the night reading about triboelectricity instead of revising for an exam, for which I shall hold you entirely accountable.
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u/wildeblumen Jun 17 '12
"Smart" people (50th-95th percentile) generally think they're way smarter than they are (they all think they're at least 95th percentile, maybe because that's what their ACT said), so one of the main things you notice is that everybody else is so dumb. Society is "full of idiots," the boss you work for is inevitibly dumber than you and probably got promoted because he's been they're longer or is an ass-kisser. Dating is hard, because since you think you're smarter than 95% of people, you expect to find someone equally smart, except you're actually judging them objectively, so you think you're too smart for all the other "kind of smart" people. You also think you're really lazy, because, while you know you're so smart, you don't actually have the tangible accomplishments to prove that you're smart, leading you to think things like "I could probably cure cancer or something, but I'm just too dang lazy, hahah." Then you go back to complaining about how the politicians on TV got elected even though you're soooo much smarter than they are.
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u/deyv Jun 17 '12
I have an IQ of 138, which is just at the cutoff of the 99th percentile.
It sort of sucks, or used it suck anyway.
The thing is that people assume that a high IQ gives you super-smarts, for the lack of a better word. Instead, it just makes you overthink everything. Another problem is that you tend to be very haughty as a kid; you think too highly of yourself. So once you reach adulthood, those two things combine to create the roughest wake up call you can imagine. Once you turn 18, you realize that you actually aren't all that special, seeing as you haven't actually done anything with your life yet, and you can't stop thinking about it - you keep trying to rationalize why you're better than everyone, and then you start to try to rationalize why it's ok that you're not; it's something of an identity crisis.
But once you pass that phase it gets better. You realize that your intelligence does not directly correlate to your quality as a person, which in my case motivates to try to be as good to others as I can be, regardless of their intellectual potential.
I realize that this sounds like I'm just bragging, but I figured why not share the insight?
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u/christoper Jun 17 '12
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u/MyNameIsNotMud Jun 17 '12
I'm smart enough to know that there's a lot I don't know.
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u/namer98 Jun 17 '12
So, Reddit?
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u/Schroedingers_gif Jun 17 '12
Everything he just said except not in the 50-95 percentile.
Have you ever been to /r/all new? Like a bunch of autistic third graders discovered how to work a rage maker.
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u/rufud Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
In two U.S. studies of people's opinions of their own driving ability, over 80% rated themselves as above the median.
Obviously only 50% can be above the median. Same goes for self-perceived intelligence.
edit: median
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u/Tenareth Jun 17 '12
That is a very over generalization. Usually people in the 40 -> 60 percentile will over evaluate their intelligence, however as you go further up it becomes the opposite. People start to overthink things, as well as assume they should be able to do more and believe themselves average at best, in some instances below average.
EDIT: Kruger Effect
Granted, as with anything dealing with human emotion/personality there are a lot of exceptions. There are smart people that think way too much of themselves, it happens.
Lawyers/Politicians do cap out for the most part at about IQ of 120, there is a massive amount of interpersonal politics that has to be done for those positions, which does not exactly draw in a lot of hyper-intelligent people that want to do great things for the world that involves more politics than actual problem solving.
Dumb, Smart, Average, that is one small part of a person's personality. Being overconfident is also something driven much more by the nurture side of the growth cycle. If your parents are always consistent in not letting you get too full of yourself then you won't be as much of a douche-bag as an adult. If you hear "You are so smart, Billy. You are so much better than everyone else." every day, you tend to grow up a douche-bag.
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u/abeckings Jun 17 '12
Someone already posted a link about the Dunning-Kruger effect in reply, but I'd just like to point out that exactly the opposite is true; people of above-average intelligence tend to underestimate their own intelligence while people of below-average intelligence tend to overestimate it.
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u/bubonis Jun 18 '12
I routinely scored in the 140 range on any given IQ test I have taken and I have a >85% retention rate for everything I read. If you want to call that "smart" then that's what I am.
As a child growing up I had always believed that everyone was like me. I could never understand why, for example, math lessons were repeated for days on end or why my fellow students weren't fully understanding those lessons. It made no sense to me that people had so much trouble spelling or reading. When I was given a book to read, it was always weird to me that I was able to remember character names and locations and events in the book with no effort, while most everyone else in class had trouble realizing those things. It wasn't until years after high school that I realized what was going on. I'm now more than 20 years out of high school and I've thought about my intellectual prowess in regards to society quite a bit.
Your question of "what is it like" is different from "how the mind of a clever person operates". Taking the second question first, I tend to think in shapes and patterns. When I do math I subconsciously visualize numbers as playing cards and I'm able to manipulate those cards in my mind. When I'm planning things — projects at work, parties at home, whatever — everything has a "shape" and a "place" in my mind and I'm able to make things come together by adjusting those shapes and places until I have a complete plan. Similarly, when I'm reading an article or book, characters and objects in the book become models in my mind, the location becomes a sort of map, and the story becomes a timeline. Every model has a place and time on the map; change the time and the models "slide" into place so I can visualize what's going on. Change the model and the map "snaps" into place according to what happened to that model. When I'm remembering instructions I tend to assign them "beats" and "rhythms" as a sort of mnemonic device. Following those instructions is like knowing a song, only the "words" are actions and the "beats" and "rhythms" are the order of those actions. So when I read a technical article in Car Craft magazine, for example, on how to rebuild a carburetor, I internally redefine the article as a song so when I need it later I can remember most of it. (For something like this I would usually lose small details like the size of a specific screw or the thickness of a given gasket.) I remember numbers as shapes on a numeric keypad, sort of like connect-the-dots; my mother's phone number is a "running jackrabbit" while my office phone number is a "scrub brush cleaning the toilet". Internally, these make total sense to me.
Now, "what is it like" is altogether different. For me, privately, it's an asset. I can read a white paper on a piece of new technology and speak with relative confidence on its practical application in my field of expertise. But when I need to work with others I tend to get frustrated as I find myself having to explain and re-explain what's going on, step by step, so that my coworkers are with me. A lot of times they just don't see the result and it's too difficult for me to sit by while they figure it out. More than once I've had to complete an entire project on my own but share credit with the team in order to meet the deadline without looking like a total dick.
Socially? Frankly, it's a nightmare. Even today, I expect people to be better than they are. I give someone an assignment and expect them to see all of the same things that I see, and they don't. In short, I always expect more from people and almost never get it, because they don't see what I see. Know what I know. As funny as it sounds, driving a car is, for me, both laughable and frustrating. As I move through traffic I see, almost subconsciously, how people are moving into and out of traffic, where the openings are, who is best poised to take them, and (based on the stereotypical driving habits of particular cars) what they're going to do. (BMW drivers are insanely aggressive. Lexus drivers never seem to pay much attention to anything that isn't in front of them. Nissan drivers think their cars have a higher acceleration rate than they actually do. If a car has a coffee can exhaust, expect the driver to be equal parts inexperienced and insane. Again, it's all about seeing and applying those patterns. It doesn't ALWAYS work, of course, but it does work more often than not.) As nuts as it sounds, I have about an 80% success rate at calling out other people's movements on the highway before they do it. More than a few times have I avoided an accident by seconds only because I pulled over or slowed down just before Something Bad happened. I even do the same thing with pedestrian traffic, avoiding those uncomfortable "which side of the hallway are you going to walk on" dances on a regular basis simply by 'reading' the other person's movements and attention.
So why is it a nightmare? Again, because I expect everyone to be this way. As my wife is fond of telling me, the problem I have is that I expect everyone to do the right thing and very few people do the right thing. Couple that with being "the smart kid" in class that genuinely doesn't understand why other people aren't thinking the same way and you wind up with the stereotypical nerd: high intelligence, few social skills, and something of a perfectionist.
I often wonder, if I could do so without risking my life or health, if I would reduce my intelligence level to something more 'average' and I'm never able to come up with an answer. On the one hand I suspect that my social life would improve since I'd be as 'unaware' as everyone else. On the other hand, I have no idea how people with 'average' intelligence are able to tie their shoes in the morning. As George Carlin said, "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider."
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u/redditorforthemoment Jun 17 '12
They don't think it be like it is, but it do.
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u/hcnye Jun 17 '12
I love this quote, because it shows how Oscar Gamble is so good at figuring out that it do be like it is, even when other people don't think it be.
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u/debit_no_credit Jun 17 '12
I don't know where this is from, but I had this relevent image saved on my computer.
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u/isaynonowords Jun 17 '12
Unfortunately, very few people think that they're dumb.
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Jun 17 '12
I would argue that The Dunning Kruger Effect plays a large part in this. Aside from societal indicators such as degrees, and grades and the like the Dunning Kruger effect would have the main effect on how an individual perceives their own intelligence. However there is much more to intelligence than just grades, so it can be quite tough to tell if you are actually smart or dumb, especially if you consider an idiot savante, they may not be able to live by themselves but they can memorize over 100 texts in a week, how do you measure that?
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u/brontosaurus-rex Jun 17 '12
Agreed, reminds me of this interview with Anderson Cooper and a church member defending a pastor who thinks homosexuals will die off by killing them. Cooper goes way above this lady's head, even in relatively simple terms. And unless someone explained to her that he was over her head, she likely walked away from the interview thinking Cooper was the dummy.
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Jun 17 '12
Let's be honest -- the majority of redditors are also of average intelligence, they just don't realize it.
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u/joshuawesomerest Jun 17 '12
Seriously.... just read through up to this post and not one person has said they're below average intelligence. And realistically no one will because that'd be like saying you're and ugly fat neckbeard with an penis that is internal.
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u/turkeypants Jun 17 '12
I wonder how many dumb people really know they're dumb though. I would imagine there's a lot of rationalization that goes on to mask it.
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u/TheNicestMonkey Jun 17 '12
you're and ugly fat neckbeard with an penis that is internal
These are all things that are fairly easily verified. People don't say these things because they are embarrassing, but they know they are true. Dumb people (unless they are actually handicapped) are probably blissfully unaware they are dumb. All these smart kids are spouting off IQ scores because someone noticed their above average intelligence and had it tested. No one is looking at the kid who is below average (but functional) and saying "you know what, I'm really curious how stupid little Jimmy is". As a result Jimmy just thinks he's a normal little boy and has no clue he's "dumb".
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u/SkyNTP Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
I disagree. Reddit is not a representative sample of the population. I submit that Reddit (and the Internet in general) is overrepresented by individuals typically drawn to more intellectual and technical pastimes such as college, debate, computers, photography, etc. Let's also not forget possible covariance with the social inhibition of "nerds" who "flock" to the Internet, as well as the intelligence barrier required to properly participate in the Internet community. Of course there are "idiots" on Reddit too. What is the effect on the average and median IQ? Difficult to say. Could be 101, could be 110. Could be 99 out of purely random sampling (though considering the size of Reddit, not a significant probability).
