High IQ members and the nature of intelligence

Yet Another Mensa Member here.

I'm on the oddball end of the spectrum, because I do have a number of talents (professional quality.) Unfortunatly none of them are "star quality" and I don't have any ESP/pk/etc/etc.

But I do think in some rather peculiar ways (hyper-contextualizer) and I'm quite good at coming up with research questions (as in "real, grant-funded by agencies type research")

Mine was 148 just a few years ago (in my early 40s) so it must have been 170 or something when I was younger. Lately, I've been feeling like the pace of progress in our world (towards a better world) is awfully slow. Certain logical steps like preventing pollution and creating free energy are so obviously being missed by our low IQ "leaders" here and abroad.

I have alot in common with Banshee and I do tend to forget some words and my typing sometimes seems fragmented somehow (I try as I think and don't change it later). I also hate math even though I may be good at it, the equations never make sense because I can never relate them to anything as you can in engineering.
I tried an online IQ test, but it seemed like math so I didn't try. I think real intelligence comes from being able to see and un-biased view of problems in life and selecting the ones you can affect. Then asking questions and based on facts you've gathered, connect the dots (facts) and solve the problem even if that means changing your self and making new problems. But its all about facts (dots) and your ability to connect them, the hard part is the ability to change your self and to keep learning.

I don't think some one with a 1000 IQ would be too much different after they found the ability to put people into deep sleep, they would sooner or later either turn it off and relax or feel no ones worthy and become a hermit or find more of his/her type.

Originally posted by Gazrok
When I talk to my mother, I'm constantly "dumbing down" my speech, as I really hate making her feel bad. She's a bright woman, but simply never had the best education, etc. The few times I slip up and use some obscure words, she thinks I learned a new word or something!

Still cracks my wife and I up when it happens...

Don't get me wrong...I'm glad I'm not "dumb", but from what I've seen, one doesn't necessarily need to be smart to be highly successful (just look at most in Hollywood). I'd much rather be dumb and drop dead hunky, than smart and average appearance, hehe...

Maybe if so, I'd spend more time enjoying life than thinking about it...

I won't go into any metaphysical stuff, but I've proven to myself at least, that mind over matter at least has some kind of basis in truth.

Yeah, your mom had to be pretty smart to make that wedding cake you designed.

I think there exist people who have it all, both smarts & looks. But certainly in today's society, looks are valued more. It's true that with looks, you don't need to work as hard to get ahead.

You won't go into metaphysical stuff? You don't know what you're missing.

I have a very high IQ, way over the highest posted here, but i am a terrible speller. I am easily distraced from most things, but there are times when my brain is just firing on all cylnders and i can figure out some of the craziest things, i do calculus problems in my head and figure out pointless things, high IQ hasnt given me a thing, took all AP in high school, didnt try at all, whats studying, now a go to a comunity college.

The worst thing for me is going to the mall, i cant handle all the incompentence, i get real stressed and angry, as you can imagine I can't stand christmas shopping.

I dont think that IQ has anything to do with how sucsesful you are in life, or the grades you get, those are based on effort mostly.

There are lots of "smart people" here..

But if no one understands the "cause" of high intelligence, how can we possibly get a good measurement of it?

High IQ is caused by high results on an IQ test. My results placed me around 160, but that was a few years back. "Intelligence" has to be defined as an idea before its sources can even be discussed. I'm saying this to point to the fact that we're kicking around words here, and all have different ideas about what intelligence even is.

For the purposes of advancing this discussion (and sticking with the ideas implanted in the question) I'll rephrase the question, "what causes people to score high on IQ tests?"

I'd say its a combination of something given at birth and the point to which that natural propensity to analyse, synthesize, or whatever has been developed. I'm hesitatant to say "genetics" because my wife has scored around 180 (and as high on the emotional version that I haven't ever taken) and neither her family nor mine seem to be a genetic hotbed for this sort of thing. The best answer I can come up with is something like "karma." This doesn't mean that smart people have better karma. In a system where each soul on the planet is here for a different reason, different starting points intellectually, physically, emotionally, financially, etc. make for different paths. A simple minded person born to enlightened parents would probably have better karma than a brilliant person whose genius has them locked up in a mental ward, for example.


No paranormal stuff for me that I haven't opened up through meditation, but my wife has stories like none I have ever heard on this board of paranormal stuff since she was a kid. "Intelligence," as I conceive of it, has allowed me move through high schools and universities in the US and France without very much effort. Like some of the other posters on this thread, I obsess about complex systems and hate visits to the shopping mall. Music has come very natually to me from an early age, and I apparently have a knack for foreign languages.

