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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chino on March 26, 2011, 08:17:35 AM
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This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html
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I am 15 and wat is this
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This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html
:jawdrop:
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RL Sheldon Cooper
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I can do that
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He didn't care much to be held...
etc.
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double post fail
ON TOPIC
Good on this guy. A lot of people have high IQ's but do nothing with their abilities. This guy doesn't seem to be wasting a second of his life. And I thought I was smart for taking advanced math independently as well as a higher grade class and having a 95% average ... lol.
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I hope he doesn't burn out, because that's what happens too. I remember this super-student when I did my Master's in EE who only got straight A's, and then he switched subjects in the 4th semester to social sciences. He said he didn't like the topic anymore.
rumborak
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double post fail
Yeah, but the second one still made me laugh. :lol
Kid prodigies often don't turn out too well. Hopefully he won't be too screwed up as an adult.
-J
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I saw a documentary once about a kid like this from India. I think he was even younger, eight or nine. They took him to England and introduced him to a lab at a uni to see what might come of it. The reality was, the kid lacked the social skills or actual practical experience to achieve anything of worth with the scientists. He had no real concept of how to work with other people with his ideas, of how research is actually conducted, etc. Their end verdict was that he could be a brilliant scientist... once he was old enough and experienced enough.
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I saw a documentary once about a kid like this from India. I think he was even younger, eight or nine. They took him to England and introduced him to a lab at a uni to see what might come of it. The reality was, the kid lacked the social skills or actual practical experience to achieve anything of worth with the scientists. He had no real concept of how to work with other people with his ideas, of how research is actually conducted, etc. Their end verdict was that he could be a brilliant scientist... once he was old enough and experienced enough.
It's very common for someone that is a genius in one category, to be almost crippled in another. I watched a documentary on idiot savants a few years ago. I believe it was inspired by Kim Peed / the movie Rain Man. It was all about people who have ridiculous amounts of talent in a certain area of study, but are more or less retarded everywhere else. One guy, I think he was almost twenty, had some of the most amazing artwork I have ever seen, sadly he had the mentality of a 4 year old. He would cry if him mom left the room, etc...
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I have an iq of 118 am I supah smartz
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I heard 92 is supposed to be good. :neverusethis:
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This kid is nearly twice as smart as Wrath.
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This kid is nearly twice as smart as Wrath.
Half of 170 is 85. That's not retarded. I think it's closer to three times as smart.
I hope he doesn't burn out, because that's what happens too. I remember this super-student when I did my Master's in EE who only got straight A's, and then he switched subjects in the 4th semester to social sciences. He said he didn't like the topic anymore.
rumborak
My IQ isn't 170, but I am pretty damn smart, and this happens to me often. I get bored with new hobbies/interests fast if they don't remain challenging.
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I heard 92 is supposed to be good. :neverusethis:
This kid is nearly twice as smart as Wrath.
:rollin :rollin i miss him, so much
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So just because he's a genius he gets to write with markers on his window? Not fair.
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That 12 year old kid is smarter than i am.
Life kind of sucks some times.
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So just because he's a genius he gets to write with markers on his window? Not fair.
Sounds like a little asshole that likes to ruin windows.
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Great that he's good with math! Let's hope he has he common sense, empathy, and social skills to go with it- if he does then he's truly a wonderkid!
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I am 15 and wat is this
That's what I was gonna say, only replace 15 with 16. :P
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So just because he's a genius he gets to write with markers on his window? Not fair.
Permanent marker on glass is an academic tradition because they're easy to clean should you so desire, and at the same time are not as prone to smudges when done properly. I write on glass all the time. I'd much rather write on glass than a white board or chalkboard.
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Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein
...Einstein never took an IQ test...
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Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein
...Einstein never took an IQ test...
No, but scientists have fairly accurate methods of determining people's IQ's by looking at their achievements. Einstein's IQ was estimated to be around 160.
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I feel like the best thing for this kid would be to try and live a semi-normal life. He can revolutionize math and science when he's 25 - but let him have his childhood.
Then again, maybe his social skills are too impaired for him to have a normal childhood. Or maybe he can do all these things now and somehow evade burnout. Who knows?
