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How Geniuses Think

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Re: How Geniuses Think

#71

Post by larrys »

tokenadult wrote: post #28
nikcub wrote: post #7

> Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122). I've always wanted a quick, one-line, anecdote as to why IQ is bullshit. I think I just found it.

I like this one-liner: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12QUESTIONS.html?... "Q (Deborah Solomon for the New York Times): What is your I.Q.? "A (Stephen Hawking): I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

"People who boast about their I.Q. are losers"

People boast, people brag, because in general it gets them more out of the world than not doing so and gets them special treatment and accommodations. There are a fair amount of people in the tech industry, and even here on HN, that are quite willing to boast about what they have done and are treated as royalty for their past accomplishments. Isn't this the same thing? Stephen Hawking, assuming he knows his IQ, has nothing to gain and possibly stands to loose by revealing his IQ. You'd expect it to be high and if not, it might detract from the aura [1]. Not that I think that is why he does it but I can certainly see many successful people that are not super successful feeling the same way. Especially if they are insecure about the luck that caused them to get to where they are.

[1] The aura in the eyes of people who don't know exactly why he is viewed as smart and just view him as presented in the media.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#72

Post by larrys »

nikcub wrote: post #7

> Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122). I've always wanted a quick, one-line, anecdote as to why IQ is bullshit. I think I just found it.

"merely respectable 122"

What I'm finding in several places is that the fiqure was 125. But more importantly the low IQ figure was self reported by Feynman and done in high school. Who knows if that is the correct figure and who knows if he was sick the night before or tired or if there was an error etc. I'm not defending IQ tests but it's important to realize that the fact that Feynman said his IQ was X doesn't mean that the test or testing or reporting was flawed or he got someone elses score by accident.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#73

Post by aik »

mangodrunk wrote: post #26
nikcub wrote: post #7

> Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122). I've always wanted a quick, one-line, anecdote as to why IQ is bullshit. I think I just found it.

If the IQ test is bullshit, this anecdote and your reasoning aren't good reasons to conclude that for several reasons, and to mention a few: 1. It may not be true that he had an IQ of 122 2. A score of 122 is still kind of high 3. If it were wrong in one case it doesn't invalidate it, especially since we're talking about a Nobel prize winner in physics 4. If he did take a test, that was several decades ago and I'd im…

There's so much misinformation about what the IQ test is for. It has become common understanding that it's a measure of intelligence (or ability, or potential), however it was never created for that nor ever intended to be that. In addition, intelligence is often seen as a fixed thing. Any reasonable and practical definition of intelligence is in complete contradiction to this idea.

Study after study shows that an apparent talent (or intelligence) in one moment does not correlate with future potential talent, intelligence, or general potential for achievement in anything.

So to add to your point -- who knows when Feynman took the test and got a 122, and who knows which test he even took -- to me this point decreases any commonly understood value of the IQ test to an even greater extent.

Quote from Alfred Binet (creator of the first IQ test) himself: “I have not sought in the above lines to sketch a method of measuring, in the physical sense of the word, but only a method of classification of individuals. The procedures which I have indicated will, if perfected, come to classify a person before or after such another person or such another series of persons; but I do not believe that one may measure one of the intellectual aptitudes in the sense that one measures length or a capacity. Thus, when a person studied can retain seven figures after a single audition, one can class him, from the point of his memory for figures, after the individual who retains eight figures under the same conditions, and before those who retain six. It is a classification, not a measurement…we do not measure, we classify.”

Re: How Geniuses Think

#74

Post by aik »

larrys wrote: post #71
tokenadult wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this one-liner: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12QUESTIONS.html?... "Q (Deborah Solomon for the New York Times): What is your I.Q.? "A (Stephen Hawking): I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

"People who boast about their I.Q. are losers" People boast, people brag, because in general it gets them more out of the world than not doing so and gets them special treatment and accommodations. There are a fair amount of people in the tech industry, and even here on HN, that are quite willing to boast about what they have done and are treated as royalty for their past accomplishments. Isn't this the same thing? S…

I believe the underlying idea in Hawking's comment isn't that people shouldn't boast, but it's that no information of value is conveyed in the act of boasting about one's IQ. This is due to an understanding that the IQ test does not (nor was ever intended to) be a standard and fixed measure of intelligence[1] or potential. Therefore it is a moot point to boast about.