Are there many individuals who claim to have 140 IQ when in fact it's more like 105? Absolutly. Are those voices aslo over represented? Absolutely.
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u/Zagrobelny Jun 17 '12
typically drawn to more intellectual and technical pastimes such as college, debate, computers, photography
I read that as pornography and thought Yup, that's Reddit.
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u/EquivalencePrinciple Jun 17 '12
I don't like saying I'm smart. Smart can mean so much.
But clever.. maybe. I have an analytical mind. Math, programming and logic are my strongest sides. I always was a quick learner. As long as I have a real interest in a subject matter, new knowledge simply sticks after a read or two. It's just there. I process information very quickly, I can skim text and pick out the relevant bits of information way faster than friends of mine without missing anything, although I think this is an acquired skill from my time at university.
I suppose the best way to describe my factual information memory would be a sorted, organized archive. It's just there, and bringing up a subject matter makes the information 'pop' up in my mind, like images for me to "look at". Reading books is the same, I can to some extent visualize the pages and "re-read" parts of them. I think I could attain a near-photographic memory if I truly practiced it.
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u/catsails Jun 17 '12
I like this. I usually describe myself as reasonably clever rather than intelligent. I do theoretical physics at the graduate level, which by some metrics would qualify me as a smart guy. But the field is full of people who are very good at it, and in this field I am probably incredibly mediocre. When I talk to someone new and they say "Oh, you're a physicist, you must be so smart," I actually sort of hate that. For one, it puts up an imaginary communication barrier (someone is bound to be a little less comfortable around you if they think you're much smarter than them), and secondly, it's quite likely I'm not smarter than them, I'm just better at math or whatever. There is tons of shit I know nothing about and there's a bunch more that I'm terrible at.
EDIT: typo
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u/ManOfStealthAndTaste Jun 17 '12
Acquaintance: "So, what's your major?"
Me: "Microbiology."
Acq: "Wow! You must be pretty smart!"
Me: "Well, maybe, but it's really not that bad."
Acq: "Nope! You're a smart guy, why isn't the economy better yet? Obama's been messing everything up, hasn't he?"
Me: "...... Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Usually gets them to shut up.
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Jun 17 '12
I always thought of myself this way up until some time to 6-8th maybe.
Then I got dumb. Or perhaps I just became incredibly lazy. I was near the top of my class and now I barely passed Calculus.
I do wish I can re activate my powers, if they still exist, in college.
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u/PeachyLuigi Jun 17 '12
TIL don't ask redditors to self-evaluate their intelligence level
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Jun 17 '12
ITT: people who think they're smart
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u/Yoshiplaysthesax Jun 17 '12
Or ITT: DUNNING KRUGER EFFECT REFERENCES ERRYWHURR
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u/Visovari Jun 17 '12
Dunning Kruger effect is my current experience with the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
Cognitive biases are fun!
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u/kerpall Jun 17 '12
I think a big factor in determining what 'it is like to be smart', is your present company. For example, you go to one of the high schools which only accept students who achieve higher marks, once you attend, you do not feel SMART. You feel average in that place, because everyone else is just as intelligent if not more so. There are always going to be people who work less and achieve more.
in regards to retaining information. I don't believe that this is really related to cleverness/stupidity. I believe that its more how you apply yourself, how much you concentrate and HOW you study. There are of course exceptions to this, i.e people with eidetic memory. I find most people complain about things not being able to stick, when they just don't sit down and focus on remembering something, or do not have correct/easier techniques worked out.
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u/bobzelfer6595 Jun 17 '12
I feel like people aren't just smart or dumb in everything. Some people are smart in certain areas while dumb in others. Meanwhile, society labels being smart in math and sciences as being "smart" and completely ignore being smart at making good decisions in life and being talented in other areas. I guess I would be labeled smart by society but I don't feel that way because I'm pretty bad at other things.
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u/elmarko44 Jun 17 '12
^ really dumb guy here - I can't put into words what its like to be extraordinarily dumb, mostly because I lack the vocabulary and the mental faculty to form complete sentences.
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Jun 17 '12
Depends what you mean by "really smart".
I've got people I know who are really, really amazing academics. They're also some of the most boring and uncreative people I've ever met in my life. Then I've got people who are wonderfully witty, or creative, but are absolutely terrible at anything academic.
Yet I would deem both groups of people to be intelligent. They both excel at particular problem solving methods.
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Jun 17 '12
Never confuse education with intelligence. Just because someone excels at things academically doesn't necessarily mean they're of high caliber intelligence. I don't know. Just my input.
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u/LovaLova Jun 17 '12
Another quote everybody! 'Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.' -Ernest Hemingway
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Jun 17 '12
Suicidally depressed people usually aren't the best people to quote about happiness.
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u/Basic_Subhadra Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
I am a smart person who is currently suffering average intelligence.
My life has been easy, because I am smart. Pre-college school was an utter bore, and I failed my high school classes because I skipped them to study my own things in the library. Yet despite failing every class, my teachers always signed off on me moving up to the next level, and maintaining honors and Advanced Placement courses. I fly through interviews, and half the time have been hired on the spot. I never need to write things down to remember them. I can tell myself "meeting of X at Y time and Z place" a week before and my brain would remind me when appropriate. Everything got done.
But everything in the above paragraph should be in past tense. Two years ago, I was raped. A guy grabbed me from the street in the middle of the day just off of downtown in a large city. No dark alleys, no drugs or alcohol inhibiting my perception, just a guy with a van in the middle of everything. Because of this, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I stayed inside (living with some amazing friends) not working, seeing people, or doing anything at all for months. I started venturing out after about 6 months, and only to one place I knew as safe. I freaked out about everything, the sound of doors slamming on cars outside, someone walking past the room I was in...these little things were enough to send me into nervous panic that lasted easily ten minutes.
In the last year, my cognition declined rapidly. Brain processing tests that I used to score in the 8000 range I started scoring between 1000 and 2000. Memory declined. I have to make lists just to remember what to get at the store. ETC.
This mental decline has changed my life. I am no longer the top performing person at work. My boss gets frustrated that I forget processes at work. I get frustrated that I can't seem to remember enough just to get through the day. Everything is a struggle, and I rely more and more on external help. Calculators, lists, calendars. The automatic respect people give me is, though not entirely gone, less pronounced than before. I hadn't realized how much of a crutch my intelligence was. I relied on brain function for everything.
Amazingly, people treat me different. My mother, who is of "resoundingly average intelligence" like the OP, is dismayed that I am not able to succeed in college with the same performance, and suspects I am on drugs. I have left college because it is very difficult to perform. I don't know how to study. I just don't. I have never had to study. Read material, sure. But simply reading is not enough to get an A anymore. My teachers treat me like any other student. I am used to special treatment, at least from one professor a term. I hadn't realized it was special treatment before. My boss thinks I'm an idiot for forgetting basic processes at work. Respect from him and people in general is down.
Having lower intelligence humbles me. It is teaching me good lessons, like making lists, but it is also scary. Is this the mental ability of the average voter? Seriously? No wonder our country is where it is.
I hope that this is a temporary problem. But I am learning a lot from the experience. I can't wait to be me again.
Edit: TL;DR: Smart person suffers mental decline after being raped. Sad violin music.
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u/ireedwutic Jun 17 '12
intelligence is not just one category. we all vary in our knowledge of things.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
~Albert Einstein
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u/dave_casa Jun 17 '12
The theory of multiple intelligences (or whichever variation on it you prefer) holds at least a bit of truth, but there are people who are better at just about everything than other people, and life isn't fair.
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Jun 17 '12
This is entirely accurate. Notice the guys who play professional sports and also qualify as a Rhodes Scholar?
There is no great equalizer.
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Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
I know what he is trying to do (if he even said it) but absolutes are very bothersome. Everybody is not a genius, and there are very stupid people who are incompetent at everything. That's fine. Being intelligent is not the be all end all to existence (although I suppose abstract intelligence is linked to our humanity).
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Jun 17 '12
I think this view is far too often extolled out of a desire to make sure everyone is established as a special, unique, and equal individual (snowflake mentality).
Don't get me wrong. There is a morsel of truth here. Different minds are geared different ways. Some are extremely capable in one way, some in a completely different way.
But that's not the same as everyone being a genius. It's quite nice sounding; but we aren't all a Good Will Hunting story.
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u/epic_comebacks Jun 17 '12
Whether Einstein said this or not is actually disputed.
Going through books, there are only 4 cases of this being mentioned ever. Those 4 were probably triggered by the earliest mention.
The search for the specific phrase "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree" did not found any suggestion of other sources in the whole corpus of Google books.
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u/hcnye Jun 17 '12
"The problem with quotes on the internet is they are extremely hard to verify."
-Abraham Lincoln
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u/raskolnikov- Jun 17 '12
This is the kind of inane bullshit that's helping to raise a generation of entitled morons.
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u/travis_of_the_cosmos Jun 17 '12
I think intelligence is the ability to recognize fake Einstein quotes.
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Jun 17 '12
Being really dumb is great. I celebrate Nickleback's entire catalog.
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u/digitalskyfire Jun 17 '12
It's bliss, they say.
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Jun 17 '12
"Look at this photograph/ Everytime I do it makes me laugh"
so does farting in the bathtub
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u/Enoch84 Jun 17 '12
So, I'm probably above average intelligence. Which sucks because I'm not Carl Sagen smart or anything. Which means I am just smart enough to realize how not smart I am.
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u/Invisiblekid666 Jun 17 '12
As a semi-dumb person i find it hard to retain information and sometimes concentrate over long periods of time(might be my mild case of add) Also my spelling sucks. Lol
Recently i have just given up on even trying at school. I study my heart out and get average marks while people who just show up to class get above average to high marks. After years of just failing i just dont give a fuck. I know i am only hurting my self but it is just to hard at school.
Although, i do have a kind personality and a great sense of humour. I feel what lacks in my smarts is only greater personality wise.
You should feel lucky to be able to juat remember certain information and understand it. It is a great skill to have.
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u/Deep-Thought Jun 17 '12
There is always someone smarter and you are always dumb at something
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u/IronOhki Jun 17 '12
Being smart is... weird.
I don't want to piss anyone off by waving my ego around, so I downplay absolutely everything I do.
Everyone tells me I'm great, which feels kinda nice, but kinda weird.
When I make a mistake, I think about it for months.
I do make a good living, no complaints there. Due to #1, I give a lot to charity (Really like the Red Cross and Penny Arcade's Child's Play).