About "common sense", anyone care to try to define that one?!

I'm interested to hear stories of these people in the 180+ range (adults). My wife isn't "on another planet" intellectually. What are all these huge differences or changes that come about in the 180+ ranges?

Having a higher I Q doesn’t necessarily suggest wisdom. Aptitude or knowing what to do with knowledge is far more important and far more difficult to measure. We all experience flashes of brilliance at one point or another but then those with drive take it further. Desire or drive have nothing to do with IQ.


"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
~Albert Einstein

Had to come back and pose a question of my own (hope you don't mind Indigo)

But is high IQ and intelligence hereditary or a learned skill?

I ask this because, neither my mom or dad had a high level of education, and neither is what I would consider highly intelligent. smart people but not mensa material or anything.

Now my son, 8yrs old, seems to be exceptionally smart. I just received his 3rd grade standardized assessment test results and he got a 99 in Math and a 99 in Reading. He's made the Platinum honor roll again (only one in his grade) and now his teacher wants to do a child study on him and recommend him for the gifted program at Nova Southeastern University.

My husband has an IQ around 150 and I already told you I scored very high, so could it be that my son inherited his abilities from us or is it that because of the type of people we are, he "learned" his study skills from us?

My younger son, so far doesn't show the same qualities as his older brother, he is smart but average in his grade level.

Worldwatcher,

I think it's both.
I'm betting that you encourage, and mentally stimulate your kid.
Rather than treating him as a "kid" you treat him as person who is
developing. with you there to assist.
And when he asks you questions (lots of them!), you don't act like it's a bother.

I was thinking both too, but then I look at my little one and I wonder..... perhaps it isn't hereditary but more of a learned skill?

from what I have seen in the past six years, he doesn't seem to be growing up to be an intellectual type. He has no patience for books or learning and would rather climb a tree, put his brother in a headlock or entertain us with his silly antics.

They are as different as night and day when it comes to learning and education.

Total 34 at 130+

I apologise for being slightly skeptical, but either ATS is the Mecca of geniuses on this planet or people are exaggerating or giving inaccurate figures. To put this into perspective, the highest IQ society(Giga, 1 in a billion is a joke) Mega society requires an IQ of 170, or 0.000001% of the population can qualify, this means that in America, only 270 or so people would qualify. There are 4 people here who claim to have an IQ in this range. I guess this is somewhat like asking for the size of manhood, everyone is going to add a inch or two

Sigma society requires an IQ of 165+ or 0.00001% of the population can qualify or 2700 people in America. There are 5 people who claim to have an IQ in this range. The rest is as follows

(+/- 5 points)

175-180: 1 in 10 million: 2 mentions: 27 Americans
165-175: 1 in 1 million: 2 member: 270 Americans
155-165: 1 in 100,000: 3 members: 2,700 Americans
145-155: 1 in 10,000: 4 members: 27,000 Americans
135-145: 1 in 1000: 23 members: 270,000 Americans

I am providing a link to a few high ceiling IQ test:

httpd.chello.nl...
www.jouvetesting.org...
www.highiqsociety.org...

Please, complete the tests in your spare time, it will give you a far more accurate IQ score. In the High IQ society one(the only one which will give an instant result) the more accurate tests are the test for exceptional intelligence, Ultimate High IQ test and the 12 min test.

As for myself, I usually don't like IQ tests, because they give me a complex and confuse me. The first IQ test I did was when I was 16 and I scored 155. After that I took another test and I scored 100. I then took the National IQ test of UK and scored 135. I took some professional hard tests online and scored 170. Then I took the International High IQ society tests and scored 135. If I summarize my scores from all the tests it would go from one extreme to the other: 100, 116, 120, 135, 155, 160, 170. I'll average that and give my IQ as 136.

Now either I have a very erratic intelligence, or there is something fundamentally wrong with the IQ tests. Actually, the difference of 10 points can usually just be answering 2 questions wrong. I fare better on verbal and visual-spatial. The math throws me off. I also do not like time limits. However, when it comes to intelligence, I know I am very intelligent. And I'm often told this by everyone I encounter, but that is probably because I speak lucid English and talk about highly abstract concepts.

As I grew up, I could not careless about school or intelligence. I was in the lowest class of my year. I actually did not realize I was in the lowest class until the last year of secondary school. When I realized I was in the dumb group, I said to myself, "I'm not dumb, so why am I in the dumb group" so basically I started paying attention to work, and in under a month, I was promoted by my school to the highest group. They said it was a miracle and just phenomenal what I did. I knew better, if only they knew how to recognise potential in a student. However, I did not maintain this pace, because I got bored too quickly.