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If he has aspergers, his social skills are impaired. I've been around autistic kids during my high school life; it's tough for them in there. One of the symptoms is an extreme focus and obsession in one specific topic--in this kid's case, math.
Anyway, good for him. Hopefully his parents nurture his gift in the most appropriate way possible.
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Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein
...Einstein never took an IQ test...
No, but scientists have fairly accurate methods of determining people's IQ's by looking at their achievements. Einstein's IQ was estimated to be around 160.
I'm always very cautious though when I see those statements about those high IQs. Problem is, the IQ scale follows a bell curve, and as such the more you deviate from the mean, the fewer and fewer amount of data defines a certain IQ segment.
To use the math, the IQ's bell curve is defined to have a standard deviation of 15. So, an IQ 170 is 4.6 standard deviations away from the mean, which in turn means 0.0019% of the population that have an IQ of 100. Obviously, 0.00019% isn't a lot of people, meaning this part of the IQ curve is defined by a handful of individuals and thus not really statistically significant.
I mean, there's no question these people have a way higher IQ than the average person, but the discussion of whether Einstein or this kid has a higher IQ is statistically a moot discussion. (to go completely technical, the problem is that the size of the confidence interval increases the further away from the mean you get. At 5 standard deviations away the confidence interval is quite likely much bigger than the difference in Einstein's and the kid's IQ).
rumborak
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I hope he doesn't burn out, because that's what happens too. I remember this super-student when I did my Master's in EE who only got straight A's, and then he switched subjects in the 4th semester to social sciences. He said he didn't like the topic anymore.
rumborak
Rummy-
I too knew a guy in college who was a super engineering student. We met at a party. Jean-Claude Meunier. He was pretty cool, and we started to hang out. When I was a junior, he was only 19 and working towards two PhD's. One in ME and the other in EE. He already had three masters degrees. One in electrical, one in mechanical, and the third in bio chem. He was scary smart in engineering, but he had two weaknesses that began to develop. We both shared one extreme weakness---women. He also began to really start drinking pretty heavily (as a means to cover for his normally social awkwardness in pursuing his first weakness). By the time I was heading for graduate school, he had already withdrawn from the program, his advisors wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and he was looking for a way to stay in the US. He resurfaced a few years later when I was in law school, and he was of all places at Purdue trying to get back on track, but informed me he was dating "a couple of strippers", and thinking of returning to France.
Not the first time lust derailed a good man.
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The thing is, that kind of position in society creates so much pressure and expectations, that often enough they crack or do something totally different that has nothing to do with their skill.
My mom once told me that the teachers at my school were discussing having me skip a year, because I was perennially bored at school. My parents eventually decided against it; I was already one of the youngest in my class, and skipping another would have exacerbated it even further. And in hindsight, whether you get to do in your life what you want to depends on a lot of other factors too. A year ahead or not in school would have created a major social issue for me, with little educational benefit.
So, I essentially grew up in school never doing my homework. Worse things have happened to people :D
rumborak
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So, I essentially grew up in school never doing my homework. Worse things have happened to people :D
rumborak
Same here.. Worked great for high school (that's until 18 here), but not so great now that I'm in university... I don't really know how to study and I have zero attention span. The 'it's going to be alright' attitude has kind of burned into me.
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Oh yeah, me too. I went to university and suddenly realized that I couldn't just breeze through anymore. The single most important thing university taught me is to create my own motivation.
rumborak
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Oh yeah, me too. I went to university and suddenly realized that I couldn't just breeze through anymore. The single most important thing university taught me is to create my own motivation.
rumborak
What kind of marks were you getting "breezing through"?
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Oh yeah, me too. I went to university and suddenly realized that I couldn't just breeze through anymore. The single most important thing university taught me is to create my own motivation.
rumborak
What kind of marks were you getting "breezing through"?
Mine were average, but then I did literally nothing. Just kind of flapped the sheets of my books before an exam and only made assignments that were graded.
Oh yeah, me too. I went to university and suddenly realized that I couldn't just breeze through anymore. The single most important thing university taught me is to create my own motivation.
rumborak
How did you "create your own motivation"? I really wish I had done well on my first exams in January. I just couldn't bring myself to study more than 2-4 hours a day and even when I was studying it was at a very slow pace and with a lot of distractions and breaks. I got a 6, 7, 9, 9 and a 12 (all on 20) which kind of sucks. But even now I can't bring myself to keep up what we have seen so far in the second semester...
