[Closed] Realising you aren't actually very intelligent...

All the time. Usually when speaking to my brain the size of a planet friend

Are you comparing yourself to the STW forumites or the rest of society ?

Never. Older I get the more I realise I'm surrounded by complete numpties. 😉

Yep, I think I'm probably of average intelligence or possibly just below. I find it's best to work with spectacularly stupid people to make oneself feel better.

My younger brother has a brain the size of a house. He's still an idiot.

Half the population of the planet are below average intelligence.

An amount of these aren't even intelligent enough to understand that they are. (Cf. Dunning-Kruger.)

I do okay, I'm no fikko.
I enjoy reading New Scientist mag and some of the space/quantum stuff I could read for a decade but I still don't think it would sink in. My brain just can't cope.

nope

re you comparing yourself to the STW forumites or the rest of society ?

Everyone. Even at the age of 44 there are younger people that seem to have a vocabulary and ability beyond mine. Sometimes I feel like I have a early teenage brains trapped in a middle aged body.

An amount of these aren't even intelligent enough to understand that they are. (Cf. Dunning-Kruger.)

Say what...?

you just re-read your winter training plan?

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An amount of these aren't even intelligent enough to understand that they are. (Cf. Dunning-Kruger.)

They're the worst ones. It's good to knows your limits. I've met too many people that don't realise how daft they are. Kind of uplifting yet saddening to watch them keep trying to attain something that's way beyond them.

i had a pretty bad education, no exams were sat. i was a fool.
but i have done pretty good. can talk well to folk on all levels, never feel intimidated by people more educated.
i have found in life people with loads of letters after theit names, dont have much common sense.

Say what...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of those of low ability to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others"

I'm unbelievably stupid yet I have an IQ of 147.

yep, it's not a happy realisation either

Is there an opposing condition cougar? (I live in hope)

I'm intelligent enough to know that I'm as thick as mince.

I presume you mean you're not [b][i]very[/i] [/b]intelligent as opposed to just intelligent?

At least the bike racing is going well....

I work in a prison, you wouldn't believe the thickness of some people in there. Staff included. I don't necceserally mean unintelligent, just thickness.
Wev'e got one prisoner who asked if I could get him some jeans for his upcoming visit, I asked him what size, he shrugged his shoulders & said '40'. I said 'are you sure? He shrugged again & said 'dunno, I don't wear jeans do I? So I said 'do you think I should know what size you are then? Again he shrugged & said, how the **** do I know'

Now that's thick!

We're probably operating on quite a narrow definition of intelligence here i.e. academic intelligence.

It's all about the bell chart innit
[img] [/img]

Even at the age of 44 there are younger people that seem to have a vocabulary and ability beyond mine

Don't worry Kryton, a lot of people are intimidated by my awesomeness. 😀

That charts confusing Dez. Do you have any glove puppets and / or Fuzzy Felts instead?

Thought I was doing okay with my degree. Got good mates with a guy via the uni sports club who did his degree, then did mine in a year basically 'just for a laugh'. Knew then there were always going to be much cleverer people out there...

Yes, do you have a chart to explain the chart? 😳

Njee your awesomeness went down 2437% when you told me who you worked for. Still leaves several thousand per cent though 😉

I am fairly good at quizzes etc but that's not really intelligence. Just a facility for recalling things that you've soaked up at some point.

But if there's one place that makes me feel like an intellectual dwarf, it's the STW forum. A hive mind the size of a termite mound.

No matter what field of human endeavour is being discussed, there's a seriously impressive level of expertise and insight demonstrated in here.

Then you watch a few vox pops on the BBC's day of programming about Brexit Britain and it shows you just how contagious and ubiquitous stupidity is.

high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others

This was me at a young age until I figured out in my teens what was what. I could coast along with minimum effort and blend in with others who had to work hard for the same results. I am extremely lazy and have no motivation or desire to explore what I am capable of achieving. Feel guilty really. I keep it a secret as I fear that if others found out, they'd expect more from me.

funkmasterp - Member
That charts confusing Dez. Do you have any glove puppets and / or Fuzzy Felts instead?

All you need to know is you're in the -(minus) bit 😀

I don't think I'm that smart, but I'm fast, and that fools people.