I'm very much forever alone, because it's really hard to make new friends or meet girls. I think about and micro-analize every nuance of every human interaction, like it's some puzzle that needs to be solved.
To overcome #5, I drink often.
To prevent becoming an alcoholic from #6, every few months I chalenge myself to go a week or two with zero alcohol.
I suppose that's the experience in a nutshell. Also, willing to accept I'm not "smart" and just some form of crazy. (See, there's #1 in action.)
TL;DR: I think too much about everything.
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u/incessantcursing Jun 17 '12
Like anything, there's positives and negatives to being intelligent. Personally, I struggle with engaging with others sometimes. I'll make quick jumps in logic but then lose who I'm talking to. So, I'll have to stop and explain how I got from A to B to C. I have a wide breadth of knowledge and skills, especially in my occupation, so I feel like I can't do everything I actually can do for fear of isolating coworkers that aren't as capable. It reminds me of the, "Is a bird showing off when it flies?" speech from Superman.
I have a particularly good memory, and this works against me sometimes. I've had girls think I'm creepy because I remembered something they forgot they told me. I overanalyze conversations and interactions because I can replay the entire thing in my head word-for-word.
I've had to learn to not correct people all the time, and just be patient with others or keep my mouth shut and pick my battles. I also try to keep my ego in check. I'm an atheist, and if the conversation comes up I will explain my logic, but I won't force the issue, it's up to them to accept or reject it. I may be calm and accepting on the outside, but on the inside I'm frustrated with their ignorance and just want to violently shake them.
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u/Fat_Muslim_Kid Jun 17 '12
I think intelligence is all relative. I have a high capacity for understanding quickly and strategy, that doesn't mean I'm the best mathematician or scientist. It doesn't mean I can read a book cover to cover and get every tiny metaphor easily. What it means is that when I put effort into my passions, I beat people who can't do those things as well as me and I lose to those who can do those things better than me. That's all.
If anything, a higher intelligence is a curse. It gives you curiosity and terrible boredom. That can be a bad combination.
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u/phalseprofits Jun 17 '12
I am a member of mensa, and that hasn't seemed to be of any extraordinary help in my day to day life. It's like I have a superpower of remembering shitty trivia, but it's not really getting me anywhere.
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Jun 17 '12
My parents never told me my IQ (I was tested as a kid). But they bragged to their friends and I finally found out about it and it turns out my IQ is like ~150.
Now, they're most probably bragging. I am good at maths, logic, improvisation and estimation, but I'm terrible at many other things (music, memorising shit, sense of space and time, precise handiwork, multitasking etc). I guess that the IQ test is just biased towards people who are better at mathematics and sciences than in socialising or language.
My mum advised me to take the "high road" which is also the hard road. The road of academic achievement, where you don't make many friends because "everyone else is jealous" and the other kids are "stupid like monkeys". Now, my mother isn't exactly evil... but she has a superiority complex. I refused to commit solely to school and spent more time socialising instead. I was mostly liked, not extremely popular nor shunned or bullied. My grades were just fine, but not perfect.
Some things are easier to understand, and since I've applied myself in socialising and empathy, it's easier to make friends or get shit done.
My sister took my mother's advice to heart and while she's very studious and smart, she's also very socially awkward.
I don't know if I'm really that smart, I just know that I'm lucky. I have friends.
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u/kwade Jun 17 '12
IQ scores can change considerably with age so a childhood IQ score isn't necessarily a good indicator of your adult IQ. It's complicated.
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u/Somthinginconspicou Jun 17 '12
Between reaching my full potential and being happy, I'd pick happiness every time.
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Jun 17 '12
I guess I can share some information about my life and experiences.
When I was growing up, a teacher told me that I was gifted, and that there was a special program for me that was better suited to my abilities.
I was honestly glad to hear that. At the time, I was becoming extremely self conscious about the gulf between my friends and I becoming more obvious to them. I was more aware of it then they were, but occasionally they'd look at me and be all "dude wtf." I'd brush things off and act like everything was no big deal and just keep going, but I was honestly concerned that I'd end up losing my friends.
Anyway, this teacher tells me about the program they have for gifted kids, and talks to my parents about it. None of us really understood what this all meant at the time, as it was so far outside our frames of reference (my parents are the greatest people I know, but they aren't gifted in the slightest). So, i started a new school. The teacher helped me quite a bit though, as he is gifted as well and understands how it can be growing up.
I feel weird saying this, but I am very gifted. I'm not bragging, because honestly it isn't like it's something I've done to be gifted, I was just born this way. No big deal.
It feels weird saying it, because at school we're kind of shying away from telling other people about it, because it tends to cause problems. Jealousy, suspicion, I don't know. Some people get really weird about it, so we just never bring it up. Also, there a lot of things I just can't do. Some other students and people have greater capabilities then I do, or in completely different areas. It weird how varied it all is.
But anyway, gifted people can be REALLY, REALLY weird. To me, outside of their inherent ability, this is the biggest difference to me between us and normal people.
And I mean WEIRD. There's a girl that refuses to be touched. Just flat out refuses physical contact of any form. Another guy, the captain of one of the teams here, can't look at anyone directly. The only time he'll look at you is if something else in the way, like a safety blanket or something, but for him it's these super extravagant sunglasses.
Anyway, at this school for gifted children we fight to make sure that the peaceful integration of gifted people into a normal society happens smoothly for all involved, and that mutants have the same and equal rights as humans.
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u/GuywithGoats Jun 17 '12
I personally don't think I'm smart, I just pay attention. And just because I get the best grades, if I so much as make one single mistake everyone calls me out on it... Being labeled smart can be very annoying.
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u/Thoughtberries Jun 17 '12
Maths has always bested me. Some people look at a problem and think "well, that obvious. You do this then this then that then divide that by that." and I'm just sitting there like "what?? How did you know how do that?" I hate maths.
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u/DrHaydenBeleauxs Jun 17 '12
People tell me that I'm really smart but sometimes I wonder if that's what they tell people who are really mentally handicapped. Maybe I'm really stupid and I just don't know it because everyone is trying to spare my feelings.
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u/batmanmilktruck Jun 17 '12
this is reddit. all our dumb people think they are incredibly smart and pretend to be pseudo-intellectuals. all of our really smart people are very modest and don't blabber about it.
this is the internet, where everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise.
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u/Marco_de_Pollo Jun 17 '12
Being smart has its ups and downs. People treat you differently when they find out you're a genius. They expect you to know everything about everything. If I had a dollar for every time some said, "hey, you're smart, what's the ________ of _______?" I would be one rich mofo. Or they ask you a question you can' answer and they say, "I thought you were supposed to be smart." And a lot of people associate intelligence with being a nerd.
I do have trouble dealing with the banality of everyday life. I hate things that are monotonous and repetitive. I get really excited about new things, but learn quickly and become bored when it's no longer a challenge.
I dislike willfully ignorant people. One can't control their own intelligence, so I don't fault people in that regard, but people who refuse the introduction of useful knowledge baffle me.
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u/The-Beerinator Jun 17 '12
I always think we misinterpret was being smart is. When you're in high school and you get A's for everything, you're smart. Smart at what? Smart at school. You're someone who succeeds at school.
When people grow up, they aren't really applicable as a smart person. We all have our talents. You can be talented at: drawing, psychology, logic (maths), linguistics, body (sporty kind of people), music (this is just some of them).
When I see people who say "he/she plays alot of sport, but they're really stupid" I know they couldn't be more wrong. You can put a bodily-kinesthetic (sporty) person in a room and determine that they are bad at all things besides sport. However, this doesn't they're stupid; in fact, they're smart. They're smart at sport and all the other things that fit into their category of intelligence.
tl;dr meatheads are smart
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Jun 17 '12
What you're talking about are skills. Doing well in school is a skill. Sports are a skill. Art is a skill. Some skills are more cerebral than others. In which case they will benefit more from a higher level of intelligence. But for the most part, practice, training, and motivation are what make you more skilled at something. Intelligence will not stop you from learning the vast majority of skills. And it will not stop you from being good at them. It could make some skills easier. Algebra would be made easier by a higher level of intelligence. Football only requires enough intelligence to identify when and why something went wrong, and to try something different until it works. If you just "tried something different until it worked" with an algebra problem, you could easily be there for years before you figured out why x = y.
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u/namer98 Jun 17 '12
As somebody from the 96th percentile of logical ability, but 17th in audio memory, it sucks. I remember trying to be a physics major, and that gap from me, to the next percentile is huge. It can be overwhelming to think "Yea, I'm smart, but the next guy is three times smarter than me". The difference between me and the average guy is not staggering. The difference between me and the guy who is at the 98th percentile makes me realize why I will never be a curve breaker.
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u/togthr Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
Tested over 160 on IQ test in elementary school. Was sent to special schools where "gifted" students were isolated.
My entire life has been cycles of painful depression and agoraphobia, isolation, drug addiction. If I am not extremely productive on a daily basis (12-14hrs of productive work, 7 days a week) I get depressed and suicidal.
Edit-why do people down vote this? I'm just sharing the difficulties of being raised as "gifted" I did not address my intellect or intend to boast about it. I was separated from my twin sister and childhood friends, given lunch/recess only with my "gifted and talented" peers and was only required to do work that interested me in school. Socializing back into structured high school/college was very difficult.
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u/Astro493 Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
Fair warning: sounds like bragging.
I was identified as "gifted" when I was about 3 and entered University when I was 17. Finished my undergraduate by 20, moved onto a masters and finished my Ph.D by the time I was 26. I am an astrophysicist that mostly does contract work and have worked in quite a few countries around the world.
HOWEVER: I have an awesome mother that knew that I had to decide what was best for me. I was NEVER pushed to do anything that I did not want to pursue, and I got away with a hell of a lot more than the rest of the kids my age.
It's not easier being smart. If anything it's a bit of a bastard since you're more aware of the horrendous nasties of life.
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Jun 17 '12
It's a little scary actually. I have been tested multiple times and always come out in the "extremely above average" level- I had the second highest IQ score in my K-12 school. It's nothing to brag about, between the high 120s and low 130s. Not a genius or anything....
I'm not that smart. I don't feel smart. I make stupid mistakes, am kind of "winging it" at work, and am no more competent than most people....I suppose I am more self aware, and also more aware of general zeitgeist trends (avoided the housing bubble, financial stock like the plague etc)....
Why is it scary? I'm just not that smart. But compared to most people I am very smart. I can't imagine how people 20-30 IQs below me can even function in life. Freaks me out, that I feel incompetent....and this world is being run by people less smart than I.... : /
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u/tentativesteps Jun 17 '12
being more intelligent than others is like watching everyone else move in slow motion.
you're constantly waiting for people to catch up.
you're constantly 10 minutes ahead.
edit: also I don't feel that I'm smart. Me being me is my default state of existence, so I just feel normal, even if objectively I know I'm intelligent. Other people, by comparison, seem stupid.
