Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

210 IQ Is Not Enough

taylor.town

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 284 posts

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#171

Post by sram1337 »

fn-mote wrote: post #73

The title of the article is obnoxious. The first part of the article puts down a person whose IQ is in the 140-180 range. If you read about the person, that part makes sense as an opinion. The second part of the article explains that the person referred to in the title, the alleged 210 IQ, has chosen a middle manager job because it makes them happy. > I'm trying to tell people that I'm happy the way I am. The author…

I think you misunderstood the article. 210 IQ isn't enough. The man with 210 IQ is happy not because he has 210 IQ but because he made the choice to be happy.

Having a high IQ isn't enough - you must also choose to be happy.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#172

Post by lordnacho »

armonster wrote: post #151
lordnacho wrote: post #96

People think of intelligence as some sort of magic. They ascribe all sorts of ability to intelligence, as if being smart should make you influential. But why should that be? If you're a scientist, you are dependent on getting funding to do experiments, and the experiment showing something interesting. Neither of these things is very connected to intelligence, beyond that low IQ people will not be likely to get to the…

This seems like a very flat view of intelligence. In my mind a sufficiently intelligent person isn't just "good at math" and is capable of understanding the landscapes you've laid out above and would also understand how to improve in them and to navigate them, assuming they're sufficiently motivated. Even then, intelligent people are better at parsing themselves, their own drives, knowing what they want and are motiv…

> This seems like a very flat view of intelligence.

Yes, because the article leads with that. But I think we're actually in agreement.

I make a distinction between intelligence and wisdom, something I thought about from D&D.

Intelligence is having accurate models. Quick thinking, and correct predictions.

Wisdom is about making good decisions. Risk control, understanding rewards.

Both are a mental qualities we appreciate in people, but often we are more dazzled by intelligence, and we often mistake wisdom for intelligence.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#173

Post by soiltype »

programjames wrote: post #60
827a wrote: post #4

The "world's smartest man" very recently predicted on X that Bitcoin would hit $220k by the end of the year. [1] Here's the thing: IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. The training of AI systems critically requires benchmarks to understand gain/loss in training and determine if minute changes in the system is actually winging more intell…

> What I deeply believe is: We're never going to invent superintelligence, not because its impossible for computers to achieve, but because we don't even know what intelligence is. Speak for yourself, not all of humanity. There are plenty of rigorous, mostly equivalent definitions for intelligence: The ability to find short programs that explain phenomena (compression). The capability to figure out how to do things (…

Honestly not sure if this is a bit, it's so on-the-nose... Taking it at face value, you are literally claiming to know precisely what intelligence is? You would be the first to know if so. You should probably publish quickly before someone steals your definition!

In your post is demonstrated one of the deep mysteries of intelligence: How can a smart person make such a dumb assertion? (I'll give a hint: consider that "intelligence" is not a single axis)

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#174

Post by axxto »

programjames wrote: post #144
axxto wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding irony or picking up subtle social cues? Or for formulating effective metaphors and ana…

> How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions. You have to be good at predicting other's predictions to do this well. > How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie. > How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a n…

Reducing comedy to 'subverting predictions' and empathy to 'compression algorithms' is like explaining music as 'organized sound waves', technically defensible yet completely missing the point. Missing the forest for the trees is an objective sign of limited metacognition, by the way.

The fact that you claim to be 'above average' at empathy and social cues while writing this robotic dismissal that completely misses the point (I asked for measurement methods, you provided questionable definitions) is the ultimate proof of my argument. You haven't defined intelligence, you've just compressed the meaning of it until it's small enough to fit inside your ego.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#175

Post by viridian »

Detrytus wrote: post #128
zug_zug wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is mathematically impossible. Traditional IQ tests have a mean/median of 100, and follow a normal distribution with standard-deviation of 15 points. So 270 would be 11 standard deviations above normal so 1 in 17,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people.

So it is possible, and you just calculated the probability of that happening.

It's possible in the same way its possible that you will spontaneously phase through the floor due to a particular outcome of atomic resonance. Possible, but so unlikely it almost certainly has not, nor ever will happen.

