I've had depression my entire life and was diagnosed clinically depressed at 21. I don't think you have it, yet. That being said, it sucks you have Lyme's disease. I hope you get better soon.
"I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
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Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
A salient point re: the existence of different types of depression. Some cause a physical slowness (can't get out of bed), some cause anhedonia, some are the dementor type, etc.
I personally cannot get out of bed and face the world, I am suicidal at nearly all points of the day (but in a curious way; it's more I picture myself killing myself, but not in a "MUST DO THIS NOW" way. Its very odd and disconcerting). I can still experience emotions (all of them), but they are heavily skewed to the negative. I ignore the future, and focus on the past and present. It's a shit disease.
I feel for you.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#83Make sure your physician is evaluating and treating your Lyme. Lyme is relatively uncommon in the Southeast US compared to the Northeast US so physicians here are not as experienced in treating it.
I would also seek a second opinion from a neurologist if you have not already. If you feel that you have cognitive impairment now, then the neurologist may feel that a brain MRI is indicated. This may not affect management, but may provide you with prognostic information.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#84I created a throwaway account so it's not associated with my normal handle on here. This post brings up something I've been wondering about, and it's something that's really been bothering me the last few years. I feel like I've become significantly less intelligent over time, and I can't figure out if that's really the case, or if it's a different issue that simply makes me feel less intelligent. When I was in high…
I would say your experience is typical for 99% of the people. High school is ridiculously easy even in Europe let alone in North America. High school can be aced with common sense, some intelligence and minimal learning. And if you happen to go to school in a small local community you are doubly unlucky, because it's much easier to be a local star student there and build unrealistic perception of yourself and pick up a lot of horrible habits that will almost grantee you don't make it later in life. You should not ever gauge anything by high school success (high school failure is on the other hand a good predictor of university success).
Then you move to a hard science university and slowly start realizing that you must actually work and study 8 hours a day or more just to keep up and the subject is basically a bottomless pit, there is no end of it and you could spend thousands of lifetimes studying a single subject and still feel like you are only scratching the surface. This is also where intelligence has lesser and lesser significance (almost none). You may notice that good work habits, good organization habits (anything from note taking, listening, attention to detail, to times you study, to light in your study room), and social skills (who you associate with in school is more important then intelligence) and the ability to stay motivated and inspired by your subject etc. matter way more and are a better predictor of academic success.
I had similar feeling as you (I did pure math undergrad and pure math grad school). You are not slowing down mentally, you are just getting fatigued and saturated and getting into more and more esoteric and fringe areas of your subject study. You have to know that most of those visiting professors are lone experts in esoteric razor edge thin subject and they get incredibly excited when they hear there might be another person somewhere across the globe who might have remote interest in roughly the same thing as them. That's just to give you some perspective. I'm sure when you look back at those courses you took years ago and that you thought were incredibly difficult and challenging, you find them trivially easy and boring. That means you have grown by order of magnitude.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see no pretention. It is no more smug than a born strong-man talking about the facts of his muscle wasting disease. P.S. Loss of intelligence is devastating. If you do not believe me, shut up and try it for yourself: tell a doctor you have frequent migraines and ask to be prescribed a drug called topiramate—stupid in a pill. Just don't come whining to me when it destroys your career and alienated your friends.
Being born smart is utter bullshit. Same as being born strong. You have to work for it. Some people got help from their parents when they were young, and some didn't. Some had one day of their life the idea to learn something or train, and some didn't. The "predetermined talents" thinking is one of the biggest myths alive.
Well, part of being smart is genetic. For example, a cat or gorilla's genetic makeup do not allow them to work hard and become as smart as most humans.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#86Good god. What is this pretentious bullshit? This tone of this post was so incredibly ridiculous I had to create an account to ask why it was posted here or taken seriously. This self proclaimed smart person, with heavy emphasis on the self proclaimed part (check out the incredibly smug About page) apparently needs Lyme disease to feel the plight of the oh so pitiful stupid people. News flash, half the population is…
> News flash, half the population is dumber than average Probably not true. What if the mean is skewed by outliers like incredibly smart people or incredibly dumb people; we could very well be living in the world where most of the people are stupid and the average is what it is because of a very few incredibly smart people. Humorous tangent apart; I can't even imagine thinking like this so-called smart person. If I f…
Average is an informal term. If you read it as 'median' it works.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#87Similar effects can be achieved by not getting enough sleep.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#88This sounds like Spock on a binge of introspection.
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rather than a personal definition, I really was, in my comment, defining intelligence according to the (narrow, not-all-encompassing) definition used by people who create tests of IQ or "g". IQ is tautologically defined as "the number output by IQ tests." And what an IQ test, tests, is your ability to recognize and exploit novel patterns, generalized across different domains (word problems, pictures, music), under ti…
I will try to not appear as though I am convinced that these differences between "instrumental rationality" and intelligence - in the context of the current discussion - are specious. Actually I find your delineation, quite satisfying an explanation. However it begs one to ask what good is an impoverished measure of intelligence (IQ) that only computes your ability to recognize and exploit novel patterns, generalized…
The book to read here is What Intelligence Tests Miss, by Keith Stanovich. In it he argues cogently for both the importance and validity of IQ and the limitation of its scope. Rationality is not a concept contrived by theologians! (I find this idea extremely funny.)
You are referring to Howard Gardner's popular idea of Multiple Intelligences, which has been roundly criticized for having pretty much zero support. To quote the book,
Consider a thought experiment. Imagine that someone objected to the emphasis given to horsepower (engine power) when evaluating automobiles. They feel that horsepower looms too large in people's thinking. In an attempt to deemphasize horsepower, they then being to term the other features of the car things like "braking horsepower" and "cornering horsepower" and "comfort horsepower". Would such a strategy make people less likely to look to engine power as an indicator of the "goodness" of a car? I think not. [...] Just as calling "all good car things" horsepower would emphasize horsepower, I would argue that calling "all good cognitive things" intelligence will contribute to the deification of MAMBIT [Mental Abilities Measured By Intelligence Tests].
Re: "I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."
#90I created a throwaway account so it's not associated with my normal handle on here. This post brings up something I've been wondering about, and it's something that's really been bothering me the last few years. I feel like I've become significantly less intelligent over time, and I can't figure out if that's really the case, or if it's a different issue that simply makes me feel less intelligent. When I was in high…
Stress will do exactly that to you.
Try regular exercise , skip the junk (food, internet,drugs) and try meditation.. If your issue is stress, those will really help.