Re: Well, I put 'intelligent' and 'stupid' in quotation marks...diotimahJanuary 20 2011, 15:56:41 UTC
Found this via your 'intelligence' tag and am fascinated because I've always had similar self-doubts and contradictory views about my own 'intelligence'. Even to the point of thinking it's just something I have just 'imagined', that it's nothing more than just having grown up in an 'educated' household, learned to appreciate books etc.
I can hold my own well enough in everyday conversation and even academic discussion, but a lot of that is just repetition of and extrapolation from knowledge you have. I'm reasonably good at absorbing, storing, and to some degree using knowledge - in some areas, such as remembering vocabulary and using language, I'm well above average - but I'm markedly less good at synthesizing, and actual original thought I can only produce slowly and with difficulty. I can do it, but it takes me inordinately long. But that, to me, is the area of thought that is the most indicative of 'real' intelligence, if you will;
Same here. Indeed that's the main reason why I've often feared there's a difference between me and *really* 'intelligent' people. Which shouldn't matter too much if you have a 'healthy' self-esteem - but my supposed 'intelligence'/potential/abilities etc. have always been the aspect of myself I was proud of, since childhood, even. Believe it or not, this is one of the reasons why I never took a real IQ test - it would just be too much of a shock if the result would be significantly lower than expected (the other reason, by the way, is that I have my doubts about the possibility of defining and 'measuring' 'intelligence' objectively). Also, I have to add I don't at all value other people according to their IQs or achievements - this is more of a self-esteem issue.
Recently, however, I've come to realize that the 'issues' you describe might be due not to a 'low' or 'average' IQ (and I've always known that, in many ways, mine has to be above average, as I'm not just good at storing knowledge, but also at understanding and applying it). Rather, it's probably the result of a highly uneven profile of abilities, which some of the better and more thorough tests can detect. Somehow, I find that idea *much* less frustrating than the thought of just not being that smart.*g*
I can hold my own well enough in everyday conversation and even academic discussion, but a lot of that is just repetition of and extrapolation from knowledge you have. I'm reasonably good at absorbing, storing, and to some degree using knowledge - in some areas, such as remembering vocabulary and using language, I'm well above average - but I'm markedly less good at synthesizing, and actual original thought I can only produce slowly and with difficulty. I can do it, but it takes me inordinately long. But that, to me, is the area of thought that is the most indicative of 'real' intelligence, if you will;
Same here. Indeed that's the main reason why I've often feared there's a difference between me and *really* 'intelligent' people. Which shouldn't matter too much if you have a 'healthy' self-esteem - but my supposed 'intelligence'/potential/abilities etc. have always been the aspect of myself I was proud of, since childhood, even. Believe it or not, this is one of the reasons why I never took a real IQ test - it would just be too much of a shock if the result would be significantly lower than expected (the other reason, by the way, is that I have my doubts about the possibility of defining and 'measuring' 'intelligence' objectively). Also, I have to add I don't at all value other people according to their IQs or achievements - this is more of a self-esteem issue.
Recently, however, I've come to realize that the 'issues' you describe might be due not to a 'low' or 'average' IQ (and I've always known that, in many ways, mine has to be above average, as I'm not just good at storing knowledge, but also at understanding and applying it). Rather, it's probably the result of a highly uneven profile of abilities, which some of the better and more thorough tests can detect. Somehow, I find that idea *much* less frustrating than the thought of just not being that smart.*g*
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