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“I’m not that smart”

seths.blog

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Re: “I’m not that smart”

#31

Post by lordnacho »

mach1ne wrote: post #25
DangitBobby wrote: post #5

It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…

Interesting. I've come to believe there are no such creatures as geniuses. Certainly some proportion of individuals have a different understanding of maths and physics which allows them to see solutions that others don't and generally excel at the subjects, but I don't see them any smarter than other smart people. I see that it's a bit like processing a problem with verbal logic versus visual logic - perhaps some ind…

I call this the Tibetan plateau of intelligence. In the general population, there's not that many smart people. But there's enough smart people in the world that there are large congregations of smart people. These people are smarter than normal, but not the absolute peaks of human intelligence.

When you go to a famous university, you meet plateau people. That mildly smart kid who was top two or three in his class of a few dozen, is generally interested in intellectual stuff, and wants to learn more. Those kids set the tone and the pace.

The uber smart are among the plateau, but super rare. They generally have to deal with the ordinarily intelligent, and are restricted by the culture set by the majority.

My thought is that most of us can climb the plateau, but you need something special to be a peak.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#32

Post by prodent »

teachersaredumb wrote: post #11
thundergolfer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…

> Not to brag, but

> brags

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#33

Post by cranium »

jzellis wrote: post #23

I'm a pretty bright cat, in that I'm world-class good at inductive and deductive reasoning, and better at making intuitive leaps (where I "get it" but I can't explain how I get it). It's served me very well in my life, but I have constantly been undermined by my own inability to focus and the fact that I often abandon ideas and projects because I'm easily bored with them or I can see why, ten steps down the road, why…

I was like that until I consciously started doing more and thinking less (about the ramifications). You need to start small and solve a small pain for you, then go from there. You will encounter problems but you will have your full mental power to solve them. You cannot solve the big problems from ten steps ahead, you're simply not involved enough to give it your best shot. It's during the crisis that you'll find a creative solution.

To take your chess analogy, if you concede at the start you're assuming the opponent will play perfectly and grind you until defeat. But mistakes are made and the balance shifts. In real life, opportunities are created just from starting something. You will learn even from the smallest task, and speaking about it to other people might open new paths for you.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#34

Post by kirevmaco »

DangitBobby wrote: post #5

It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…

I'm convinced that a large part of this kind of thing is related to personality.

People's ability to get "in the zone" depends on if the level of presentation fits them. I remember in AP Chemistry, some kids just thrived on the rote memorization nature of the whole course. They did great. Some of us found it nonsensical that we had to memorize so much without explanation but we still managed to push through and get good grades. The people who did better weren't "smarter," they just never cared to ask any bigger questions about the material. I'm sure that lack of curiosity helped them to succeed in standard careers.

A person who was "smart enough" to do cutting edge theoretical research might get lucky and have a personality that fits with having a more standard life. Someone who isn't "smart enough" might be very interested in certain problems and push through to finding the answers. Someone who is "smart enough" to do that and doesn't like bureaucracy might drop out of grad school, or even undergrad.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#35

Post by SyneRyder »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #20

Maybe. But sometimes "the reading" means doing research during personal hours in order to solve work problems. And while the me of 20 years ago would have been perfectly fine doing work that I wasn't going to be compensated for, that shit doesn't fly with the me of today and if it got weeded entirely out of corporate culture, especially software development, we'd all be better off for it. Raise your hand if you've ne…

Life is too short to deal with that. If your experience with employers is that that toxic, maybe it's time to break out and work for yourself, start your own software business instead.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#36

Post by simple-thoughts »

cranium wrote: post #24
simple-thoughts wrote: post #22

An intelligent person just has to apply themselves to grasp a difficult concept. An unintelligent person cannot grasp the concept no matter how much effort they put in. But the purpose of the author seems to be social rather than truth seeking. If people believe they are stupid and don’t try, it’s likely they are not succeeding at the level they possibly could.

It's not a post about cheering people up for social purpose, it's explaining there are few problems that are "too difficult" and most can be solved by doing the work.

It’s easy to imagine problems that are beyond any humans capacity. Obviously the author doesn’t lack imagination, so the purpose must be social.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#37

Post by CM30 »

sircastor wrote: post #2

My first attempt at university I took an intro CS class because I was interested in computers and thought it might be a better fit for me than my major at the time. I did all right for a couple of weeks, but struggled and eventually failed the class. I wrote it off as my brain simply not being wired for programming. When I actually had a programming problem I was interested in solving, I did great. I discovered many…

Well this point is very relevant too:

> When I actually had a programming problem I was interested in solving, I did great.

If you're interested in actually doing something with the knowledge you're trying to attain, you'll likely work far harder to attain it. I suspect a large percentage of developers probably got into the field as kids because they wanted to do things like create a website about a topic they were interested in or create mods for the game they were playing at the moment. That end goal probably drove them far more than any course or professor ever could.

And I suspect that's one reason there's a divide between those that seem to 'get' it in school and uni and those that don't; the former are okay just learning/working for the sake of it, whereas the latter are like "why are we doing this? How is this going to help me?"

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#38

Post by stevefan1999 »

mach1ne wrote: post #27
teachersaredumb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the major aspect of being smart is about wealth and educational inequality No, this is flat out wrong. There has been so much research on this, and intelligence is both highly predictive of life outcomes (controlling for wealth) and extremely heritable. If you take the biological kids of smart people and raise them in poor households, they still turn out very smart, much smarter than the biological kids of dumb…

Can you provide a link to the claim? Interesting if true.

nah, he is just trying to sell eugenics, a psuedoscientific practice, in disguise

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#39

Post by rowanG077 »

lordnacho wrote: post #28

My take on this is that intelligence is like strength or other physical qualities. If you are in a hyper competitive area, you need good genes. But not everything is competitive. Yes, there are absolutely limits on your physical development that you are born with. You won't run 100m under 10s if you're a woman, and you're much more likely if you have recent roots in certain countries. You won't get to play profession…

I thought that intelligence is pretty static by almost(or all?) measurement tools we have. Is that not the case? Not to say that our measurement tools might have serious issues but then you enter the unanswered question of making very concrete what intelligence is.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#40

Post by heavenlyblue »

thundergolfer wrote: post #6
DangitBobby wrote: post #5

It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

> The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed.

On the other hand, if you're really smart you are probably capable of getting away by doing less at work and enjoying many more different aspects of life VS concentrating only on your job.

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