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I had the same problem. I did almost no work whatsoever in high school and came out with honors and grades allowing me to get into the best mathematics school in the country.
University was a bit of a rude awakening.
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What school?
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I had the same problem. I did almost no work whatsoever in high school and came out with honors and grades allowing me to get into the best mathematics school in the country.
University was a bit of a rude awakening.
Same here. My first physics class at Cal was the proudest D I have ever earned.
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Oh yeah, me too. I went to university and suddenly realized that I couldn't just breeze through anymore. The single most important thing university taught me is to create my own motivation.
rumborak
What kind of marks were you getting "breezing through"?
B- and C+, that kind of stuff. A and A- in math and physics, because it interested me :lol
rumborak
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I'm worried as shit about university. I really don't want to sound like a dick, but I have managed to get straight A's with very little effort. I mean, a don't think I've ever worked really hard on anything. "Studying" for English, Science and History consists of glancing over my notes, and "studying for math" consists of looking over the problems and saying "easy, easy, easy, I'm gonna get an A." When I go to a university, especially the ones I'm looking to go to, I'm fucked. :lol
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>12 y/o, IQ 170
>Maths genius
>Born with Asperger's
Ohh. That explains it.
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Isn't Asperger's one of those things that isn't a thing?
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How did you "create your own motivation"? I really wish I had done well on my first exams in January. I just couldn't bring myself to study more than 2-4 hours a day and even when I was studying it was at a very slow pace and with a lot of distractions and breaks. I got a 6, 7, 9, 9 and a 12 (all on 20) which kind of sucks. But even now I can't bring myself to keep up what we have seen so far in the second semester...
Well, it's not that I morphed into this first-grade student :lol
What I did was to slowly hone in on the amount of learning I need to get a good grade. That ended up being somewhere around 6-8 weeks. So, by the end I would time the beginning of the "hardcore learning group" that I had with a few buddies those 6-8 weeks before exam time. Before that there was a lot of partying and playing in my band :D
We had of course a few courses with mandatory attendance (the practical stuff where you do experiments etc.), so it's not that I stayed away from uni for months or something.
There was one exam though where I really gave all, just to sort of prove to myself that I can write good grades if I want to. The exam was called "TET" (theoretical electrical engineering, all about electric fields and shit) and had a fail rate of ~85%. It weeded out people to no end. So, I really busted my ass (it was very math-heavy, so I liked it) and ended up third-best student in the exam, with a B- or something. After that I said "why bother doing that for the other exams?" :lol
rumborak
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Isn't Asperger's one of those things that isn't a thing?
No.
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Asperger's is kinda a mild form of autism. And believe me it's real, I would say about 50% of my coworkers have it to some degree (yay for having all those MIT graduates!).
rumborak
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Asperger's is kinda a mild form of autism. And believe me it's real, I would say about 50% of my coworkers have it to some degree (yay for having all those MIT graduates!).
rumborak
Just an FYI, it's very likely in the next few years that Asperger's will be eliminated from the DSM and people with it will simply be considered Autistic.
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Oh well, the DSM is kinda sketchy anyway in its classifications :lol
rumborak
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
Same for me. I realized I had it after meeting the daughter of a friend who had it. Very similar to my childhood. I seem to have grown out of a lot of it too.
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
Same for me. I realized I had it after meeting the daughter of a friend who had it. Very similar to my childhood. I seem to have grown out of a lot of it too.
My statement was just out of experience. But I was diagnosed through a psychologist when I was 17. Very late diagnosis though. Took months to go through all of these tests n shit. Was tedious.
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Oh well, the DSM is kinda sketchy anyway in its classifications :lol
rumborak
Oh yea I can't stand the DSM, but unfortunately I can make a living without sticking to it. Such is life I guess.
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Isn't Asperger's one of those things that isn't a thing?