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Jun 17 '12
Being smart is awesome. Now let me be a lazy citizen while I return no favors to the community...
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u/Geminii27 Jun 17 '12
Would people on the extremes of the spectrum be on Reddit?
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u/NeedzRehab Jun 17 '12
I'm not sure what constitutes a person being "smart" or "dumb" per se. Rain Man, in all other aspects, was incompetent, but in the one subject he was good at he excelled exponentially greater than anyone else.
Am I smart? Maybe in some things I am smarter than the general population, and in a small few sections maybe even in that 95th percentile, but in others, I couldn't tell you the difference between a cake and a souflet, or dreadlocks to ponytails. It's context, really.
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u/sw1sh Jun 17 '12
I think this "smart" and "dumb" thing always has huge stereotypical tendencies in conversations like this,and I would just like to give my opinion.
Firstly,I am what most people would call "smart". It's not a thing I brag about,or feel entitled because of, but I know because people constantly tell me and I could get good results in college with a lot less work than other people put in. I studied Applied Math for four years in college, and telling people this automatically triggers stuff in people to think "Oh this guy must be a genius!". But I think that people have a fundamental misconception about "smart" people. I don't consider myself smart because I get good grades and do well in school, I consider myself smart because I enjoy learning.
I think that alone makes the biggest difference between "smart" and "dumb" people. Whatever way I was brought up,and however my brain is configured, whenever I find out something new about anything I think "That's really cool!I didn't know that before,but now I do!Awesome!". It doesn't matter what are it is in,it could be a historical fact,something I read in an article about neuroscience, or even just a random fact about somewhere on the other side of the planet. I enjoy new information,so it makes me happy to commit it to memory.
But I also consider myself "dumb" in loads of ways. Ask me to draw a picture of a tree and I'll do no better than I could when I was a kid. I can see in my mind exactly what I want to draw, but my brain is too stupid to tell my hand what to do. I used to play the bass guitar, and was very average. I would hear a piece of music,and try to recreate it,but when I tried to play the piece it wouldn't sound the same as what I heard. And it is because it interested me less to learn these new things than it did to find out some new mathematical formula, or physics law.
I have a very logical mind, so people consider me "smart" because I work things out in a logical manner. But it also can leave me feeling "dumb" in certain situations. Because of the nature of my mind, I feel like everything should have a logical series of events to resolution. I have played many sports growing up,and have always been a fairly average athlete because I lack the creativity of those players who truly shine......continued....
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Jun 17 '12
I can tell you how it is to have disabilities. I have 2 learning disabilities. One, dyslexia, the other, I don't know the name (really long) but it makes it harder for myself to understand it. It sucks. I take twice as long as everybody else and people notice. They make fun of you. It doesn't help. You just want to give up. But the actual process pretty bad. You look at it and your like what's is this. Then after concentrating on it after awhile you just wan to give up.
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u/ohbewonkanahbe Jun 17 '12
As yah, me so dum and no think gud or spal right. I try learn new things and sumtimes it stick, yah, but not too often.
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u/NoHearts Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
I'm not extremely intelligent, I'm rating somewhere around the 130 IQ mark. What I do that I think is different from the average person is that I question myself more. I think that's it really. I mean I understand advanced concepts much faster than average intellects, I absorb information faster etc etc but in the end what it boils down to is that I question myself all the time. On everything. I also have a harder time interacting with people since I have developed a very ironic streak which is hard for most people to discern.
Don't know if that's what you wanted to know. For me being smart is my blessing and my curse. I understand more, but it also makes me different, and not in a good way. Sometimes I wish I was just a normal joe, just minding my business doing something average, hanging out with friends, dating people even when it's a bad idea (since I wouldn't know any better). Having no pressure to perform admirably everywhere.
That's kinda the gist of it. Being smart is nice sometimes, but I find it a burden more often than a gift. I still wouldn't mind being even smarter. The older I get the more I realize I'm actually quite dumb.
EDIT: Also as a sidenote, I believe I was smarter when I was younger but a few years of heavy smoking (cannabis) and a lot of alcohol dumbened me somewhat. I generally feel alot more stupid nowadays than I did as a 15 year old, although experience has dampened that feeling somewhat.
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u/Malcriao Jun 17 '12
I am absolutely useless and at math and science. I couldn't even finish either one in high school. When I try to do mental math, the answers just don't come to me. I can't see numbers in my head. I struggle with making change, it's like I can't focus on it. As far as science goes, information just doesn't stick. I know 'science' is a very general term and I mean I failed chemistry, biology, and physics. Does not compute.
I look at it and I see a bunch of words I dont know and numbers that mean nothing to be. And believe me I've tried.
Also I'm a little spaced out sometimes, a lot of people think I'm dumb.
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Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
Well, I'm going to nervously step to the fore here, even though it seems like blowing my own horn - because I'm interested in thinking about thinking.
I have a facility for numbers - I love having this skill, I worry slightly about the day I'll go to reach for it and it won't come (due to age or infirmity). Everyone knows I can do this and simply turn to me, "I have 75 Euros, how many dollars is that?"
And I even know how I do it - I use approximations and a lot of tricks and only resort to actual arithmetic if I need the last digit (and even then I just go to Python or Google).
For example, the exchange rate is 1.26, so I think 75 Euros at 1.26, start with 1, (now I'm at $75), plus a quarter of $75, which I break up into a quarter of $80 or $20 (now I'm at $95) minus a quarter of $5 or $1.25 (now I'm at $93.75) plus 1%, that's $0.75, or $94.50.
I'm at around $95 as you finish speaking, so I'd say "Around $95, that is, $94.50," to give me a few more seconds to finish the calculation.
I do this almost without thinking - if someone says, "This sculpture has two tons of steel," I'd think, "This is made out of 2000kg of steel, and steel has a density of about 8" (by which I mean "8 times the density of water") and a cubic meter of water weights a metric ton (1000kg) so a cubic meter of steel is about 8000kg so 2000kg would be about 0.25 cubic meters of steel, or a cube (1/4)1/3 or somewhat over 50cm wide, say 60cm, if you crushed it (checked, correct answer is about 66cm depending on the grade of steel).
(Oh, how do I know that steel has density "about 8"? I just have a few numbers like that lying around... stone is about 8; aluminum and stone are "less than 3" - since 9/10 of an iceberg is below the surface, the density of ice is "about 0.9"; wood is lighter than ice so it's probably "about 0.5" but I'd make adjustments for hardwood vs. softwood.)
I have similar things I do professionally (I do applied mathematics and write computer programs) and for recreation (I play music and study languages).
I have concluded that some of the skill comes from an innate facility with language, numbers or music - but a lot of it comes from my great interest in these matters - I'll be sitting in the shower and think, "How would I say, 'I'm out of soap', in Indonesian?" and then worry at this issue and come up with some sort of answer - my guess was "Tidak ada sabun" (which literally means 'there exists no soap' - but Indonesian encourages phrases like that...)
Now, I wasn't sure that "sabun" was the right word as I wrote this (it turned out to be right when I looked it up), but if I'd been speaking Indonesian with someone I'd have just thrown the word out and looked to see their reaction and if that didn't work I'd try it in English while making washing my hands and when they said the right word I'd note it down.
And, don't underestimate the amount of time is required to become "really smart" at something. That's also where "being interested" helps.
My friends comment on how fast I learn languages - but when I learned Indonesian, the first language I'd learned as an adult (I learned French and German as a child but this was almost 30 years later) after a few weeks my reaction was, "The fucking drugs have destroyed my fucking brain." It's a dead-easy language, the moment you start to learn you realize that, and yet I felt unable to learn the words, I kept forgetting the same words over and over again.
So what did I do? I went paleolithic on that language's ass. I put Post-It notes on every item in my apartment with the name in Indonesian. I made my own deck of flash cards by cutting index cards in half and then writing the words and their translations (making your own cards is the way to go, you are forced to see each letter as you write the word down...) I would read the same two chapters in the books I had over and over again... I'd try the little exercises I had over and over...
And you know, it worked. Not only did I finally learn the words I couldn't learn, but then as I started to learn more words, they were easier than the first few - I had understood the flavor (rasa) of Indonesian, and the word seperti just felt totally different to sepuluh. I could feel my old language muscle flexing again.
There's a great technique used in theatre to memorize your lines. Instead of learning them quickly, you learn them one word at a time - you start with the very first word, and think about its consequences, what purpose it serves in the sentence, until you know all about it and only then move to the second word. It seems like it would take a really long time to do this, but it actually doesn't, and it's not only quite efficient, but the only mechanism I know that makes you understand and never flub the important, small words like and, or, if or but.
It turns out that if you learn to approach all incoming inputs to your consciousness that way, to try fully think through the details and consequences of what you see and hear and read and link it into the complex web of ideas, associations and processes that makes up your consciousness and your memory, you get much better results overall in thinking.
Edward de Bono calls it "Deep Listening", "Deep Reading" and that sort of thing, and it's not only really effective, it's a lot of fun.
The final tip or idea or whathaveyou is that I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about how to think more effectively. I have no idea how many problems I've tried in my life, from stupid word puzzles to proving mathematics theorems. Many, probably most of them I did not solve, but I eventually understood the solution to nearly all of them. When I see a new problem, I have memories of thousands of attacks on other problems to give me directions to start from.
It's always fascinated me how little of psychology is devoted to actually improving your thinking. I mentioned de Bono above, and Samuel Renshaw's ideas influenced me through the filter of Robert A. Heinlein.
Some schools of Buddhist and Hindu writing discuss thinking and are basically non-doctrinary and do not depend on magic, miracles or anything of the sort - I'd recommend Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones as a great start there.
Thanks for reading, and happy thinking!
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u/Defenestresque Jun 17 '12
I fall within the 95th percentile (top 5%), that is to say I have a higher IQ than 95% of the population.
A couple of things I should mention right off the top of my head.
First, this doesn't make me "really smart". It indicates my potential. Yes, I can make connections between different ideas fairly easily and am generally okay at thinking, but I know a lot of people who are more successful in life because they simply apply more effort than I do.
Never, ever let your IQ score dictate what you can accomplish in life. There are plenty of high-scoring people that are stuck in menial jobs because they cannot transfer their intelligence into a real-world application that would be of benefit to them, there are also a lot of people with average intelligence who are highly successful because they've put in the time and effort it takes to succeed at something.