+1 StefMcDef

I'm not sure why the OP thinks that he is a bit thick, I seem to remember reading some good posts from him. It's funny to take the piss out of STW, but generally, there are some really informed people here that keep the place challenging and a good laugh.

Intelligence is a bit of a hard one to judge, there are some people that are very studious and very good at recalling facts and/or processing those facts into a logical argument. On the other hand, I've met some people who seemed a little out there with their disorganisation and were unable to form a coherent argument if asked to write an essay - yet they were brilliant at maths and stringing loosely connected subjects together.

IQ, EQ or PQ?

All you need to know is you're in the -(minus) bit

Sweet! That's a good thing, right? 🙂

Half the population of the planet are below average intelligence

Forgot that: almost everyone has more than the average number of legs!

No really! Having three legs: vanishingly rare. Having one leg, or heaven forbid no legs, far more common.
Thus, average number of legs slightly less than two.

Counting one's own legs and comparing to this average is left as an exercise for the reader.

Is there an opposing condition cougar? (I live in hope)

How about [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome ]this[/url]?

I don't think I'm that smart, but I'm fast, and that fools people.

I am honestly the polar opposite. Can't react fast in meetings, negotiations or social environments, I need to go away and come back with a response. i tend to sit quietly in a crowd. I have been known to accidentally open my gob and something funny spills out, but those are rare occasions and it even surprises me.

You're not missing much - I suspect life could be much easier being more normal...

I found computer programming works exceptionally well at showing you how intelligent you may or may not be. In some cases it might take minutes but in others it can take years.

I'm much better off starting out with the proposition that I'm an idiot. Then, on the vanishingly rare occasions I come out with something that might be mistaken as being intelligent I can appreciate it all the more.

[img] [/img]

I found computer programming works exceptionally well at showing you how intelligent you may or may not be. In some cases it might take minutes but in others it can take years.

Can you explain why computer programming takes such a variable time to demonstrate intelligence level?

(Or, why do you think that programming is an adequate indicator of intelligence?)

Can you explain why computer programming takes such a variable time to demonstrate intelligence level?

When I mentioned it I was assuming thick people would give up in 5 minutes and intelligent people would stick at it. Of course a desire to learn programming isn't mutally exclusive to either group.

It took me years of programming (as an aspiring hobbyist) before I got to the point where my intelligence was a real hinderance and to get past that would require more time & commitment & sacrafice than I could possibly give.

It might have been possible if I didn't need to work and could forget about family and friends.

I was among a handful of my year who read Land Economy at Cambridge.

We were the ones that make it look like someone left the back doors open on the Variety Club Sunshine Bus and all the contents snuck into a Mensa Conference.

You know your intellectual limitations when you spend three years surrounded by thousands of smart arses.

I'm currently trying to understand gravitational wave detection, at the bog-basic level at which it is pitched by the wonderful Janna Levin. It's hopeless. I am altogether too stupid and should stick to law.

🙂

Can you explain why computer programming takes such a variable time to demonstrate intelligence level?

When I mentioned it I was assuming thick people would give up in 5 minutes and intelligent people would stick at it. Of course a desire to learn programming isn't mutally exclusive to either group.

Apparently I'm intelligent according to the tests etc but I seem to be making it a life's work to prove them wrong 😆

Another one who cruised through school doing enough to keep up with the rest of the class, partly through laziness and partly through no real ambition but mainly so as not to stand out. I was a bully-magnet enough as it was! Since being in the world of work I've realised that a lot of people are very, very stupid on some things but brilliant at other stuff whereas others seem to have it all. The odd person has nothing going on between their ears but most people can do something well, it's finding that thing that's difficult.

Sometimes I do wish I knew more when around friends and randoms that have a good grasp of certain subjects. I learnt a while back that if I don't know something it's best to say nothing rather than say something stupid, saying stuff for comedic effect works but you sort of need an understanding of the subject to make that work so on the whole I stay quiet and nod at appropriate times. The rest of my time I'm perfectly happy in my own simple little world of work, food, sleep and bikes 8)

To those who think stw is a hive of great minds... it's really just a hive of great googlers.

