People value intelligence and will apply that label to themselves even if it may not be true. It's a hard thing to measure though IQ does it reasonably well. To those who have a high IQ: what is it like? Can you pick up any book, read it, and understand the gist with minimal repetition? Can you infer solid and accurate conclusions based on a small amount of evidence? Is any subject or discipline up for grabs or do you have to have a keen interest in a particular field in order to flourish? What is something you are able to do that you know is because of your intelligence -- the proverbial 1,000 pound deadlift of the brain, if you will.
There is no point to these questions other than curiosity.
And smarter people are more self-critical and aware that there are even smarter people out there, so have an ironic tendency to downplay themselves while the midwits are puffing themselves up.
It's an easy mistake to make.
115 is still considered "average" and being say, 114 and talking with somebody at 84, who just misses "average" by 1 point, is borderline impossible, and if the 84 is disagreeable, practically torture.
That 85 to 115 is 68% of people. If you're 116 you're close to being in a club with the top 30%.
Now "smart" can mean a lot of things, and the people who invent rocket ships probably aren't top 30%, or even top 5%. So there's a massive gap between "Smarter than almost everybody you'll ever meet" and "A very smart person relative to other competent people."
I haven't taken a test in a long ass time. So I don't know where I'd end up. What I do know is that day to day, the people who are slog to deal with far outnumber the ones with a scintillating intellect. On the other hand, when I do meet somebody who's obviously smarter than me, they run circles around me and it's not even close.
It's exponential in other words. And being +1, means you're smart, but being +2 means you're probably twice as smart as the +1 guy. It's a big gap.
I am just pointing out that an IQ of 140 is getting close to the absolute upper edge of testability.
At higher than 140, the flaws and irregularities of the test are thrown into sharp relief. Tests have culturally specific content and only rank people within a statistically significant population of test-takers. Relating that ranking to a specific score is not trivial. For example, you might be in the top two percent of the people who take this particular test. What does that mean compared to other tests? What IQ is that?
That's more or less what I'm getting at. It's a one eyed man thing. Smart relative to "most people" is a lot different than smart relative to "smart people"
110 is plenty of IQ to consider yourself "smart" but there's still a large number of people who are going to intellectually body you. And if you're in an environment full of them (technical lab etc.) It'll be aparent where you are.
If you're managing a mcdonalds with 110 IQ points it's going to be hard not to get a bit arrogant about it.
That makes 116 sound really low. And if you're 115 you're also close to being in a "club" with the top 30%. You can put the separation anywhere you want, and people do it in a way to flatter their own ego.
The easiest person to fool is yourself, and people make ample use of that.
I feel like you didn't read my comment carefully.
But you've always had trouble with subtext.
Not just with subtext...
I wasn't suggesting that you believe what you wrote yourself, if that's what you mean. You were clearly mocking something that the midwits believe, though I couldn't quite pin down what.
Knowledge is not the same thing as intelligence, though it is often mistaken for intelligence, but a similar rule applies there. The less I know about something, the more I think I know. But when you figure out more, your realization of your vast ignorance grows, because you know more about all the stuff that you don't know.
Good point, and there's a reason the "midwit" meme is so popular right now!
Exactly.
I feel like a good measure for intelligence is to ask people "who do you personally know that you think is smart?" Then ask them "why do you think they're smart?" Because most people's idea of smart is such a low bar that the term is meaningless is conversation.
I think this might be me. I work in a field that self selects for intelligent people(IT) and have had colleagues consistently insisting that I'm particularly intelligent even among our industry. I of course know that this is bullshit because I suffer from impostor syndrome and am aware of just how much I don't know and how many things out there will cause me to have a deer in the headlights reaction. More importantly I know a few of the people who are actually really smart and capable and I am very much aware of how they can and have run circles around me over the years. I might be smarter than the average bear, but I'm not the smartest guy in the room.
If it's any consolation, the folk running circles around you more likely than not see some even bigger fish as running circles around them.