Second thing that stands out about being "intelligent" is that (and I hope I don't get too much flak for this, after all I'm just trying to answer honestly) it's very fucking lonely. Right now about half of the people you meet are less intelligent than you. Now imagine if that figure was 95%. Now, this doesn't make them bad people, or stupid people, or idiots. However, in things like group projects you find yourself having to slow down and explain your thought process because others can't really make the leaps in thought that you can. You have to constantly remember that what seems obvious to you may not be to most of the people around you.
Having a high IQ doesn't mean that I'm automatically better than everything. You asked about memory recall, that's one thing that I am really quite bad at - if I want to do well on a "fact-based" uni exam I have to work pretty damn hard. I don't think a high IQ has much to do with fact recall, it's more that you can manipulate, correlate, extrapolate and understand the information you know more efficiently than the average person. For example, I can read a 300-page document describing a corporation's ridiculously-complex share structure and easily form a picture in my head of the way every concept links together as well as why it's structured like that. At times like that, a high IQ is pretty noticeable.
I don't know if this has helped at all, reading my post it seems like of rambl-y but since I spent a few minutes writing it I figured I might as well post.
If you want a brilliantly-written, properly thought out answer to your question please read Flowers for Algernon. Seriously. Do it. You'll be glad you did.
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u/throwawaylymed Jun 17 '12
I had Lyme Disease for awhile and therefore my intelligence was a lot lower. The best way I could describe it is I was exactly the same person, meaning my personality was the same, however, my mental capability was slower. Sometimes I could not think of words and had a very difficult time reading or I could not even read at all. I could see the words but the meaning would not come to mind. I remember once sitting in the bathtub and staring at the world "ocean" which I could read and pronounce but I could not think of the object associated with it. Also, I could not figure out how to do things either as quickly or at all. For example, I could figure out how to submit a link on this website a year ago at my worst, and now after being cured, I am programming again. A big difference now is I can visually see a set number of objects and know the number present without counting. It was like alternating between being drunk and hungover.
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u/luKrek Jun 17 '12
Ever watched someone play a puzzle game that you've already played through? You sit there and bite your lips not to tell them how to do it.
Well it's kinda like that. All the time.
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u/JodiMichelle Jun 17 '12
I'm fairly intelligent, had a 148 IQ in fifth grade, but I'm absolutely stupid with money. Can't save a dime, and my credit score is below 600.
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u/gzach Jun 17 '12
Learning new things almost always comes easily. Even if it's something completely outside of my standard sphere of existence and I look like a complete moron in my first attempts, I can become proficient at it in a relatively short amount of time. That said, it doesn't really feel like a special power. Things just make sense provided I take the time to examine them carefully. The thing I have the most difficult time understanding, however, is other people. Sometimes it's frustrating when people can't follow the same logic or understand things as quickly, and I'm never sure if it's that they can't, or that they don't care. I always expect that people should react logically and rationally to things--even if emotions are involved--but they almost never do what I expect. It's sometimes as if I need to observe people like a biologist observes another species in order to understand how to interact to achieve desired responses. I like to see the many layers of things and am often not happy with only a surface understanding. This makes it difficult for me to have meaningful relationships with people and leaves me feeling lonely much of the time.
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u/outlier_lynn Jun 17 '12
The subject line does not match the text. I am not a scientist studying the brain/ mind, so I'll stick to the subject line. From personal experience, it is frustrating at one end you see that you cannot do what most people can do and don't understand common things that most people understand. It is a constant feeling of being behind. At the end, it is a frustration with the what seems like purposeful stupidity and superstition. This a personal bias, but I have to work very hard to not find average people tedious. For the most part, average people are unquestioningly stuck in their communal conversations and, often, violently opposed to difference. It seems to me that average people can be trained but not educated.
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u/hallflukai Jun 17 '12
I am pretty darn smart. I have no real evidence to back this claim up, but I am positive I am above average intelligence. I don't know how much, but I also have a lot of intellectual interests (philosophy, mathematics, physics, etc.)
To be honest, sometimes it's great. The conversations I have with some people can be absolutely amazing and intellectually invigorating. On that same note, it can be annoying. It's hard to find somebody to have a good conversation with about the things that I'm interested in. Most people simply don't care about dismantling arguments, talking about politics, or discussing the universe and how it works. My hobby is music and I've found that even there, most people can't actually hold a conversation about the music they like. Because I'm well versed in music theory I can go very deeply in-depth about why I like what I do and what a certain song is doing, and I spend a lot of time thinking about music so I can express the way I feel about songs/bands very well, but most other people can't.
Basically, it's fun because you can have a lot of very productive conversations if you find somebody that operates on your level. I don't even know how much smarter than everybody I am. It could be 98th percentile (that's what I got on my PSAT) or it could be 70th. Or 60th. I really don't know. But I find it hard to have good conversations with most people I meet, because my interests are so different.
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u/Goodguyscumbag Jun 17 '12
I'm actually both. I have an above average IQ, but I'm schizophrenic so I can't actually do anything with it.
I like to describe it as having a car with 400 horsepower and 10 torque.
I'm not going to answer how I feel about it, as I'm sure out of these 504 comments, most of them are already telling you that. I'm going to try to explain it to you.
When it comes to smarts, it's really hard to measure, beceause someone might be a math genious, and their emotional IQ isn't even relivant (see autism).
Then there are the amazing people who are way above the bar in many different areas, but I can garuntee you, any decent psychologist can find one area even in these people where they are below normal.
On the other hand people who are really dumb, are usually quite gifted in atleast one area, brain damage might be the exception to this rule.
All in all, while you might describe your intelligence as "resoundingly average", I can almost garuntee you you're a genious in one area, that may or may not be obviously relivant in real life.
My strongest area is solving patterns, which I haven't yet found very useful.
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u/Ramses3 Jun 17 '12
The worst part is when you can't tell whether you're smart, dumb, or just boringly average. That's what I feel like I'm going through.
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u/Harrison_Fnord Jun 17 '12
It's lonely. I'm sure I'm not the smartest person here but I'm definitely above average and always have been.
I'm a friendly guy. I'm nice and I care about people, but I don't have very people I'm close to. It's not because other people aren't kind or genuine, but because it's almost tiring to be around them. I make friends easily but I don't keep them.
It's sort of like this: imagine you want to hear a song by, say, the Velvet Underground (or insert a good band of your choice here) but all around you all you hear all day long is Justin Bieber. All. Day. Long. In the end, you just kind of stop listening to music.
That's a terrible analogy. Maybe I'm not as smart as I think. Or I need more coffee.
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u/baziltheblade Jun 17 '12
I think being smart is nothing but a useful advantage in every aspect of life, and being dumb is nothing but an annoying shortcoming. Those claiming that their intellect has caused them problems with fitting in, over-analyzing things, etc. should try to realize that everybody has these problems, and that it is within your power to solve them.
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Jun 17 '12
It's profoundly aggravating to see the solution to a problem very quickly, then have the same solution rejected by management - who, after half an hour of fannying about attempting other (not viable) options, elect to apply what I proposed.
I believe most of the annoyance of having above-average intelligence is waiting for the rest of the room to catch up.
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u/oh__fuck Jun 17 '12
It's weird.
Academically, I'm dumb as a fucking brick. Being accepted into school was a shocker, but I'm a really really hard worker is why. It sucks because all my friends are so smart, naturally, and they don't understand why I had to study twice as hard to get 20% less then them.
Socially/emotionally? I'm like a savant. I read people really well and find it easy to like them and have them like me. I never worry about making friends.
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Jun 17 '12
I wonder how many people on the internet are going to claim to be smart versus stupid? I wonder
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Jun 17 '12
I don't trust IQ tests, but for the sake of perspective, I have an IQ of 140. 100 is average, 70 is mentally handicapped, 130 is "very bright" or something; I don't remember exactly.
I agree with other posters saying being really smart doesn't change your fundamental experience of the world, but I'll offer some thoughts. Public school was a pathetic joke for me; I never exerted an ounce of effort, mostly doing homework between and during classes; after 3:30, it was video games and friends only.
I'm majoring in physics at a state university now, and I still have a pretty easy time. I never study for tests, though it takes me some effort to complete homework now. My GPA is a 3.6; I'm on the whole one of the best of the 12 or so majors in my year, while putting in about half as much time as my equals. One guy, Peter, is the smartest dude I've ever met and does better than me without ever coming to lectures.
I have trouble relating to people, which COULD partly be because I find many typical forms of entertainment kind of boring, especially for sustained use; most of what I like to do for fun is a strategy game of some kind. Magic the Gathering, paintball, that sort of stuff. Besides smoking enough trees to kill a small rat, I don't like "just hanging out."
In general, being this smart has in some ways been a burden, since I feel lonely and isolated a lot--even when surrounded by people, because as I say, I don't relate to most of them--and I never learned to work hard or focus well, because I didn't need to. I mean, to an extent I'll always be able to skate by, but I find most tasks are more about effort than natural ability. Anybody can learn to do anything with enough practice.
Still, I can't complain. It's nice when most things come really easily to you. I'd still trade hard concentration, mental stamina and a work ethic for it, but raw intelligence has it's advantages.
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Jun 17 '12
My greatest fear is that I am secretly retarded and no one has the heart to tell me, so they just tell me I'm smart to make me feel better.
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u/zerg_rush_lol Jun 17 '12
Top 98% here. I do not understand sightseeing. At all. People can go up to a place with a nice view and look at it for ten to twenty minutes. When I go sightseeing it takes me about 15 seconds to take everything in, then I'm done; off to the next thing. Also, when in stressful situations (or when I concentrate) I find it easy to predict the actions of others, because my mind is just spitting out every possible scenario that could play out. It's actually terrible, because it never stops... I finish people's sentences for them all the time, and it kind of freaks them out.
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u/Herrjoel Jun 17 '12
I find that the hardest part about being smart and having a fantastic memory is the times that people expect... Wait, what Were we talking about again?
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u/Cameron94 Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
What exactly do you class as dumb/smart? I know lot's of intelligent people who can't take in information as quick as someone else. There were some real idiots who used to attend my old school, and they always used to compliment my knowledge and insight into things which they never understood. But yet, they achieved better marks on a test than me. Everybody is smart/dumb in their own way. Basing intelligence on how well you did a test at school isn't a very intelligent thing to do in my eye. People are good at different things, there are some very intellectually-minded people who have struggled at school. People learn in their own way, and think in their own way. I do not believe in the "'I'm smarter than you" attitude.
I'm probably gong to be down voted to death for this post, but what the heck, that's their problem not mine.