I have it. :)
Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
At least 4 more years of social awkwardness? Fuck yeah. :metal
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I think that only applies to the mild cases. I know somebody who works with the hard cases, and she told me that social interaction is to them like colors to a blind guy. They heard about it, they know people put great important to it, but can not penetrate it at all. So they resort to rote memorization to get by.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
BTW, I'm not questioning that you have it, but Asperger's has become a bit of fashionable condition to have.
rumborak
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What are the symptoms of this thing again?
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
Aspegers is already a much milder form of Autism but it has its own spectrum. If you can just "get out of it" at some point, you most likely have an even more mild and less severe version of it as is.
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I agree Rumborak, and I wouldn't be surprised if a psychologist said I didn't have it, or had something else. But it isn't something that hinders my daily functioning, so I probably won't try for an official diagnosis.
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I agree Rumborak, and I wouldn't be surprised if a psychologist said I didn't have it, or had something else. But it isn't something that hinders my daily functioning, so I probably won't try for an official diagnosis.
If it doesn't hinder anything, then there's no disorder. At the very most....features.
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I agree Rumborak, and I wouldn't be surprised if a psychologist said I didn't have it, or had something else. But it isn't something that hinders my daily functioning, so I probably won't try for an official diagnosis.
If it doesn't hinder anything, then there's no disorder. At the very most....features.
That could be it. Though I should clarify what I mean by not hindering my daily activities. I can do everything I need to do, but that's due to making my own "adaptations" per se. I also make sure I avoid situations that I know I would struggle with.
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Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
At least 4 more years of social awkwardness? Fuck yeah. :metal
Haha, just don't use that as an excuse to everybody. They'll think you're an idiot and have life "easy", you just can't tell that many people apart from family and your best friends.
Except it's a developmental disorder, so the more communicative, social, and the more experiences you have in life will get you out of 50% of it at least by the time you're like 19 years old.
I wouldn't call it that rare from what I see. I have it too.
Aspegers is already a much milder form of Autism but it has its own spectrum. If you can just "get out of it" at some point, you most likely have an even more mild and less severe version of it as is.
I for sure never had a severe form of it. I never think about it anymore to tell the truth. If you keep blaming your weaknesses on ASD, you will never develop out of it.
Years ago I used to feel hindered until I found out about my diagnosis. But today, I don't.
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No offense guys, but the way you are describing so far it doesn't sound you really have Asperger's. I mean, I have people in my company who will come into the restroom looking to the wall the whole time while going to the stall. And BO problems up the wazoo because they have no concept of how others perceive them.
rumborak
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That's because we're much older than the reported age group that evidently has it. We've had lots more experience in communication and social skills than them in the real world of course, and I don't think we take many things seriously like a kid does.
Now if you had observed when I was 14 or 15, then yes it would've been at least a little bit more evident. It's not serious at all anymore, for me.
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I think the difference between when I was younger and now, is that I sort of have an awareness of it. I just don't know what to do in certain situations to deal with it, so I just avoid it.
EDIT: Getting off topic, so I started a thread for this discussion here. (https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=21672.0)
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So, I essentially grew up in school never doing my homework. Worse things have happened to people :D
rumborak
Same here.. Worked great for high school (that's until 18 here), but not so great now that I'm in university... I don't really know how to study and I have zero attention span. The 'it's going to be alright' attitude has kind of burned into me.
See for me it was kind of the opposite. I struggled mightily throughout school. There were exceptions. I received A's in English (Honors English), History, and Science, but everything else I barely got by with C's. I always was tested off the charts, and there were some who suggested I had a learning disability. Still other teachers and a few administrators claimed I was lazy. The fact was, I was bored out of my mind, and not being challenged could not perform well at all. There were no accelerated programs when I was in school.
Once I got to college I took off (B.S. 3.8 gpa) and was at or near the top of my class through my JD (cum laude). I recall from my first week of college, it was like a light went off for me, and I soaked up every bit I could from then on.
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Yeah, I breezed through school too but it caught up with me toward the end of high school. All through grade school and my first couple years of high school, I'd been given the impression that I didn't need to study or work at all to pull all B's and a couple of A's. So when I got to classes like AP English where I had to work hard, I did fine, because writing essays was fun for me. But when I got to classes like Trig and AP Bio and Chem, I suffered, because I simply wasn't willing to put the amount of work into them that they required. I, honestly, didn't know how to. I remember everyone in my AP Bio class freaking out for an exam that I hadn't even studied for... I guess at that point in my life, I simply thought having to work that hard for grades was stupid. I just expected the results to come naturally.