How do you measure it? My stepson is doing incredibly well in his medicine course (doing an MSC for his 4th year, top progress test results etc) and I discovered recently he didn't know his shoe size. We got him measured at a shoe shop and found his converse shoes were 1.5 sizes too big. Is that thick?

Im with you OP... but

I reckon you have to be quite intelligent, to realise that you aren't.

Well, thats what I tell myself to make myself feel better... 🙄

I learned my limitations fast enough when at school: hard work would have got me to Oxbridge, but zero work got me to Durham. I preferred the zero work camp. And then found myself surrounded by plenty of very smart people who were also prepared to work hard!

It took becoming a lawyer to discover an ability to graft (though in fairness I went into an area of the law where intellectual ability ranks pretty low: M&A - once described by a colleague as the second hand car sales of the legal world).

I'll never learn....

trip to the local tescos will make you feel much smarter.

Clever is knowing tomatoes are a fruit.
Intelligence is knowing never to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.

It's all relative though, I've always been an academic under-achiever compared with my brother but I also know a lot of people both less intelligent and less knowledgeable than me (also lots the other way around of course).

Mind you I find as I get older the ability to hold a lot of information in my head seems to be getting worse. I'm not sure if that's lack of intelligence as such but it's frustrating to work with a few people that seem to perfectly recall complex technical discussions from months ago when I sometimes struggle to remember something more straightforward from the week before.

It's the won't thinkers that annoy me. The refusal to engage their brains. It seems to be a growing trend.

I also remind myself that I once sorted my 26 and 29 in spare inner tubes out and marked the 26's with a 6 and the 29ers with a 9.

To the OP - are you sure you're not an introvert rather than not intelligent? Those behaviours sound much more like the former... Lots of books on how to cope/change if you want to and it's bothering you.

I work in academia, have an MA, MSc and a PhD, and still get the imposter syndrome thing - but some people you meet in this field really are genii/geniuses...

The admin girl in our office was moaning about the size of her email inbox the other day. "I've got thirteen hundred emails!" she said. A couple of minutes later she says, "Oh no, I got that wrong, it is actually one thousand three hundred, that is not so bad!"

My wife just submitted her 20,000 word dissertation for her Masters (dermatology of the fanny), she did this in 12 months during her evenings, despite working more than full time and us having a busy house of three young kids. It contains lots of big words that I cannot pronounce, let along understand, as well as lots of truly disgusting photos.

Post graduate degrees don't make you intelligent, at the last academic lab I worked at - half of the PhD students and post docs read the Daily Mail and voted conservative, despite working in environmental sciences. What's even worse with these kinds of low grade academics, is that they've been reasonably right all their lives (eg during exams) and so they carry that attitude that they are always right - to all of their ridiculously misinformed opinions.

If there's one thing that I can't stand more than being around a bunch of inbred UKIP voters, it's being around academics who vote against their own best interests and take pride in that fact.

I'd describe myself as being of above average intellect, but I'm no genius. However I also have a reasonable degree of common sense, whereas my 'genius' mate - I wouldn't rely on him to find his way home at night even with the aid of a map; his head's far too full of Nobel prize winning levels of medicinal chemistry research to worry about fundamental stuff.

The other 'intelligence' - is emotional intelligence. And I've had the misfortune to work with a few who have none of it, no self awareness to be able to say the right thing at the right time (equally - a spectacular ability to say the wrong thing instead).

I'd rather someone with a bit of all three than someone who has one in spades but none of the others.

I teach some amazingly bright students - 10% of our second year students got OxBridge offers - who remind me that I'm not as clever as I'd like to be.

The student who sat 5 A levels, getting A*s in all of them, plus an extra 3 maths modules for fun and three maths Step papers (getting 1s in two of them and a grade higher, which most people don't even know exists, in the third) was one of last year's highlights.

Being supa-intelligent doesn't make life any easier. My cycling buddy has an Oxford degree and he's a physician at the top of his game but he can't adjust a headset, struggles with simple bike maintenance and needs me to tell him how to fix things that go wrong in his house.

There are many directions of intelligence, as said above.
There are some who whiz through a cryptic crossword but can't start a sudoku, and vice versa. Logic and verbal agility seem to be opposed in many cases, and mechanical aptitude and emotional intelligence are different things altogether.

