How do people with IQs of 140 - 200 think?

originally posted by: deventon
I fall into the genius range and so do my children. I have been called a narcissist, a jerk, big headed, rude etc but honestly I struggle to figure out why. I try and try to make relationships but fail miserably. I have been married for many years but have had rocky patches due to my behavior. I think everyone is stupid, I don't believe in God at all. I am the smartest person at my jobs every time but get fired for being a jerk but I try so hard to be nice. I can't sleep ever. Thoughts race through my brain constantly. I over analyze everything to the point it makes me sick. I can't make decisions if there are too many choices. If apple comes out with 5 new computers and I only need one I buy them all just so I won't pick the wrong one. I hate being around people. I can see exactly what they are all about in the first 5 minutes of talking to them and I am always right. I always look for the problems in everything. I prep for disasters, I'm ready for nuclear fallout. I have a bug out bag. I have contingency plans for everything from disease, fire, flood to nuclear war. I get frustrated when people can't know what I know when I know it. My handwriting sucks, I can't read a book because I get bored in the first few chapters and while I read it I think of a million different things. I take benedryl to fall asleep every night to numb my brain and it works. If I don't I stay up until the sun comes up and fall asleep out of pure exhaustion. I feel like an alien on earth. I feel like I am a time traveler and today is 1250 BC and people are primal. I can't understand how people think the way they do, how they believe what they are told, it drives me crazy. I can find patterns in second. I am a software engineer, I'm self taught. I have a college degree but its not in my field. I did poorly in school. Every boss I have ever had has said I'm a genius but then has to let me go because all the other co-workers just plain hate me. I find all their errors in software constantly and point them out so that they get fixed and it causes issues. I don't do it to seem better it just drives me crazy that there are inefficient processess running everywhere. I can look at code or a database and see all the problems in minutes and they seem so easy to me and obvious which leads me down the path of thinking the other workers are idiots. I have had numerous jobs at most of the companies you have heard of and even was hired by the FBI but could not even make that work.

Things for me are either on or off. Its true or false. Nothing is gray. I do everything to the max or not at all. If I get a car it has to have every option available, same goes for computers, houses, etc. I have to upgrade every possible aspect of the item or I don't like it. If I have something it has to be perfect. Get a tiny scratch on my car? Selling it. I have every cellphone made every year. I hate them all. I find faults in everything then hate it. Phone A is not bright enough, Phone B is too slow, Phone C has the power button too high etc. I don't know how people get the slower computer and are happy, or the 16gb iphone. Mine MUST be 64gb, not because I need it but because its the fully upgraded model and if I get the 32gb I will be upset that I could have fit an extra 32gb of space in there.

Sometimes I wish I was dumb because so many dumb people I know are happy and have tons of friends and when I say dumb I mean average intelligence (there I go). That is how I see them because they are not dumb, they are great people but they believe in God and go to church and I know all about how the church works and know its a sham and I hate them for going and feel they are just stupid for have being tricked by it all. Religion has really allowed me to group everyone that believes as stupid and way beneath me. If you say you are a scientist I think you are probably smart but if you say you have church tomorrow then that is it, you are now stupid to me. So religion has caused me to classify a large portion of the population as stupid. I can only look at athiests and go from there for my friends now. In fact if you believe in God you are off my list immediately. I have gotten to the point where I get sick just being around them for a second.

I can't tolerate average intelligence people at all. I spend my whole time out of my house bitching about why that person parked that way or why that person is doing that or eating that or buying that. If they don't do what I do then I feel like they made the wrong decision and why would they do that. I try to make everyone I know buy what I buy. Buy the washing machine I bought, buy the phone I bought etc. Classified as stupid if they don't since I research everything for days before I make a purchase.

I take everything apart, brand new iphone, taken apart everything. Took my car completely apart one weekend and put it back together because I was curious how it worked. Have been taking things apart since I was a child, I'm in my 40s now and still do it.