[1] Any measure of intelligence that doesn't take potential into account is essentially worthless as a measure of intelligence.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#75

Post by aik »

joe_the_user wrote: post #55

What an empty and contentless post! It isn't that we should dismiss the unique contributions of people like "Einstein, Edison, daVinci, Darwin, Picassos, Michelangelo, Galileo, Freud, Mozart et all". These individuals certainly made contributions beyond what be measured by a number-of-manipulations-per-second IQ test and some of these approaches can even be somewhat systematized as "lateral thinking", "wholistic thin…

Do you disagree with the effort in trying to find the commonalities between high-performing people, or merely the stated results?

I agree that they may not have the whole answer here, but it's a whole lot better than any random commonality between any two people (e.g. they both like the color blue, or they both lived in the US).

I think there's some insight here, even if you just take the idea of how high-performers think ("productively" rather than "reproductively"). I definitely believe most things I see are a result of reproductive thinking (many of my own thoughts included), and I have many times more respect for things that have come out of "productive" thinking.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#76

Post by law »

joe_the_user wrote: post #55

What an empty and contentless post! It isn't that we should dismiss the unique contributions of people like "Einstein, Edison, daVinci, Darwin, Picassos, Michelangelo, Galileo, Freud, Mozart et all". These individuals certainly made contributions beyond what be measured by a number-of-manipulations-per-second IQ test and some of these approaches can even be somewhat systematized as "lateral thinking", "wholistic thin…

  But lumping these high-performing individuals together with 
  the single glittering generality "genius" leaves us less 
  enlightened for the trouble.
I think that was precisely the author's point: viz., the word "genius" is vacuous, amorphous, and altogether a meaningless label affixed to people whom the plurality deem exceptional in some manner. I believe the author's intended message is that it's the producer/consumer dichotomy combined with divergent thinking that's ingenious, rather than raw brain power.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#77

Post by emmelaich »

nikcub wrote: post #7

> Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122). I've always wanted a quick, one-line, anecdote as to why IQ is bullshit. I think I just found it.

Likewise, vos Savant's score is a bit dubious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fame...

There's something to the IQ scores, but error bars are large and the meaning controversial.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#78

Post by mark_integerdsv »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #70

A reasonable book covering some of this topic is Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton. Unfortunately, aside from being excessively wordy and light on supporting evidence for some of its assertions, it suffers from the same problem as this article and most of the comments here: people can't agree on what a genius is. Debates about the foundations of genius are meaningless until we get a better idea of what a geniu…

I think that many people share my personal opinion that genius (specifically 'creative genius') is to some degree quite undefinable.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#79

Post by ntkachov »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #70

A reasonable book covering some of this topic is Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton. Unfortunately, aside from being excessively wordy and light on supporting evidence for some of its assertions, it suffers from the same problem as this article and most of the comments here: people can't agree on what a genius is. Debates about the foundations of genius are meaningless until we get a better idea of what a geniu…

Lets "think like a genius" and reconsider this notion of a genius.

I propose this definition: A genius is someone who, through their work, insipres the masses to take part in their field.

Because lets face it, your not a genius until everyone agrees you are a genius. Therefore, in order to be a genius you must make affect the masses.

Re: How Geniuses Think

#80

Post by calydon »

bane wrote: post #40

I've long thought that the model of "genius" as a "really smart person" was a hopelessly flawed model. There are simply too many different kinds and measures of "smartness" to collapse all of them under such a simple umbrella. For example, consider the notion that IQ is a measure of capacity. To wit, let's use an extended and natural analogy -- a container. Consider a notional container measured only by its depth. A…

I totally agree and in fact I would go further to say that the notion of 'genius' is nothing more than an inchoate, rudimentary classification system used to group together successes or extremes in the realm of mental pursuits. Handy when you want to evince notions of extreme-ness but since there are thousands of different possible mental pursuits, the term is basically meaningless.
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