My late uncle was a prof at Edinburgh University. He had to call his wife to dislodge the soap when it had dried stuck to the basin: that task was beyond him.

Doing an MSc in Pure/Applied Maths was where I found my limit, the course was Approximation Theory lead by M J Powell (Cambs Uni). Up until that point I had found Maths really trivial and then suddenly I was struggling to keep up. The lecturer would skip so many steps I spent ages working out how he got from one formula to another and only just barely comprehended what was going on. Passed the module but I wouldn't say I really understood what we were actually proving (which was proving under what circumstances approximation methods converged or diverged).

NB You can buy his book if you're really keen: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Approximation-Theory-Methods-M-Powell/dp/0521295149#reader_0521295149

I think there is a huge disparity between academic intelligence and real world intelligence.

By that I mean there are many people with a string of letters after their name that can't hold a conversation in a gathering of people outside of their chosen subject. These folk may be super intelligent gods amongst their peers, but to mr public they would appear normal or indeed sometimes stupid as the sense of reality is lost.

May be a slightly biased view (as I am 45 on Friday), but real intelligence is more of a jack of all trades - master of none type person imho.

As the years pass people gain a lot of knowledge and experience. If they can use this in life and know how to find out the things they need to know but don't - then to me they are intelligent.

I'm not sure about older and wiser, as I still want to do ride my bike like I did in my twenties. The theory is that I am now old and wise enough to know where I went wrong before, so it should be easy peasy now.

Then my body reminds me I'm not in my 20s 😆

I agree with you there twonks, the people who really amaze me are polymaths. You know, the kinds of people who remind you of an 18th century gentleman. Of which there are few and far between these days, I meet few truly well read people, as modern academics discourages it. The thing is, it's sadly these people who end up doing really amazing interdisciplnary work.

I recently saw a short piece on the inventor of the super soaker water pistol, Lonnie Johnson. Now that guy is a proper bona fida genius, the academic intelligence of Stephen Hawking with the practical application of Colin Furze. It was interesting that he considered his education, as a black man in the 60's he was denied access to white university's, better than his ivy league colleagues, as he wasn't pampered but taught to problem solve through adversity.

Sitting with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law last night (who have come to visit from LA where they work in space science) and listening to them explain to my very inquisitive 7 year old how the universe was formed, how life was formed, how elements exist, how the universe bends time etc etc etc

To those who think stw is a hive of great minds... it's really just a hive of great googlers.

yep. take the one thing you know a lot about, you may not be an expert but you have years of experience in this one thing but are intelligent enough to know that your peers in that field know more (even if they are lacking in some areas that you are stronger)
then look at the instances when that is the subject of STW posts...
it’s mostly internet forum bullshit from desk worriers.

i think the key is knowing yourself and what you are capable of. i couldn’t even muster a gcse in English or maths and the 24hr clock bamboozles me past 13:00hrs am i thick as sh1te? no especially when i hear the banal drivel in pubs/other peoples workplaces/the vox pop soundbites from people in the street during brexit etc.

i know plenty of people with doctorates, some are absolutely useless

My wife just submitted her 20,000 word dissertation for her Masters (dermatology of the fanny), she did this in 12 months during her evenings, despite working more than full time and us having a busy house of three young kids. It contains lots of big words that I cannot pronounce, let along understand

and does she do some absolutely ridiculous things that make you question her sanity? 🙄

i had a pretty bad education, no exams were sat. i was a fool.
but i have done pretty good. can talk well to folk on all levels, never feel intimidated by people more educated.
i have found in life people with loads of letters after theit names, dont have much common sense.

[url= https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3064/2631547523_bdde18ae18_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3064/2631547523_bdde18ae18_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/51xnp2 ]Me likey![/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/peter_atkin/ ]Peter Atkin[/url], on Flickr

and does she do some absolutely ridiculous things that make you question her sanity

well she married me for a start.

There are so many different types of intelligence though.

I am reasonably intelligent, have got a decent degree in mechanical engineering and have a decent amount of common sense, but I am absolutely rubbish at debating or talking about things. I really admire people who's brain is able to come up with witty retorts at the drop of a hat etc.