I feel like I'm cursed constantly. I connect with Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. Einstein is my idol. I hate sports as I don't see the point, I can solve any puzzle way before anyone else. But in the end, I feel good about myself, I'm happy I'm smart, I'm not afraid to die but would never off myself and am usually very happy. I love my family and take pride in my life even though I can't keep a job but hey they must be stupid to keep firing such a smart dude.

this could very almost be me!

to this day i find myself constantly surrounded by f*ckwits!

as a child i was a mid 170's nowadays im fast approaching 40 and guess using the various online tests out there i average around 150

if i'm honest i can say it has probably been one of my biggest burdens in life, in school, workplaces, relationships..

information information information my brain craves it, it runs on overdrive constantly. i used to set myself ridiculous maths sums to cure my boredom working nightshifts, like 10-15 digit multiplications etc i would be pretty pleased with myself how many times i could get to the right answer, bouncing numbers around your brain for hours on end sometimes does become pretty exhausting, more so than the job i was doing lol

sadly it always makes me kinda laugh how you can be hugely more advance mentally than the majority yet so very very dumb in life..

i dont think having a massive iq is really such a big deal, probably quite the opposite

mentally i excel, in life i fail. least thats my experience. intelligence nowadays seems to put you at a disadvantage in the real world. obviously if your a brain surgeon scientist etc then yeah fantastic but to us mere poor folks.... well i'd probably be accepted better if i had no legs

too smart for your own good.. checked that box!

I am 54 years old, last time I tested was at 49, scored at 168. I have some college education, but no degree. I am very socially liberal, and fiscally conservative. I have suffered from depression for most of my adult life. I am a veteran, never saw combat, but have been diagnosed with PTSD. I have 5 or 6 years of my childhood that I have no recollection of. The best times of my life were the 15 years I made my living with my hands as a master automotive machinist. I now do administrative work, due to an injury, and would rather stay home most days, as there is no challenge to it. I drink too much, smoke too much, and am agnostic. I am in my third marriage, am a lousy father, and am the life of a party.

That all being said, to answer the OP's question, how do I think, I think like most informed people think, believe half of what I see, nothing of what I read, check as many sources as I can, and form my own opinions.

My opinion, high IQ is due to child trauma or harsh environment.
Coz there it is imperative to find right solution fast. Error and trial
path happens quicker. As these people with high IQ mature, fear does not go anywhere,
only speed of processing, search for the 'way out' is getting polished and broad.
Mind has to survive in a childhood as it has to do exactly the same in adult world only
in conditions that are getting more complex. As complexity advances, the brain already
knows the scheme how to proceed, because based on childhood experience a failure would mean death.
Fear is driving force.
just my dime.))

Hi! I joined this community just to respond to this topic - if in an oblique manner. After reading through several interesting responses here, I thought I might also throw my hat into the ring, as I think it is a ring that can circle as many hats as there are people - its a topic just about everyone has wondered on.

I think quite a few people ask themselves, 'Am I a genius?' And we can feel that the answer is, to a degree, and at various times, 'yes, we all are or have been and even have yet to be'. There are many who have yet to release the genii from the bottle. And it is exceedingly difficult to do this. Yet, I have been always struck by the mysterious quality of genius that renders it latent in just about everyone. It does not necessarily follow that it takes genius to recognize genius: yet there is no mistake when one bumps into it - that mental quicksilver, the diamond (often in the rough) or just that moment of revelation or epiphany or eureka that some of us have experienced at various times challenged by provocations - some comical some life endangering. Yet, it is at one a mysterious and private latent quality and a social trope that requires an act or expression for its designation (it is certainly not a quantity easily bounded by definition or measures, gaussian curves or exclusionary socio-economic filters) In the lucky (or cursed) holder, we know it is borne by nature and nurture, that it is stubbornly resistant to controlled deliberation and application, willful expression or predetermination and yet it can be harnessed, nurtured and fostered by deliberate stimulations, provocations and creative existential and emotional (painful and/or ecstatic) disturbances (these are actually welcome because it is also possible and often happens that one can be bored by one's own mind - very depressing). But it can be also just a flash in the pan in those who don't care for self awareness. For others who are tired of being different, a 'freak', it can be released in controlled contexts and often in a way that defers, deflects and negates the ego aspect of its reception (there is a fair bit of jealousy and tribal instinct in the human species still). Some have more flashes, of varying magnitudes and durations to them. There are also those who hide those flashes. But I think the genius among us is often that person who just wants to fit in, live a life, in a comfortable way and die with a modest, free and true legacy of family and friends: you won't recognize this type. Nevertheless, there is an infinitude of private mental odysseys one can embark on - and a communion of others (living and dead) who have suffered through the burden and fear of not realizing one's potentials. You are not alone. Amor fati.