And I sat through a year or Algebra II/Trig reading science fiction novels.
Kinda ashamed of myself in retrospect. I would have liked to get into the sciences.
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I would have liked to get into the sciences.
How about English? :neverusethis:
Am I alone in thinking IQ is a bunch of crap?
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Please, not that discussion.
rumborak
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See, the advantage of having your mother working for the school board and being identified gifted is that if I want, I don't have to be bored. By grade 11 I should be taking all Advanced Placement courses (which I don't expect to be all that challenging anyway - anyone have experience?), only two of which actual grade 11 courses (religion and english) the others all grade 12 - plus maybe one or two independent courses. This allows me to finish high school a semester early, giving me 5 months to get a job and rustle up some cash to pay for school (in addition to scholarships) or find a co-op placement that will prepare me for the kind of work I'm interested in. The problem at this point (grade 9) is that I'm in the middle of getting compulsory credits that mean nothing to me - meaning I'm bored, lazy, and not working to my potential.
And I don't think IQ is a bunch of crap. If people think having a high IQ makes you a better person, or some kind of omniscient being that is never wrong, then they're missing the point and setting themselves up for disappointment
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Please, not that discussion.
rumborak
I wasn't aware it was a bad discussion.
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It's just a very tired discussion. The measure of IQ is pretty well correlated with what it purports to measure, analytic skills.
The whole discussion then usually is "IQ is crap, I know people who I would consider intelligent and don't have a high IQ!!!". It's plain based on the fact that having a high IQ is considered desirable, so people get pissy because it's something that only a few people have.
rumborak
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Oh...well my point was how can measure someone's intelligence with such an arbitrary test.
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I had the same problem. I did almost no work whatsoever in high school and came out with honors and grades allowing me to get into the best mathematics school in the country.
University was a bit of a rude awakening.
I was the same way. Didn't crack a book all through high school and got basically all As despite taking AP classes, etc. Used the same approach my first year of college and got Bs and Cs before bringing a little effort my sophomore year. Those first two semesters cost me though, they (along with several changes of major) delayed my medical school admission by a year.
By grade 11 I should be taking all Advanced Placement courses (which I don't expect to be all that challenging anyway - anyone have experience?),
I didn't find them remotely challenging. If I recall, they do entail a little more work than regular classes, but that doesn't say much.
-J
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By grade 11 I should be taking all Advanced Placement courses (which I don't expect to be all that challenging anyway - anyone have experience?),
I didn't find them remotely challenging. If I recall, they do entail a little more work than regular classes, but that doesn't say much.
-J
Same. The only AP class I found hard was chemistry, and that was because our teacher was total shit (seriously, out of 20 people only 3 passed the AP test, and we only got 3s).
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I would have liked to get into the sciences.
How about English? :neverusethis:
I don't get this. What do you mean?
Also, as far as Aspergers goes... a longtime friend of mine has it. It's definitely real, and can be socially crippling. This guy kinda went through all of grade school and high school, before the government had time to decide he needed to be educated separately from people without it, and because of that he's pretty much at least integrated into society. But there are times where hanging out with him does just feel being attached to a huge anchor. One thing I've noticed is the more relaxed people act around him, the better he is. If people seem weirded out by his attitude, he tends to detect that and he gets even more awkward.
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Oh...well my point was how can measure someone's intelligence with such an arbitrary test.
What exactly makes it arbitrary? Is it about intelligence being something beyond measurement or do you think a scale is unnecessary because intelligence =/= productivity, happiness, whatever matters?
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By grade 11 I should be taking all Advanced Placement courses (which I don't expect to be all that challenging anyway - anyone have experience?),
I didn't find them remotely challenging. If I recall, they do entail a little more work than regular classes, but that doesn't say much.
-J
Same. The only AP class I found hard was chemistry, and that was because our teacher was total shit (seriously, out of 20 people only 3 passed the AP test, and we only got 3s).