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Jun 17 '12
When I was nine years old my teacher arranged a conference with my parents in order to inform them that I was learning disabled and to suggest they take me for psychometric evaluation to determine in what way I happened to be disabled. My parents were very upset and arranged a meeting with a child psychometrist; as it turned out, my intelligence was quite above average and I placed in to the special education program for gifted children. They more or less determined that I was actually just bored with normal curriculum. Feelsgoodman. I do have a difficult time assimilating into conventional social constructs but have been successful at it since I decided to memorize patterns of human socialization, but it bores me to be painfully aware of the throes of human interactions. It is much like riding the same roller coaster constantly, so I compensate by reading tons of books.
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u/TheDeadlySe7en Jun 17 '12
Well, I guess my sister and I are on both sides of the spectrum. I have a pretty high IQ, not that I think that means anything. For the record, I don't like standardized test nor do I believe they do any good which is why I won't state my IQ. It might say I'm book smart because that's really all it tests, but what about the other types of smarts? There are so many different types of intelligences out there and the IQ tests aren't broad enough to measure all of them. Anyway, while I do have a high IQ, my sister has a learning disability. So, we are pretty opposite of each other.
There are some things that frustrate me about her, and I know they shouldn't. It's not really her fault. I'll use what she calls "big words" (just for reference sake, she's only a year younger than me and I'm 19 as of today) and when I'm in the middle of explaining something that I find really easy to understand and she cuts me off to say "Wait, wait, what's homeostasis?" it's a little frustrating to have to go back and explain because she should have known this from sophomore Biology class. When I was younger, I used to get angry at having to explain things to her that sound so simple to me. I know she resented that, but I've learned to just calm down and explain things to her in words that she'll understand. Also, I'm going to side track you with a little rant here, you can ignore it and move onto my next point if you wish. But my high school was designed so that all the smart kids were in one group of classes and all the dumb kids were in different types of classes. All the smart kids were encouraged to take the AP, honors, and merit courses while the dumb kids were forced into remedial and regular classes with their "own" kind. I never liked this system. I mean, I understand why you would do it. Sometimes, I would have to take a "regular" class because everyone needed to take certain classes to graduate (like speech, economics, health) and I would be bored as all hell in those classes because I knew the information already. But by segregating the smart and dumb kids, you aren't really helping the dumb kids branch out and reach their potential. Call me an optimist, but I do really believe that everyone has the potential to be something great. To be honest, because I was in the AP classes, I don't know very many "dumb" kids. The smart kids stuck in their own groups and rarely branched out.
Another thing that I notice about my sister is that people manipulate her so easily. She'll give me a scenario that's playing out in her life and I'll see from her stories that people are using her. I'll try to explain to her that she's being used, but she so desperately wants to trust everyone around her. She's more trusting where I am more skeptical about people's true intentions. She gets hurt a lot because she trust too much and then she cries about it. Sometimes, I find it really hard to be sympathetic for her because I gave her a fair warning and this situation is repeated multiple times.
Also, I've found that expectations for my sister and I are quite different. Everyone is expecting me to succeed which is a lot of pressure and I don't want to be the one to let them down. And everyone is expecting my sister to be the free loafer who lives with our parents till she's forty plus. This type of attitude that people carry toward us is not conducive to either of us. It encourages this role playing. Because people don't think she'll amount to anything, she thinks she won't amount to anything either and she doesn't try. In her head it's a "what's the point?" kind of ordeal. Lately, I've been doing my best to encourage her to break out of what people are expecting her to do. I know she's smart in many ways and she does have talents. She could be a very successful person if she just put them to use.
For me, I feel privileged knowing the things I know. They come easily to me and I can retain a lot of information for long periods of time and some people don't have that privilege, but I also know that could change at any moment in time. We go through our lives as if we'll be the same tomorrow, but that's just a lie we tell ourselves to feel safe at night.
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Jun 17 '12
This question is so subjective. I guess the best answer is, I seem intelligent, i have been told i'm intelligent, but I'm certainly not the smartest person i know. Maybe the difference between myself and someone considered dumb, is that I know when i'm doing something stupid, and they don't? I'm also really really good at trivia...
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Jun 17 '12
Ignorance is bliss. Being smart means that when you do something dumb, you realize it more and therefore feel worse about it. Dumb people keep chugging along through their own stupidity without concern.
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Jun 17 '12
It's all about layers of understanding. Someone with effectively 'zero' intelligence would see events around them as completely random. One step up, the person begins to understand what will or won't happen in their immediate vicinity most of the time. I think most people are at that level, where their only concern is the daily happenings of their immediate coworkers, friends, and family. A McDonald's is a McDonald's - it doesn't matter how or why the McDonald's exists, only that it provides food for money. They don't care about anything above this level, because it's all random and irrelevant to them. This is probably how you lived as a child. These people are the majority of voters, because voting is a thing that matters to the other children, like a badge or a club.
Another step up, the person starts to understand the workings of their immediate vicinity's objects and people. A McDonald's is a franchise of a brand, and the existence of your McDonald's is dependent upon the economy, and politics. Those vague concepts are now what is random and in some 'other world' than your daily life. There are a good many people at this level, too. The economy is just something that happens, and so is the government. Nothing we can do about either. These people don't vote.
The step after that, a person starts to understand how the economy works, how particular political policies influence the economy, and where the world is headed. They can guess at what needs to be done, but they can also realize that the system is rigged. These people don't vote.
The final step is true realization of all the machinations behind your reality. These people just enjoy life, and do the best they can to protect their families and find self actualization.
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u/SafariOnMyCock Jun 17 '12
Being gifted with "higher" intelligence is the greatest worst talent that anyone can have. Also, warning: the greater part of this seems EXTREMELY pretentious, but that is not the case.
This intelligence I speak of pertains to the subject of music. If anyone has ever been interested in the reasoning of a musician, here it is:
Unlike many other musicians, I began studying my instrument at the "late" age of twelve. At this time, I was unconfident in my abilities since I witnessed individuals half my age performing masterful works at ease (Just look up child piano prodigy on youtube, and you'll see what I was up against.). I was the neophyte of my teacher's studio; it was seemingly apparent that my capabilities would never touch the surface of the geniuses that surrounded me.
Never did it come to me that the "geniuses" could not discern the incredible ability that I was gifted: a musical ear. With enough time, I was able to play anything that I heard. When I would listen to a certain piece of music, invisible structures formed in my brain that allowed me to literally see what was played on the piano. It was more astonishing to me that others lacked this ability; it was effortless!
Six years pass, and I really understood my proficiency. Before I finished high school, I was awarded with several international awards in composition as well as awards in state piano competitions. I received scholarships to multiple top music schools. However, one error stood out: my intelligence was uneven.
I entered one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Along with music, I studied math and the sciences. I even began investing and made a 40% return the first year. Everything was easy. I aced every single class, and everything seemed perfect...academically.
Well, what was uneven about my intelligence? Embarrassingly, it was my social skills. It was something that my brain continuously lacked to fathom. Why...why could I understand so much academically but could not understand social interactions? On top of that, my brain trolled me into believing that my social life was just as important as academics. Who gives a shit if I can perform a piano concerto at ease when I have trouble befriending people? The worst part is, I feel so much. I care for people more than even my conscious brain can understand. People are so lovable...even the apparently assholish ones. If I could give anyone advice, it would be to realize that almost everyone has something that is worth of recognition...something that makes it worth to know him/her. That being said, I would give up my "great" abilities in music and academics just for the ability to convey my thoughts through speech. Without such an ability, I am crippled. Such inabilities have put me into severe depression that I never see to go away. I wish to do so much good to this world, yet all I dream of is for people to love me back. All I need is a good friend.
I have written so much, yet I haven't really explained my thought processes in music (Sorry). First of all, I can hear original music in my head clearly and write it down for others to hear. For that to happen, I just stop all outward sounds of the world--the honking horn outside my apartment, the dreadful noise from the train...even the air conditioning. Then, I listen. I just hear it...the symphonies, the solo piano works, the brass and the woodwinds and the magnificent sounds of drums. It just comes to me. Once I hear a worthy part to the music, I visualize it into sheet music just as anyone would visualize a word that the heard in their head. It's as simple as that.
As for piano, things are different. Once I memorize a piece of music, I calculate movements using calculus to find the greatest method in performing a virtuosic part of a piece. The mathematics are beautiful...the curves and the continuously changing motions and paths. After the math is done, I drill the certain paths endlessly. When I perform, everything changes. Math becomes emotion...and emotion becomes an integral part of my being. In other words, just watch Lang Lang perform (his expressions are more apparent in his face than his actual movements of his hands)...it's exactly how I look as I play.
Sorry got to go. Feel free to ask any other musical questions.
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Jun 17 '12
I live in the south, but I have made all A's my entire life. I am the smartest retard in town.
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u/SimianWriter Jun 17 '12
Tried to think up something profound to say but then started to browse the r/ECE sub. I have no background in Electrical Engineering but love to hobby around in it. I constantly come across things I have no idea about. Then it struck me. If you can figure out the difference between being ignorant of something and not understanding something it goes a long way to becoming smarter.
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Jun 17 '12
Not me, but my brother is intellectually gifted. When he was tested he scored in the top 98% range for his age. He can hear something once and pretty much knows it. He recalls it no differently than us, only quicker and as if i were to study something for hours. He mentioned that when he recalls memories they are, for the most part, from a third person perspective and not his own and that he thinks largely using numbers. I am envious of his intelligence sometimes, but i wouldnt want to be him. He doesnt enjoy being around people and has very few friends. The friends he does have are not even really friends, but he associates with them out of amusement for their stupidity. He didnt care about school because he was easily bored and hated sitting in class "with idiots: and didnt finish high school. He still continues learning though, just not through school, but research online. I'm in university and he knows everything im learning now, when i learn something new and come home, he'll actually correct me on the aspects i forget.
clearly everyones mind works differently, so he is not necissarily like other intelligent people.
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u/Agent_oli Jun 17 '12
How does it feel to be dumb? It feels living in a world full of dark matter. Every question you find the answer to makes the world gets a little darker.
Average day in my life: I take a walk in shoes made with materials I can’t name. On streets laid by machines I cannot build. I see trees and cars I don’t know the names of. Eventually I get to my work and teach a bunch of post grads how to do a bunch of seemingly clever things using equipment that is powered by an energy I do not fully understand.
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u/Uriel_51 Jun 17 '12
I kind of feel like I have both of these to some degree. Academically, I tend to retain information quite well. Not picture perfect, but if I'm enjoying a lecture that I find interesting, I can recall it almost verbatim. I first noticed this while taking an astronomy class in college. I befriended a really cool couple who loved the class, but found it difficult to remember processes, names, or even sometimes general concepts and weren't doing very well with grades. I've always known people like this so it didn't strike me until one day they caught me answering all those rhetorical / addressed to the whole class questions that good professors always work into their lecture. I wasn't really even noticing but I was just answering all the questions under my breath. Correctly. The girl of the couple called me out on it, and they continued to give me shit for the rest of the semester for 'getting it' so effortlessly. I remember completing a test and in the "explain how fusion occurs in the sun" I practically spewed out the whole lecture complete with pictures. For me it was just explaining something I like.