So, last night, while watching a youtube of Prof. Terence Tao (he is no Feynman) giving a lecture on prime numbers, I was struck by how difficult it was to understand him speaking and also, how difficult it must have been for Prof. Tao to deal with the challenge of communicating those ideas to others through the spoken word. Terence Tao is reputed to have a 200+ IQ. In some respects, for some, the genii might be best kept in the bottle.

a reply to: LiquidationOfDiscrepancy

Didn't intend to comment on such an old thread.

Although a lot of folks touched on hyper contextualization and I figure that's about as close to explaining how higher IQ's affect thinking. Each piece of information gets matched up against everything already stored in a person's mind. The more that can be recalled, the better. Now, adding to that folks with higher IQ's, I'd expect, I've only ever had mine, are able to draw parallels between all available information and anything stored in their accessible memories faster. Add into that any amount of creativity, and they're able to see more ways in which information can be networked together. It's creativity that's at the crux of genius, not necessarily the speed of that dot connecting. Without perseverance and patience though, intelligence isn't particularly practical.

originally posted by: wherewithall
So, last night, while watching a youtube of Prof. Terence Tao (he is no Feynman) giving a lecture on prime numbers, I was struck by how difficult it was to understand him speaking and also, how difficult it must have been for Prof. Tao to deal with the challenge of communicating those ideas to others through the spoken word. Terence Tao is reputed to have a 200+ IQ. In some respects, for some, the genii might be best kept in the bottle.

I haven't watched any of his videos but now that I'm on summer break and have time I plan to do a bit of math research just because I find it to be an interesting field. I'm pretty good at math already but it's really the one skill that is applicable to everything.

Anyways, I find that a lot of very smart people have trouble explaining their ideas. When an idea is formed certain neurological connections are made between one object and another and these connections differ for everyone. To give a recent example for me I was in a programming class where we were making a raytracer. I have previous experience with 3d modeling and understood what was going on from the software point of view, but then when writing it myself I got a totally different viewpoint. I went from understanding that a phong is shiny and a blinn isn't, to why that is the case because of how the light reflected on them, and with that I can make far better looking models. I can even trace the light through my scene and find the optimal camera position to pick up on specular highlights. This realization has even lead to me thinking about a form of automated navigation for small robots for hallways and such which uses a light and 3 cameras to look for specular light, and then calculate the objects distance based on the from multiple viewpoints. That would be an example of connections I guess.

Anyways what I'm trying to get it is that to certain people (more often with higher IQ), totally random objects can seem completely complimentary and be a source of ideas. It has been said in the past that the ability to create connections between different tasks is the true mark of a genius.

a reply to: LiquidationOfDiscrepancy

Just like everybody else.

In my case, I can maybe recognize patterns faster, see dead end logic paths sooner, stuff like that. It helps bring ideas that are useful to the current goal into focus and filter out ideas that are not useful to the current goal, whatever that goal is, maybe solving a differential equation or finding a bug in a program or expressing an emotion in a painting or writing a short story. Sometimes that is an advantage, sometimes it is a disadvantage, especially when I make a mistake about the dead end.