The other thing I struggle with is applying my knowledge, seizing opportunities & having confidence in my abilities. So - for me, I'd rather trade a bit of my intelligence for some of these other abilities to be honest, which would make me more able to make use of the intelligence I do have.

Some people are musically gifted, some are amazing with practical stuff and using their hands, some people are great at looking at the bigger picture, while others hone in on the detail.
I think the important thing is to find what you are good at. I'm still looking..... 😆

I think there is a huge disparity between academic intelligence and real world intelligence.

This - we have an educational system that places huge emphasis on analytical ability and doing well in exams above anything else. Which is fine if you want to be an academic, but means that qualities like emotional intelligence, common sense etc, which are often what you need in the real world, aren't recognised or rewarded.

What you end up with are people who might be brilliant at solving complex analytical problems or writing academic-style reports, but haven't got the faintest idea of how to interact effectively with other people, lead a team or, quite often, change a freakin' lightbulb.

Meanwhile our obsession with academic achievement makes it much harder for people with qualities not recognised by our educational system to get into positions where the qualities they do have would be valuable.

Yes, to an extent, if does even out, but if your educational system is a gateway filter for many careers and you have a hierarchy dominated by people who've been through it themselves, it's not really surprising that our idea of what intelligence is tends to be quite a narrow one.

He wrote, in an over-educated, over-thinking, analytical sort of way... 😐

we have an educational system that places huge emphasis on analytical ability above anything else

And we have a media and culture that places huge emphasis on ignoring facts and scientific evidence in favour of opinions, feelings, half-baked ideas and emotions.

So it all evens out 😉

So it all evens out

All part of the same problem. Because our academic system is essentially about game playing - it's all adversarial crap, look at sports science and its endless changing orthodoxies for a good example - people who rise to the top - Gove, Johnson and similar dicks - will do whatever it takes to circumvent arguments that contradict their own narrow interest in 'winning' the argument. If that means ignoring facts and manipulating the media / public, then it's all good.

If they were people with genuine compassion for others and empathy and some care for the country as a whole, they might just consider things beyond their own self-interest and that of their peer group.

What you end up with are people who might be brilliant at solving complex analytical problems or writing academic-style reports, but haven't got the faintest idea of how to interact effectively with other people,

A few people have alluded to folk like this. I wonder what percentage of those being discussed are Aspie, that sounds like very stereotypical traits.

the people who really amaze me are polymaths.

I used to work with one. He was incredible (and almost certainly an undiagnosed Aspie). Knew everything from Latin to computer networking to particle physics. Last I spoke to him, he'd taken it upon himself to learn Russian. No reason, just fancied the challenge.

He was also an alcoholic, a devout Christian, had an entirely carnivorous diet and had anger management issues (or at least, he claimed to have).

Interesting chap. It'd be boring if we were all the same I suppose.

I did enjoy watching my sister, who's extremely academically bright etc. (Oxford, consultant psychiatrist now), topping up the engine oil in her old mini with a tea spoon down the dip stick hole for a good 5 minutes before pointing out the filler cap.

stumpy01

There are so many different types of intelligence though.

I am reasonably intelligent, have got a decent degree in mechanical engineering and have a decent amount of common sense, but I am absolutely rubbish at debating or talking about things. I really admire people who's brain is able to come up with witty retorts at the drop of a hat etc.

The other thing I struggle with is applying my knowledge, seizing opportunities & having confidence in my abilities. So - for me, I'd rather trade a bit of my intelligence for some of these other abilities to be honest, which would make me more able to make use of the intelligence I do have.

Some people are musically gifted, some are amazing with practical stuff and using their hands, some people are great at looking at the bigger picture, while others hone in on the detail.
I think the important thing is to find what you are good at. I'm still looking...

Stumpy, you and I sound very alike....any intelligence i may possess is subjugated by the fact i'm very introverted,(self deprecating username?).

Is all a game anyway, narcissism/sociopathic tendencies are all you really need to succeed in life.

A few people have alluded to folk like this. I wonder what percentage of those being discussed are Aspie, that sounds like very stereotypical traits.

The student I mentioned above wasn't Aspie but his mum worked with people with Aspergers so he knew a lot about it. He used to diagnose other students in his classes - he did further maths, physics and computing, so wasn't short of candidates.