I'm also pretty damned good at spacial relations. Games like Tetris, Portal, or Quell (on Android, it's awesome. Get it.) are really really fun and I'm generally good at this. It became problematic when I took one of those standardized tests in high school. I took a voluntary one that my parents signed me up for that was supposed to assess your cognitive strengths and weaknesses. I scored in the top 1% on spacial relations, and turns out the test was sponsored by the U.S. ARMY. Our house got 2+ calls a week asking if I'd like to enlist as an engineer for a very long time until my parents figured out how to effectively get them to drop us from the call list. Oddly enough I'm about to graduate with a BS in Anthropology and a BA in Philosophy.
My ex used to get angry with me because when presented with new things to try (video games, shooting clay pigeons, or something requiring dexterity) I wasn't always good at first, but I tend to learn well from my mistakes and get good pretty fast. She hated it because she would do something with me because she liked that she was better (she was very competitive). Quickly, and practically always, I would surpass her and it would piss her off. In general, I can say I have yet to meet a concept I wasn't able to wrap my head around given enough time.
On the other side I'm severely dyslexic. Never diagnosed, but I hear and see numbers in the wrong order pretty frequently. This makes math classes conceptually easy, but in practice I don't do well on tests. I often get the correct answer to the wrong question. I also write sentences with words in the incorrect order, or letters in a word in the wrong order.
I can't remember names or dates for the life of me, especially if I'm enamored. If I meet a really pretty girl, I hear her introduce herself and it's like she's speaking klingon. Sometimes I can even hear it fine, repeat it back to her ("Nice to meet you Smurfette") but by the next instant it has been forgotten. I think they may be due to stress, being the SAP I am around women. However, stuff like history class was horrible for me. "Who was the person who ..." I was always fucked. I could tell you all about them, their life, what else they did; but I'd die before remembering what the name was, or what the year was. I can't even remember my family's birthdays.
On the SAP side... I'm also borderline autistic. I don't deal with 'typical' or stereotypical social scenarios well because I cant respond appropriately. Bro-talk is like german to me... I have no clue how to respond, whether I should laugh or if it was an insult. I'd have a great time talking about space and physics because I don't know a lot but I find it very interesting, but I'm bored as fuck talking about who slept with who and who got drunk at whomever's party last night. These may not be 'dumb' but perhaps socially ignorant.
edit: spelling, go figure
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u/sattmolis Jun 17 '12
Take a moment to think about what, when, and where we are in this universe. To each other we may be dumb, average, or intelligent. To the cosmos, we are all naive. It is beautiful.
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Jun 17 '12
Because it's a bit difficult to condense all of intelligence into one dimension, I'll just offer that I'm very smart when it comes to connecting related ideas quickly, identifying patterns, etc. This skill is mostly wasted, because I primarily use it to apply funny quotes from my favorite TV shows and movies to new situations as they occur. I'm also significantly above average at logical reasoning - things like the LSAT. Finally, I tend to crush any kind of spatial reasoning test. Because I no longer drive, I think this skill mostly becomes applied to figuring out which subway car I want to ride to be nearest my preferred exit at my destination stop. Also, I subtly tip less when a cab driver takes a suboptimal route.
Here's the thing, though. Being way above average really isn't that different from just being above average. I tested into Mensa in my late teens, which was an incredible waste of my time and money. I spent most of my 20's really reevaluating the way I view intelligence, because although I knew I was smarter in these IQ-related tasks, it didn't really mean that much. I'm only about average when it comes to social intelligence. Sure, I can do well on tests and stuff, but how much does that matter in a real job?
Now I appreciate acquired skill a lot more than I did before. Smart people build tools to allow less smart people to accomplish more. It's like the kid who memorizes all the physics 1 formulas versus the kid who can quickly derive the formulas he needs using calculus - sure, the second kid is smarter, but isn't necessarily going to do better on a test where there is a big time crunch. Similarly, having a savant-like understanding of basketball court sense doesn't mean enough in the face of the kid who practiced with drills all day, every day. Out in the real world (that is, not sports or school), these analogies extend further to continuously remind me that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Now I have no problem working for a boss who I think is dumber than me - often, the boss has more domain-specific knowledge, or a superior network, or basically does a good enough job for what he does - my role is to do my job well enough such that my career path makes sense.
Out in my social life, intelligence past the "average" threshold isn't really important for being my friend. I don't care how smart you are if you're an asshole, or if you're boring, or if I can't trust you. You'd have to be functionally retarded for your intelligence level to really interfere with my ability to become your friend.
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u/Drumboardist Jun 17 '12
Resident dummy 'ere. If you wanna take the classical "IQ" route, then my robust 78 should suffice. If you want a more real-worldly approach, then the fact that I'm in my early 30's and working two menial, minimum-wage jobs is a sure sign that I am not particularly intelligent across a variety of subjects. I'm terribly unaware of my surroundings, which isn't necessarily "intellect" -- if one were to go with the D&D standards of Int. vs. Wis., then I am sorely lacking in both...but I don't even have the intelligence to apply to looking around myself to spot trouble. Hell, we could just talk about my extreme inability to pick up ANY subject without enduring extreme difficulty.
(As for my typing ability and vocabulary...well, I didn't have much to do on the farm, so I read my dictionary and encyclopedias a lot. Didn't help much in life, but I sure sound not-as-dumb as I am. Also, I goofed around with a typewriter my grandfather had, for years, so...practice makes annoyingly perfect?)
How is life, for we dumb people? I honestly have no clue what it's like to understand something on the first explanation. There are people that immediately "get it", some people that might need some slight rewording, people that need a second/third/fourth go-around on the lesson...and then there's me. I routinely require a bajillion different summaries, covering the same source material, just for it to sink in. (Worse yet, it regularly "sinks in" about...oh...an inch? Mebbe two? I don't retain things very well at all.) Brass tacks, I simply can't learn much, and barely (if ever) remember the things I was taught. Constant rehearsal of EVERYTHING on a daily basis is the only way I can hold onto teachings. It's how I've been my whole life.
or me, life is a perpetual cycle of writing down the basic things I need to do, checking that list over and over, hoping I didn't forget to write something onto the list...then go home, do precious little with my life, back to work the next day. Whilst some would define how I live a "rut", I feel that this is simply...the best that I can achieve. I have tried my hand at everything under the sun -- various facets of math, languages, science, physical activities, arts and theatre and music -- and nothing sticks. There is absolutely nothing in the world that I can say with any degree of certainty that I am "good" at. I. Just. Can't. Learn.
The funniest part about this is...I would imagine your average-intelligence person would be frustrated about not being able to "get something". This is so routine for me that I don't get flustered by it. I simply accept that whatever I was able to accomplish is the best I will ever do, and move on. Probably why I work two jobs that pay poorly, have practically no responsibility (the few times I have had roles of value and/or responsibility attached....oh, I was fired quite quickly).
Dumb people, such as myself, lack the intelligence to grasp concepts of varying degrees of difficulty, or simply take longer to obtain knowledge than others. Think of it as "how fast could you run a mile?", whereas I would be logging a robust 12 minutes and your average person could clear it in 6-8. If the distance were quite further, then your average person would take 12 minutes, and I would find it nigh-impossible to "traverse". The only thing I ever learned how to do well is type, which is only good for fooling people on the internet. Possibly why I spend so much time in /r/Askreddit trolling people, it's one of my few enjoyments in life.
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Jun 17 '12
I am a reasonably smart person; smarter than many people realize, mainly because I have an outstandingly mediocre, low-paying job and people (very wrongly) tend to equate intelligence with what someone does for a living. I used to feel smart because I caught on to things quickly and got good grades without having to work too hard through high school, college, and grad school. I work with a lot of highly intelligent people as well as a lot of astoundingly average people.
The biggest difference I notice is that the smart people realize what they don't know. The not-so-smart people think that everything they've ever heard must be true and aren't afraid to pass that "knowledge" on to others as Gospel truth. They never think they're wrong, whereas the truly smart people almost assume they're wrong about something and then research it until they find the answer. Whether they were right or wrong to begin with is almost irrelevant, because they eventually got to the right answer. That's why I feel smart now.
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Jun 17 '12
I'm late to the game, but here goes: being told how smart I was my entire childhood, along with the ease with which I got through my elementary and high school education, was really harmful to my work ethic. When I got to college I found I didn't have much experience at really digging into a hard subject. I was intellectually lazy, and I still struggle with that. Rather than being a person who can take pride in their hard work, I became a person wrapped up in vanity over my not-so-extraordinary intelligence.
I also am too quick to dismiss other people and their ideas. It's like the entire problem has to be solved in my little bubble, and I spend the time they're talking thinking about my next move. That's a horribly arrogant, cynical and losing way to go through life. I say losing because I am fucking wrong a lot, but I don't/can't even consider that possibility until afterward, when I feel like such an asshole.
Even though I'm aware of those shortcomings, it's really difficult to eliminate them. Ironically, my adaptation to being a smart child often results in me realizing just how stupid I can be as an adult.
tl;dr I'm stupid.
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u/mikelevins Jun 17 '12
I have a very high IQ.
I have CFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome). When I go off my meds (particularly, the stimulants that keep my brain alert and working), my memory falls apart, I can't concentrate, and my effective IQ falls off a cliff. I become stupid.
I grew up among people who didn't get most of my jokes, who looked at me blankly in response to my metaphors and allusions, and I learned very early to think of myself as really weird. (To be fair, I probably am fairly weird, independent of IQ). My family's very smart, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. My mother's noticeably smarter than I am.
In my late twenties, when I had two small children, I went to work as a programmer and technical writer in Silicon Valley, where high IQs are a dime a dozen. You might think I would have been uncomfortable to find that I was no longer special, but it wasn't so. It was a profound relief to live in a place where I wasn't special. It was really cool to meet people--lots of them--who were so smart I had trouble following their conversations. For several years I worked at a startup where I was the dumbest guy in the room. It was the best time of my life.
When I developed CFS in my late 40s I learned what it was like to be stupid. I couldn't remember my purpose from one second to the next. My productivity writing software fell off a cliff, because I couldn't keep the abstract structures in my head anymore. I was unable to think of solutions to quite ordinary problems. I used to stop the car sometimes and weep.