There isn't any superhuman magic involved. We just think in the normal way, and if we aren't interested in a topic a super duper IQ won't make us interested or any better at it that anyone else. I am not interested in solving differential equations, for example, and when I needed to do it in school I was lousy at it. On the other hand, programming was fun and therefore almost trivial for me.

a reply to: LiquidationOfDiscrepancy

Heres a thought for you, Einstein wasn't a academic wizard. He couldn't get good enough marks to get into an engineering degree course. He never sat an IQ test so everyone assume it was 200 but all indications are he would of scored averagely on IQ test. So what is intelligence really?

High IQ is nebulous. Genius is a moniker too often endorsed. As is love, hate, and appropriately.....Truth. My take, on this ever-elusive red herring is, intelligence is based on a cadre of fundamental factors. To start, being able to reconstitute an idea, an image, an action, and even coalesce the aforementioned, to form a new variable. An example would to be, take two objects, change their default orientations, and merge them to create a crafty bauble. Intelligence is about awareness. Awareness of self and surrounding. Reduction and forecast of unforeseen scenarios. Humans tend not to make a conscience effort to rehearse things in their minds, falling victim to impulsivity. Granted, the gene-pool may be deliberate in this behavior, a yin to the yang, but it boggles my mind to see wanton squandering unfold before my very eyes, on a daily basis. I guess someone needed to bleed first, at the breach at Normandy. But to a lesser extent, another conclusion I met with associates and friends lacking in manicure, hygiene, and overall attention to appearance is, if they if fact possessed a larger helping of grey matter than the average doorknob, why is it that they couldn't grasp bare concept of their impact of their "presence". Absent mindedness, unwilling/inert social scaling, imperative immersion.........blindness? How many abhorrent interactions does one needlessly suffer, before their penchant for pain is parsed? Is this myopicism so deeply seeded that it overrides queue for quality of living? Humans are visceral beings, appearance and kinesthesia matter, even on sub-conscience levels. Einstein had to zip his fly....occasionally.

Adroit acumen and the ability to visualize/quantify the abstract, I would propose are a few more dead-ringers for gilded grain. So few book-smarts are capable of original thought (I know, it doesn't exist), lack artistic guile, or have accrued any form of existential inference. It's disheartening to see accolade dispensed like tickertape to piety parrots and plagiarist. There is nothing noble about imitation if you feign due credit. Over time, I've collected friends in fields ranging from money management to procurements to applied tech to just pure academics studies. Something well received by me is, no matter how smart you think you are, no matter how many toys you have, if you had to lied, cheat, and steal to for vertical momentum, you are not as clever as the dilettante who did it without rearing the head of vile human characteristics. A truly gifted person can reconcile mishandlings and own accountability. They are confident enough (or hopefully should be), to discern their cerebral measure and concede that "you can't know it all (except, when someone can empirically prove you wrong)". This is the territory where wisdom meets wit, giving birth to a potent cocktail, seasoned with finesse. It's where you root out the ablative veneers postured by charlatans. Umbilical withdrawal is immanent for swollen egos. A well rounded diet in general knowledge, also seems to garnish a mute, intellectual palate.

So as much as the piss and vinegar spews from my gaudy gullet to gag on, I also caption, no one is perfect nor infallible. What fun would that be? Hence, a primer to my next segway. Undoubtedly, esceintience comes with its Albatross, as thoroughly covered throughout this thread. The immutable haunting of alienation and disconnect associated with being in the "know". It's like that dated injection, the analogy of being able to read everyone's mind, transcribing their every waking thought. Or spectating the inevitable demise of sheep to the slaughter. You feel powerless no matter degree of protest or conjecture. You twist and wrestle with the indoctrinated masses mantra's compelling nudge to "contribute to the whole!", "change the world for the better!", "YOU have a gift! Why waste it!?", " What would [INSERT IDEALOGUE HERE]....DO?", "Do it for the children........", and self-symmetry/felicity. The weight of the world on your shoulders. To serve what ends? The nameless, dull-witted apparitions, droning about? The sycophantic, provincial marionettes ? Or maybe the miscreant and unprincipled that choke the very breath from asylum?