That's weird, I had a terrible AP Chem teacher too. She was bad enough when she was actually there, but she was gone on some pilgrimage for half the year. She left audio recordings of lectures that were supposed to sync up with powerpoints and labs and shit, but the substitutes could never figure it out. Garbage.
I swore I'd never take another chemistry class after that, and I ended up minoring in it. :lol
It's just a very tired discussion. The measure of IQ is pretty well correlated with what it purports to measure, analytic skills.
The whole discussion then usually is "IQ is crap, I know people who I would consider intelligent and don't have a high IQ!!!". It's plain based on the fact that having a high IQ is considered desirable, so people get pissy because it's something that only a few people have.
I think this is mostly true. Like any other measure of it's type, it's not meant to be taken as a final, end-all assessment of "intelligence". But it does a decent job of measuring certain aspects of intelligence, like analytical skills and spatial and quantitative reasoning, etc.
-J
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I would have liked to get into the sciences.
How about English? :neverusethis:
I don't get this. What do you mean?
Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.
Oh...well my point was how can measure someone's intelligence with such an arbitrary test.
What exactly makes it arbitrary? Is it about intelligence being something beyond measurement or do you think a scale is unnecessary because intelligence =/= productivity, happiness, whatever matters?
My thing is, how can we qualitatively measure intelligence on a single scale? Then again, I say that and believe what I believe because I follow Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Edit @ j: I know people don't use it as a final "score", but intelligence can be many things, in my opinion (as in the multiple intelligences in Gardner's theory).
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You know what would be really cool? A link.
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I would have liked to get into the sciences.
How about English? :neverusethis:
I don't get this. What do you mean?
Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.
I think it's fine. "I think it sounds right in that way" is just an atrocity though ;)
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It's actually 'I would like to have gotten into the sciences' or 'I would have liked to get into the sciences'. I don't think you need to emphasize the tense more than once.
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You know what would be really cool? A link.
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
I would have liked to get into the sciences.
How about English? :neverusethis:
I don't get this. What do you mean?
Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.
I think it's fine. "I think it sounds right in that way" is just an atrocity though ;)
Haha *does an integral of a function* that's better.
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How did you "create your own motivation"? I really wish I had done well on my first exams in January. I just couldn't bring myself to study more than 2-4 hours a day and even when I was studying it was at a very slow pace and with a lot of distractions and breaks. I got a 6, 7, 9, 9 and a 12 (all on 20) which kind of sucks. But even now I can't bring myself to keep up what we have seen so far in the second semester...
Well, it's not that I morphed into this first-grade student :lol
What I did was to slowly hone in on the amount of learning I need to get a good grade. That ended up being somewhere around 6-8 weeks. So, by the end I would time the beginning of the "hardcore learning group" that I had with a few buddies those 6-8 weeks before exam time. Before that there was a lot of partying and playing in my band :D
We had of course a few courses with mandatory attendance (the practical stuff where you do experiments etc.), so it's not that I stayed away from uni for months or something.
There was one exam though where I really gave all, just to sort of prove to myself that I can write good grades if I want to. The exam was called "TET" (theoretical electrical engineering, all about electric fields and shit) and had a fail rate of ~85%. It weeded out people to no end. So, I really busted my ass (it was very math-heavy, so I liked it) and ended up third-best student in the exam, with a B- or something. After that I said "why bother doing that for the other exams?" :lol
rumborak
I'll keep that in mind, thanks! I hope I can limit the amount of distractions during my following exams, I think those are what lost me the most time and motivation.
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[My thing is, how can we qualitatively measure intelligence on a single scale? Then again, I say that and believe what I believe because I follow Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Edit @ j: I know people don't use it as a final "score", but intelligence can be many things, in my opinion (as in the multiple intelligences in Gardner's theory).
Thank you James, this is very interesting, and I fully agree with that theory. Some time ago, I realized that everybody is good at something, and that there are different kinds of intelligence. IQ tests simply measure one dimension of it. I was always qualified as a smart person because I got good grades at school, but I always thought that it was more a way to try to excel at something because I wasn't good at sports, making friends, dating girls, playing music, etc. I was also good at college (3rd of my class overall) but I envied the guys that were 1st and 2nd, they were not only getting better grades but were well-rounded people, they were good at sports, people really liked them, and the smartest of the two was a great leader and every girl was in love with him.