Might something a small as a grain of sand have phased through a solid barrier as thin as a piece of paper somewhere on earth, at some point over billions of years? Sure. Paper is still pretty thick, and a grain of sand is enormous on the atomic scale, but it's at least in the realm of practical probability. When you start talking about cum(P) events in the realm of 1/1e30 you simply can't produce a scenario with that many dice rolls. If our population was 8 quadrillion and spanned a 40,000 year empire we would likely still never see an individual 11σ from the mean.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#176

Post by marginalia_nu »

smilliken wrote: post #157
marginalia_nu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really how statistics works. It is not impossible to roll two sixes on a single roll of two dies because it is more likely you won't.

Practically speaking, it's impossible to roll 6 one hundred times in a row on fair dice. Not technically impossible, but we each get to calibrate our skepticism based on how far out the probabilities are. In this case we can be sure the dice aren't fair because there's significant motivation for them not to be, or at least it's easy to imagine a manufacturing defect in the dice.

This is a 1 in 50 chance we are dismissing as practically impossible though.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#177

Post by notahacker »

dahart wrote: post #79
ekianjo wrote: post #12

if IQ tests are designed by people with lower IQ what does it say about high IQ scores?

Why would it say anything? The 100 meter dash wasn’t designed by the fastest 100 meter runner, but it’s still perfectly capable of identifying a winner.

Sure, but setting questions you theoretically need a certain threshold of ability in pattern recognition to pass without actually having that ability feels like trying to design a 100m dash whilst not really knowing what a sprint or a metre is. You might end up selecting for outlying distance runners instead...

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#178

Post by viridian »

WJW wrote: post #169
lupire wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people would you estimate exist?

Between 8 and 9 billion. But "impossible" means a chance of zero, and 8 billion / 17,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 > 0, so it's not impossible. The chances that he's lying or delusional are vastly higher of course, but that's no reason to use "impossible" incorrectly.

Impossible is almost always a colloquialism, almost everything is possible is you accept a low enough probability of success. We are talking about something less likely than almost anything else ever called impossible.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#179

Post by soiltype »

programjames wrote: post #144
axxto wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding irony or picking up subtle social cues? Or for formulating effective metaphors and ana…

> How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions. You have to be good at predicting other's predictions to do this well. > How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie. > How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a n…

> What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions.

And in those other cases? You have a rigorous definition of comedy?

> You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie.

This is so often not true I would argue it's generally false. A story is believed because a listener "wants" to believe it. Some listeners have more or less complex criteria for acceptance.

> As in, world-building? That is more of a memory problem than an intelligence problem, though you do need to be good at compressing the whole world into what is relevant to the story. People who are worse at that will have to take more notes and refer back to them more often.

People like Tolkien and Martin? Note taking as a sign of poor skill/intelligence is a wildly novel take from my point of view.

> Also, using the adjectives 'complex, multi-faceted' is lazy here. Be more introspective and write what you really want to say.

Couldn't I say the same about your use of Introspective? Surely a more detailed phrase exists to describe what you mean.

> interpersonal conflicts... Quite often not an intelligence problem.

Oh, I think this will get at the root of our misunderstandings. I believe I've seen this attitude before. Before I jump to conclusions: Why exactly do you say this skill is not intelligence-based?

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#180

Post by sram1337 »

aatd86 wrote: post #148
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #140

My wife's nephew is the smartest person I've ever met (and I've met a lot of really smart people). Aced the SAT as a teen, and interned at JPL, etc. Got a free full ride, wherever he wanted. He got his undergraduate at CalTech. Ph.D at Some midwest college -a good one, but can't remember which one -may have been Urbana-Champagne. His mother was adamant that he have as normal a childhood as possible. She deliberately…

Wondering what being 'smart' means? Is it: 1. being right most of the time? 2. knowing a lot (breadth)? 3. knowing a couple things in depth? 4. knowing in breadth and depth? 5. understanding new things fast (which is only measurable by someone who knows more?)? 6. solving puzzle and brainteasers easily? 7. being able to speak multiple languages? 8. being self-taught in what people may claim to be complex subjects? 9.…

I've heard it defined as the ability to learn quickly. Not just in the narrow, academic sense, but also by observing the world and people and drawing conclusions about them. It has to do with pattern recognition and abstraction.

Usually these people are knowledgeable because they are constantly learning. Eventually they become wise.

What do you think of that definition?

Post reply on HN