In college in doing my A levels, in our first college test in Chemistry, I scored the highest score in the college 96%. I suddenly lost interest and my scores nosedived to 50 to 30 to 20%. That is just how my mind is, I lose interest too quickly. Now, that I am out of college, I read my old chemisty and physics books with renewed interests. They seem easy. If I wanted I could learn entire science books regardless of which level, in under a week. However, I am not going to do that. I just can't commit myself to anything at this time. There is a lot going on in the world, a lot about to happen and a lot of internal conflict in my own life, that it's difficult to focus for me.

However, I would really like to know what it is like to have a very High IQ such as 1000. I think you would see patterns in everything, in rain, in clouds, in stars. You would probably be able to formulate an entire treatise on maths and astronomy in your mind. I really wish I could experience that.

[edit on 19-1-2005 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
Total 34 at 130+

I apologise for being slightly skeptical, but either ATS is the Mecca of geniuses on this planet or people are exaggerating or giving inaccurate figures.

I've been thinking along these same lines; I'm just damn glad that *you* said it, and not me.

Now either I have a very erratic intelligence, or there is something fundamentally wrong with the IQ tests.

And that, in a nutshell, is what I hate about the term "IQ." A true measure of "intelligence" would not vary so greatly.

That is just how my mind is, I lose interest too quickly.

Welcome to my (and, I think, Banshee's) world! Attention span of a gnat....

However, I would really like to know what it is like to have a very High IQ such as 1000. I think you would see patterns in everything, in rain, in clouds, in stars.

Good God, not me. Can you imagine trying to deal with this level of thought as a child? I remember, in 2nd grade, reading an article about "killer" bees. At that time, they were predicted to arrive in the southern US in 1986, which was the year I graduated high school.

For probably 6 months after reading that *@#$! article, I was a nervous wreck. I was convinced that these bees were going to end life as we knew it. I had elaborate plans for modifying our world for survival. I also worried myself sick, literally.

The ability to comprehend facts, without the ability to put them into context (which, unfortunately, only comes with experience). Knowledge, without understanding.

I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

To be quite honest I've grown to hate my IQ. Although it has many good sides it has also brought me a lot of problems over the years. I've had my IQ tested since I was a 11 year old, the school I was at was concerned that I was flying through all the work they gave me without apparent effort (plus I was as lazy as hell!) decied to take action. So what they did next always cracks me up lol....... they called in a child psychologist to find out why I wasn't 'normal'.
Once the other children (and teachers as well) found out my IQ I was ridiculed constantly and bullied for being 'different'. My IQ stands at 168 (I've never been tested below 150) and I hate it. For me what it brings on the negative side is the inability for most people to follow my thought process at my speed. This drives me nuts having to 'come down to their level', I can come accross as arrogant and dismissive when I know for an absolute fact the person is wrong or has not reasoned properly.

Like other posters I have an almost pathological need to know how things work, learn at an incredible rate, have the ability to think in 3 dimensions, once I've learned something I get bored easily and move onto the next challenge. But curiously I've also had more than my fair share of serious bad health. I've sufferd from a problem with the left side of my brain for 17 years now, so rare it doesn't have a name and no one seems bothered about treating. This compounded matters as it made my brain faster at some things (I can now assimilate information at an even higher rate than before) although my spelling is always bad (and especially my typing) as my brain always works faster than my hands. I find that my powers of concentration when I am 'in the zone' while working or learning something drives others nuts, because you could have a brass band playing right next to me and I wouldn't even know it's there.

I've always been the proverbial 'odd one out' and for years I tried to blend in, it never works so now I'm 33 I've given up. IQ is not a magical cure for the problems you may think you have. Its not a magic bullet and has more than its fair share of negative points in my experience. It doesn't make me better than anyone else, just gifted in certain areas. For example I am terrible at maths, but put me in front of something artistic or involving computers and I leave others standing. I find that I am more afffected by traumas and have suffered from depression for most of my adult life.

Psychologists have discribed my thought process in many ways but by far the most entertaining was that it was like one of the bikes from the film TRON...I'm always doing 90 degree turns and later coming back without realising others aren't keeping up. I talk and think too fast for many and see organisations such as MENSA as elitist. I find it disturbing that of late education falls to the lowest common denominator every time. The bright kids often get left out by teachers who feel jealous of someone brighter than they are (and in my case that wasn't hard!) I was taught my a series of teachers who were only in it for the money and were barely qualified. I hate working as part of a team and prefer to be left alone in silence to do whatever task I am set. I'm the bloke people come to in a crisis when they need something learned and done 'yesterday' and I get sick of only being treated like a brain on legs.