The time you realize how the real world works is when you get your first job. Here the IQ is less valuable and everything depends on how good you are to express your ideas, to lead and confront other people, to socialize and to show self-confidence. I was usually afraid of speaking up or even to talk to the Managers :sad: I worked there for 4 years and then did a Master's degree at Harvard, and it was the same story: It didn't matter if you got good grades, the poeple who got the more recognition were those with more self confidence and social skills, and the quality of your job depended on your networking and not in intelligence per se. Now I have another job and I feel that I cannot make progress due to my lack of confidence and leadership skills.
tl;dr It's good to have a high IQ but in the real world soft skills rule (except maybe if you work for the Academia).
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^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.
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^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.
Well yeah, maybe I didn't consider that. But I was talking more about the strong correlation that apparently exists between a high IQ and lack of social skills, and that people that get good grades usually are regarded as smart while others with different abilities are not, which is unfair.
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Why would people without academic skills be regarded as "smart"? There are other terms of recognition for their abilities. You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic". To me, someone who is smart is someone who can solve problems mentally quicker and to a higher degree of correctness than the standard.
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Someones ability to think and process data should be measured by how well he/she scores in a game of tetris.
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You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic".
Do you mean like you don't see someone who gets good grades but complains that they don't get called athletic?
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^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.
Well yeah, maybe I didn't consider that. But I was talking more about the strong correlation that apparently exists between a high IQ and lack of social skills, and that people that get good grades usually are regarded as smart while others with different abilities are not, which is unfair.
Why overload the term? We have words like "empathic", "good leadership" etc etc. And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.
The real problem is IMHO just the fact that nobody wants to be called non-smart. So, they create different interpretations of "smart".
And yes, nobody employs a person based on their IQ, because it's just a single dimension and it takes a lot more to succeed in life/job. There's a lot of medium-smart men and women who are way more successful than the uber-smart guy who stands in his own way.
rumborak
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You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic".
Do you mean like you don't see someone who gets good grades but complains that they don't get called athletic?
Well I don't really mean complaining, but I see Reneranucci is saying that people who don't get good grades can also be smart, since they have different abilities. Assuming that "smart" is a word used to describe someone who gets good grades in all cases (forgetting that some people don't apply themselves) then why would we call someone who is incapable of getting good grades "smart"? It's as if you called someone who has musical abilities "athletic" despite that person being disabled or something. "Smart" is not a describing word that applies to all abilities. It's unfair to the person who gets good grades to be regarded in the same vein as a mentally challenged basketball prodigy, rather than it being unfair to the mentally challenged basketball prodigy when he isn't considered smart but the A-student is.
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And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.
Gonna have to disagree here. I feel that someone who, say, is good at rote memorization of historical facts but is bad at math can be considered "smart" in the same way that a physicist could be considered "smart."
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Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.
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This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html
My 12 year old could beat up that kid. :lol
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Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.
Disagree and agree. At some level you must be physically capable. Think of Stephen Hawking.
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Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.
Disagree and agree. At some level you must be physically capable. Think of Stephen Hawking.
But what if he knew everything he COULD do, and just was not able to? How would smarts factor into it then? He could know many more things that he could do than maybe I could do, but does it make me smarter because I am the one actually able to do it?
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No.
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Good, then you're wrong. :biggrin:
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This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html
My 12 year old could beat up that kid. :lol
Do let us know how far that gets him in life ;D
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Good, then you're wrong. :biggrin:
Why does being physically able to do something make you any smarter than someone who understands how but can't?
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Yeah, he's a pretty smart kid but if he doesn't get to see Wopner at 11:00, then he loses his shit. :omg:
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And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.
Gonna have to disagree here. I feel that someone who, say, is good at rote memorization of historical facts but is bad at math can be considered "smart" in the same way that a physicist could be considered "smart."
Remotely, maybe, but I would certainly not fully agree with the memorization as being "smart". But, let's not stick with "smart", let's rather use "intelligent", because that is more to the point. I wouldn't consider a rote memorizer as particularly smart. And I've met exquisite example of that over the years.
rumborak
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Yeah, he's a pretty smart kid but if he doesn't get to see Wopner at 11:00, then he loses his shit. :omg:
15 minutes to Wopner.