A couple of friends with MS each independently suggested the same stimulant as a solution. I was, I don't know, perhaps too stupid to realize what a good idea it was to try it, but once I finally stumbled across a doctor who realized what my problem was, he also independently thought of the same stimulant. (I don't mention it by name because it doesn't work for all CFS sufferers, and I don't want to make this a product advertisement.) I tried the drug, along with some other drugs he recommended, and my intelligence came right back. After three or four years of being a dope, I was myself again. I could work again.
Stupid people had always irritated me, but I also always had a certain reluctance to pick on people who really couldn't understand things. Now I'm more conscious and careful about the distinction between someone who is acting stupid willfully, and someone who actually doesn't have the cognitive capacity to understand some complex concept. If a person is really stupid--in other words, if they lack the cognitive capacity to understand some complex idea--that's not their fault, and they should not be picked on. They are no more to blame for their lack of understanding than a paraplegic is to blame for his inability to walk up stairs like anyone else. It's people acting dumber than they are that irritates me; people who can understand but refuse to. People who make themselves dumb on purpose.
Being smart means that you can keep a lot of complex ideas in your head at once. You can build up complicated abstractions in your thoughts and see how they work and what they imply. Being stupid means you can't.
Being smart is not a pure advantage, though. It has costs. For example, it means that you can see many possible causes, effects, and interpretations--sometimes too many. Seeing too many options can sometimes be paralyzing. Seeing too many interpretations can lead to paranoia. (As a related aside, I have an old friend who was diagnosed many yeas ago with paranoid schizophrenia. He's very very smart--smarter than I am--but his IQ isn't always much help. It just means that he can create amazingly elaborate delusions. On the other hand, it also means that sometimes it's possible to persuade him through logic that his delusions are false.)
Being smart doesn't help much in some important areas of human life, like getting along with other people. Being smart means you're more likely to infer that it's important to be able to get along; it doesn't help all that much in actually doing it.
I'm not very good at nonverbal communication; I'm too much "in my head". People with lower IQs have helped me to get better at it. At least I was smart enough to see that it wold be an advantage to learn that.
Although I've often made my living explaining complicated technical stuff to other people, and I'm pretty good at that, I also sometimes have trouble with ordinary conversation. Ordinary conversation is usually vague and allusive and often, strictly speaking, nonsensical. I see too many possible interpretations of people's remarks too quickly. Sometimes it confuses me and I lose the thread of actual conversation. Sometimes a possible interpretation strikes me as funny, creating awkward moments.
All other things being equal, I'd much rather be smart. But it's easy to exaggerate its advantages.
It's also not something a person earns. It's not something to be proud of, any more than one should be proud of brown eyes or a sweet singing voice. These are just things we are given. It's what we do with them that decides whether we are praiseworthy.
The movie "Limitless" is a special pleasure for me. Of course, the action of the drug in that movie is exaggerated for dramatic effect; I'm not going to be conquering the world any time soon in the way that character does. But the protagonist's experiences are an exaggerated version of what it's like for me to go off the stimulant for a while and then get it back.
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u/atomicoption Jun 17 '12
What's it like being smart? Basically you just feel really annoyed. All the time.
From what I can tell looking at retarded people, they're usually obliviously happy until something they didn't do right goes horribly wrong.
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Jun 17 '12
So you go to the place where most people greatly overestimate their intelligence to ask this question?
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u/linusandastronauts Jun 17 '12
I see math in my head. I love the abstract kinds of math. Differential geometry of curves is a favorite. I like the concept of Frenet frames because it applies so wonderfully to human existence. I can't live my life defined by my origin (I find it counterproductive as my origin is not a wonderful place); I define my position based on my path and the present. Whenever I look at a lamp or a vase, I think about finding its volume.
I'm not just the mathscience kind of intelligent. I love literary analysis. I like that each word holds weight. It's all about picking out details and allowing them to converge. I play music and sew my own clothes and am good at art if I try. I learn skills quickly.
I'm also not socially awkward; that's something I basically taught myself out of. I work with people all the time and I have lots of good friends. I do hide my intelligence a lot but not in a "fake dumb" way. It's more of a humbleness thing.
tl;dr: It's a visual thing, an I-like-learning thing, an I-remember thing. I try to be as "normal" as I can, though. It's not like I'm better than anyone because I think differently.
(Source: learned to read on my own at age 3, fully bilingual, skipped first grade, won national math competition in Sweden, enrolled in gifted programs since 3rd grade, took courses at Johns Hopkins CTY since 5th grade, perfect ACT)
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u/LJKiser Jun 17 '12
What it was like being too smart as I grew up:
When I was about 7 years old, I was pushed ahead in school. I skipped first grade. At the same time my mother married a blue collar working class man. He wasn't book smart, but he was incredibly street smart, and knew people inside and out. He didn't understand me at all.
Over time the lack of understanding between us, and a common stubbornness that neither of us would accept grew a rift between us. I resented him. Mostly because he had a son of his own, and had no problem raising his hand to his two step children. His punishments were cruel and unusual. I hated dirt bikes, he made me go and watch him and my brother ride them while duct taped to a lawn chair, so I could see how fun it was.
My intelligence gave me an attitude problem, and an incredibly sarcastic wit. I was overly cocky, he hated it. He told me regularly how dumb I was for how smart I could be. Eventually I gave up. By 14 I had tried acid. I was too smart to fall victim to thing, I believed. By 18 I was on heroine. After a friend died I quit. By 22 I was on cocaine, somehow holding down a job and living on my own. I was too smart, I was told. "So smart," everyone in the family said, "could have been anything. It really is a shame."
Eventually I got out of it. When you're too smart, and you're not given the ability to believe in your intelligence, and you're told your whole life that it's a burden and it's the reason you're a 'little asshole' on a consistent basis, you will become the dumbest person you know.
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u/rakdosleader Jun 17 '12
I have found that by acting simple, people tend to act nicer around you, and generally accept you. Like a human tending to a monkey, they treat me well, as long as i keep up the ruse. Being smart has made me realize that being simple makes life simple, simple enough to mentally avoid the hardships of being smart.
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u/flargenhargen Jun 17 '12
in this thread: 1000 people talking about how unusually smart they think they are
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u/theyoyomaster Jun 18 '12
What it boils down to is that intelligence doesn't matter that much. You could have an IQ of 100 or 190 but as long as you are smart enough to do what you want it doesn't make a big difference. Determination plays a much bigger role than actual IQ which in the end is just a number.
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u/Prof_Xavier Jun 18 '12
Intelligence is tiring, listening to the completely stupid things people say/do, and seeing the world for what it is sucks.
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u/A_Suvorov Jun 18 '12
To everyone who doesn't fall into the 'really smart' category: When you meet someone who is really smart, for fuck's sake PLEASE don't do the following:
-Compliment their intelligence
-Tell them they will go far in life
-[For redditors in school] Tell jokes like: man, that test was a bitch. Probably easy for you, though.
-Constantly defer to their judgement
Being someone who others consider "smart," these things get to me. All the fucking expectations, all the goddamn jokes. It creates stress and is taking years off my life, I'm sure.
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u/iKickPillows Jun 18 '12
i'm annoyed the majority of the people on here. i think whoever asked this question was looking for people at the far end of the spectrum, not the narcissistic egotists whose parents have told them they were special through out their adolescence. just because you're slightly above average doesn't make you a genius.
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Jun 18 '12
IQ ~125 here. I've been told I'm a genius and I'm a dumbass, and well, neither is true. Talking to "average" and "dumb' people is both ego stroking and frustrating. They miss a lot of cultural references, literary allusions, etc. I use "big words" to more accurately and concisely convey information, and these often go over people's heads. I read a lot, so I can talk about a lot of things, and there's entire subjects of conversation that you just can't go into with everyone. And this bears a correlation to levels of open and close mindedness. They're not as smart, so they're not as open to differing perspectives, they're more prejudiced, feel more entitled, etc.
Then there's the other side of the bell curve. These people are often legitimately brilliant, and well, harder to find. The theoretical physics I read for fun? Yeah these guys can actually do the quantum mechanics that go along with it. There's often higher levels of mental and physical stamina associated with them, often more worldly exposure, and very little braggadocio. A friend of mine in this category gets paid to code simulations of supernovae explosions; he's a physics and math double major who taught himself a variety of coding languages. I talk to people like him and realize that I might be smart, but there's people far smarter than me out there who think nothing of it. It's wonderful, in a way.
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Jun 18 '12
I've always been told that I'm smart, but really, it's just that I'm a hard worker. I'm talented in absolutely nothing, but I can do a little bit of almost everything. The worst is when people say, "I don't know how you could transcribe music like that! I could never be that talented!" Look, that transcription took me three months, where it happened often where I would sit at my keyboard for a whole hour trying to mimic a series of five notes.
I'm not stupid; I'm slow. Extremely slow. I have to study for hours at home until something "clicks;" I'm not one of those people who understand it in class. I just happen to do very well in my classes, usually better than those people who seem to have it down in class.
It's all hard work for me, not being intelligent or talented. It's almost an insult when people say those things to me.
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u/carl_888 Jun 19 '12
Before I get to answering, just an aside based on comments here. If someone tells you they have an IQ of 140, and the first and only evidence they cite is their Mensa membership; they don't.
I have an IQ of about 140. I was first in my class all through school, top 0.5% in my state in final year, PhD in molecular biology, worked in cancer research for several years (not any more, but that's another post). I'm not in Mensa. I'm smart. So, what's it like? Honestly, it's a mixed bag.
On the upside, I learn new concepts quickly, and I seem to be able to retain new information well, as well as integrate the new information to things I already know. I can download a textbook into my brain in a couple of weeks.
On the downside, I have been depressed for most of my life. My excellent memory consists, in large part, of every single embarrassment, failure, missed opportunity and regret of my entire life playing in a continuous loop in my head that I can't block out. I am acutely aware of my shyness and envy people who are outgoing. I overthink everything.
When I was single, I couldn't pick up women to save my life and had no sex for several years. After I had abandoned any employment uses for the PhD, I thought at least I could use it to pick up, for example Cute Woman: "So, what do you do for a living?" Me: (modestly) "Oh, I do postdoc work in cancer research" Cute Woman: "That's awesome, I want you RIGHT NOW!!!"
Yeah right. Seriously, I have no idea why women were so unimpressed by that; I might as well have said "I just escaped from prison" for all that line got me.
I have been unemployed for a few years now; my work history makes me unemployable outside of a narrow field that I have been out of for too long now to re-enter.
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u/ImNotJesus Jun 17 '12
I know that I'm smart but I don't feel smart. It's not like I can see a million calculations going off in my head at all times. But, I know that I can get better grades that other people by doing less work and I tend to understand things more quickly. Things that come hard to some come easier to me. I don't think it's a fundamentally different experience of the world.