Not much, thinking is redundant. gnosis be where it be at.
Course I have no idea what my iq be, this is my little soliloquy.

a reply to: LiquidationOfDiscrepancy

a reply to: LiquidationOfDiscrepancy

I don't have a serious ideology to speak of, mostly because I don't have any firm beliefs. I firmly believe it's a mistake to hold firm beliefs. When I'm thinking, I'm pretty cynical, but that's mostly because my main area of knowledge is social psychology.

I typically try to do as little thinking as possible when I'm talking to others. The things I say almost never relate directly to what I'm thinking. Most of the time, I'm smiling and joking around a lot with others. My emotions, when they rear their ugly faces, are generally short-lived and on the negative side of the spectrum.

Above that you have synchronicity, the knowledge that all is interconnected and modulated by individual emotions. You will no longer need alarm clocks or the use of a mobile phone. Those who know understand.

Basically it comes down to self love. The greatest thinkers, unconventional minds, draw acceptance mostly from within and don't have as strong a need to be understood as the rest of humanity. Do they crave acceptance? Absolutely, but not at the cost of going against one's morals or firmly held beliefs.

Most people need that energy (acceptance) from others and so pay the price of fitting in and becoming one of the crowd to gain it. Look up correlations between introverted characteristics and higher levels of IQ.

Of course there is also emotional intelligence which is based much more on experience and upbringing than IQ and could be argued is much more important for living a successful (relative term), fulfilling life.

For one I tend to think continuously, and in 3d color. I'm also very sensitive and can be happily inside myself for very long periods of time. Also I have a low tolerance for people in general. Being unable to hold any typical conversation before someone buts in and yawns, typically keeps me silent. Sometimes people ask what that or this word means or they haven't heard it before. I typically speak english. However I'm extremely creative, and love inventing things, and learning. If there is a book I haven't laid my eyes upon then it was kept from me on purpose. Self conscientious and critical of self to a fault, nothing I create is ever good enough. Since I'm a girl, and have been told by Christians, that I don't belong in computer science. Twice , this has happened to me while working in my degreed field. I don't understand why all these Christians want me to live with some guy. Marriage really isn't even on my list of things to do. A super PC however....yes.

Honestly, I find that the term genius is a bit of a misnomer; or at least a word misinterpreted as pertaining only to science or mathematical skills, when there is a lot more to "intelligence" than that. At least in my opinion. I've been rated at 141, and honestly... I don't think I'm THAT different from other people. I mean, I've always had problems with ennui. It does go hand-in-hand with my bipolar disorder, however. So that could be a reason for that problem.

Still, I've always felt under-challenged, and as a result I tend to not put in much effort into anything I don't find interesting. I could only handle a little over half of my credits for my Associative Arts degree before I was suicidal from depression and literally being bored to tears. I lack enthusiasm for most anything, so that feeds into my manic depressive episodes.

My catharsis is writing. I spend a lot of my free time doing that, and it makes me somewhat happy.

To me, IQ is a number used to separate us and push us farther apart. We have far too many snobs as it is. And as it is, one can increase their IQ score by working on the areas they are less than adept at. People act as if your current IQ is the end-all for your potential in life, and it isn't. There is a physicist who was rated at 125 IQ when he was in high school. Now he is a very renowned physicist and professor. You can't judge or explain a person by a number. As Einstein said: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Don't fall into this trap. Let yourself blossom by following what you love and making yourself a bona fide "genius" of your chosen art!

Hmmm, interesting.

I think a better question is: "How do you apply your intelligence?"

What good is information if not applied?

originally posted by: Annee
Hmmm, interesting.

I think a better question is: "How do you apply your intelligence?"

What good is information if not applied?