*3 minutes left*
OH I'M GETTING ANXIOUS AND NERVOUS WRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
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The real problem is IMHO just the fact that nobody wants to be called non-smart. So, they create different interpretations of "smart".
I know what you mean.
I just think of it this way. Smart is having an objective and being able to meet it. Let's say you have a janitor who knows he's not smart enough to graduate from college. So he does his job well and eventually lands a gig at a place where the pay isn't great (he's a janitor), but the benefits are good. He doesn't live outside his means and saves his money so he knows his family won't go belly up. He makes sure his kids don't slack off at school and actually married a woman he loves.
I'd say he's smarter than a very large percentage of the population. He knows what he's capable of and maximizes that potential. How many people can honestly say they've done that? Very few.
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Dunno, Reapsta. That sounds much more like "prudent" than "smart".
rumborak
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"responsible"?
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Dunno, Reapsta. That sounds much more like "prudent" than "smart".
rumborak
Aren't those things synonymous in a lot of ways?
I don't care how much expertise you have at, say, theoretical physics, if you slack off, waste your abilities, and create interpersonal drama wherever you go.
Think of a person like a car (weird, I know, just roll with it). If the engine has a lot of horsepower, that's nice, but what if the suspension/turning/tires/computers are all crap? Would you still say it's a good car? Probably not.
I really get the idea that people shouldn't all just be considered "smart in different ways." It cheapens the idea of being smart. Even the most shallow of women usually have some fashion sense. They're smart in that way, sure. But to say she's smart at fashion, just like Bill Gates is smart at running one of the most successful businesses ever and living a fulfilling personal life is incomprehensible. Gates' brain is so much more highly evolved you can practically classify him as a different species.
But to go back to the theoretical physicist. Calling him "smart" isn't right for the same reason. He's smart at one thing. Great. So is the brain dead girl who can dress herself. Really, at least she can get things done socially. The physicist will toil away at solving equations in his mom's basement because he keeps getting fired for jobs. At least the girl will file tax returns.
Not that being smart means you're a productive method of society necessarily. But it's not the pure calculatory power of your brain either. The best real life example of this is Chris Langan. His mind is truly special, but what has it amounted to?
Other than some fame, nothing really meaningful.
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But to go back to the theoretical physicist. Calling him "smart" isn't right for the same reason. He's smart at one thing. Great. So is the brain dead girl who can dress herself. Really, at least she can get things done socially. The physicist will toil away at solving equations in his mom's basement because he keeps getting fired for jobs. At least the girl will file tax returns.
Not that being smart means you're a productive method of society necessarily. But it's not the pure calculatory power of your brain either. The best real life example of this is Chris Langan. His mind is truly special, but what has it amounted to?
The physicist is "smart" at something that (presumably) relatively few others are capable of succeeding at. That alone places him in a different category. Whether he uses it for good, evil, or not at all doesn't matter. Just about everybody can dress themselves in the morning.
But I do agree with you, when I think of truly "smart" people in my book, they're the ones with not only the mental capacity, but considerable knowledge of a wide range of subjects, as well as the aptitude to apply their abilities.
-J
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Good, then you're wrong. :biggrin:
Why does being physically able to do something make you any smarter than someone who understands how but can't?
That is the exact opposite of what I said. ???
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You: He could know many more things that he could do than maybe I could do, but does it make me smarter because I am the one actually able to do it?
Me: No
You: You're wrong
Me: Why does being physically able to do something make you any smarter than someone who understands how but can't?
I don't see the confusion. Are you speaking in terms of physical ability or mental ability? You can know that solving a Rubik's Cube involves pattern recognition without being able to figure out the steps, but then again, that's not knowing how - therefore you aren't 'smarter' than the guy that can actually do it. You can also know the exact steps necessary in order to solve one, but be a quadriplegic - therefore you are smarter than the healthy guy that doesn't have a clue.
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That's what I was saying dude. :lol
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So we agree?
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I think we have always agreed. :lol Ability doesn't mean smarts.
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Alrighty then.
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