I rarely tell people who don't know it already (not many do) my IQ (it took me 2 years before my other half could get it out of me, and only then after much cagoling by my parents)

So I reiterate, IQ doesn't mean I am better or worse. To me it means I am troubled and can never fit in. No one will ever take me at face value once they know, I then become a brain on legs or treated like a computer
I have my first child due in may and to be honest while I hope he is bright I also hope he doesn't have the same problems as I have had. So there you go thats my oppinion of IQ and why I wish it never existed.

Wayne...

Well, I know that nothing counts on the web, so I won't belabor the point.

But I really was being honest in my post. The study was conducted at UT Austin between 1985 and 1995 or 1996. So you could get the raw scores, do a bit of data mining, and figure out which one was me.

The information I have posted is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.

I think that "IQ" is more a function of training than heredity. My best friend/investment partner is adopted, and has the same general range of intellect as his parents of nurture; he has met his bio-parents and was shocked at "hard-living" types they were.

In continue-ing my earlier post...

*sigh*

An IQ of 167.

ASVAB score of 98.

SAT was 1550/1600 (or was it 1750/1800? Don't remember)

Top 10% nation wide for ACT.

Took the Naval Nuclear Field Exam... a three hour test, with a stack of work paper... finished in 45 minutes, no "work" done (all in head).

Now, about what sets me apart...

Boredom.

I love to know things (it seems that's been repeated ALOT). I strive and desire new challenges. I get bored easy. If some idea pops into my head, I have to see it through to its conclusion.

I've seen "3D" thinking mentioned alot, too...

Even though I am good with numbers (but I hate math, it's too exact) and science related things, I prefer art and human studies. I love to see how people react to certian situations, and how they deal with them. I love the "mob mentality", along with "a person is smart, people are dumb". I have to see the BIG picture, get all points of view, and see something from all aspects.

I am also flighty.

I never finish what I start (get bored). Nothing challenges me after a while. Bored. I need new things all the time, or else I'll get... bored.

Now... is this because I am "smart" by most standards? Or is it because I am a tried and true Gemini?

Look, I have a confession to make people. I have a room temperature IQ. I'm the only person here who doesn't belong in mensa. I'm the last bastion of idiocy here on ATS.

Come on guys... where's the middle group? I know I'm not the only one here who plays with fire and hordes shiney objects.


EDIT: And just for the record, the ASVAB is a joke. The ASVAB is just their way of verifying that you actually have bloodflow to the brain. Not to demean those who did well on it- i'm just saying that it's the the finest standard out there.

[edit on 19-1-2005 by The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
httpd.chello.nl...
www.jouvetesting.org...
www.highiqsociety.org...

Well hot damn.
Guess that head trauma's actually affected my score.
-1 IQ point per concussion since last test at the shrink, according to the big'n over at highiqsociety.com
Do I have to change my number-label from 136 to 130 now? Or should I go somewhere in the middle?

((to be honest, I'm feelilng pretty decent about that. I really thought the concussions had made me lose some significant mental ability...))

1. Photographic memory
2. Speed reading
3. complex mental Arithmetic
4. The ability to rotate objects, maps, landscapes in the minds eye, or even being able to visualize the structure of DNA.
5. Rapid thinking. E.g. Coping in a real-time debate or war
6. Ability to plan far ahead. E.g. Chess
7. Concentration power

Hi. I have a high IQ and most of the talents you listed there I also have. I remember things well although I wouldn't say I have a photographic memory. I can also copy artwork well (don't know how usefull a talent it is but...). I can't make huge jumps like A to R (A to D maybe) but instead I seem to always want to know how A changes into B in great detail. I have trouble trusting something to be true without know the fundamental principles behind it.

Indigo_Child, Well at this point, you would of exceeded 1000, if you were to add all of our IQ's.... It would be worth considering.. I'm taken back just a touch, as to how all of us has added to your answer. I ask you again, what could you do with this Insight to make a difference? If there was one to be made as a result of the answers you have recieved. Many are so profound, I need to re-read it over to ensure I know what I have read to be real...

Indigo, Take your question to the next step, now that you have a deep inderstanding now those that are of the same way of your thinking... (to some extent) Regardless of how we got here... Can We/You/ and all others, make a difference to see pass supidity So much of that continues... 1000, We have exceeded that count in our World problems, there is a number that can't be denied. Consider this, take into account those that have a postion to make a difference and present this information as a well thought out solution(s) that has been valued and important to us, Humanity, as we see it.! It's obvious to me there are to many people in the wrong positions that have no clue... But hey, sometimes, the power of suggestions can can go along ways for those that can see and hear? Lets hope there here to reallize it.