I've learned it's best to ignore this thread (despite this being my third post on this page alone), but I checked back randomly and saw your question. I don't think that unapplied intelligence is worth anything. Being able to invent a concept or even understand something difficult doesn't have any value unless you can actually put it to use somehow. Honestly, I've found that applying the basics well is usually better than trying to apply more advanced concepts less well.

Earlier in the thread I wrote
It has been said in the past that the ability to create connections between different tasks is the true mark of a genius.

But I believe that is only half true. Knowing the answers to a wide range of questions doesn't make one a genius, it makes them a Jeopardy contestant. Being a genius lies in having the ability to solve problems.
Take a problem
Take a set of resources
Define a goal

My above quote plays into this, while all people will find a way to partially achieve the goal and some may even reach it, a genius will make greater connections between the resources they have, arrive at better solutions, and more completely reach the goal or even be able to go beyond that goal.

I think we see a lot less of this these days, as unique approaches to solutions are typically provided by polymaths and there are much less of them due to our current educational system and workplace demands.

Thinking upon things is done no differently by any individual, of course the end result of the process is decidedly different for all... except for a yes or no or limited outcome based on limited options...

While thoughts may flow more freely for those with a high IQ this will not be true for all things... You see all individuals have a genius on some level in a given area... The real trick is finding out what area you shine in and applying it and allowing it to blossom...

What good is a really high IQ? when shared opinions are misunderstood even scoffed at because others can't comprehend it...

It's much better to just sit back and smile and hint at things until others believe they have come up with the answer...

The boring answer to your question is...thoughts are formed more quickly and odds are with more accuracy...

a reply to: Aazadan

Aaz, the average person of today has much more knowledge than the average person of any generation prior. We have this in spite of the piss poor schooling system, that's because a real education can be had on the streets, and through the net.

I'd actually say our rate of advancement is increasing at what appears to be a much quicker pace than any other time in history as well, though we must take into account more human beings kicking around than any other time just the same.

The average person is attempting to "think differently" but on a very low level, from my point of view. I don't hold much weight to the term "genius", people have called me one my whole life just as often as something or another derogatory.

I think what we have is an ever evolving "norm" and deviance from this mean, usually turnout out not so good, but at times having streaks of brilliance. I've tended to apply the term "brilliant" more to people who excel within currently laid out frameworks. On occasion I refer to genius more in terms of system-independent acceleration of the cultural, political, or scientific realm.

It could be intuited that all information is built from that which is floating around already, but the seemingly unique combinations of genius result from that which is simply not commonly imagined and spoken. I'd posit there are more geniuses by my qualification than ever before walking this Earth, but most are the same as always, junked up, tuned out... yet to activate, most never to be known. By another's qualification genius is in the doing, the work accepted by the mass, alive or dead... to each their own.

As for IQ? I don't think it much matters passed a threshold. There are plenty of people who excel far beyond most in a particular area that would not show a high composite score, for starters. We could also talk of the inherent cultural biases. I'd look not to IQ as a high indicator, but simply one thing to take into consideration among many, as for capacities within certain cognitive components.

I've seem plenty of high IQ that seem to lack genius, at least by my qualification. Damned good at maneuvering within a laid-out system... of scavenging information to be stored and accessed... crap for ability to make intuitive leaps, discover solutions in vivid lucid dreams, unwillingness to experience and grow through unconventional means... stupid smart people.... lots of them around.

originally posted by: Aazadan

It has been said in the past that the ability to create connections between different tasks is the true mark of a genius.

Being a genius lies in having the ability to solve problems.
Take a problem
Take a set of resources
Define a goal

I like that.

I always say I come from a family of useless geniuses. Brilliant minds that don't seem to care beyond their own personal wants/needs. Like my uncle. He had 3 degrees, just cuz he liked learning. But, he was a city bus driver. It made him happy.

I have spacial thinking. I see things in boxes and how everything is connected in some way. Unfortunately, I did not get a talent for math. It would have been a great combination.