Commenter ruhkukah wants me to estimate the IQ of Chris Langan which got me addicted to listening to interviews with him on the internet. There’s something so intimate about radio. You can listen in the pitch black darkness of your bedroom against the freezing cold of a Canadian winter (yes we finally got snow).
I’m struck by how much Langan has in common with Oprah:
1)Both have super-human head size (Oprah 25.25” around; Langan 25.5” around)
2)Both learned to talk early
3) Both learned to read by age 3
4)Both skipped multiple years of primary school
5)Both are now in their early 60s
6)Both got scholarships to mediocre colleges and dropped out (though Oprah went back to complete her degree after becoming rich and famous to set a good example)
7)Both don’t know for sure who their biological fathers are
8) Both were raised illegitimate in poverty by a mother who bounced from one bad relationship to another
9) Both were abused in childhood.
10)Both have weighed way over 200 lbs: Oprah from fat, Langan from muscle, which incidentally makes Oprah’s head even more impressive for her body size since such adjustments are made for only fat free body-weight
11)Both are obsessed with the idea of God and speak of the universe as though it were a conscious entity, yet both embrace a universal theism and respect all faiths equally instead of being religious partisans.
12)Both seem to believe in controversial metaphysical ideas and are resented by the scientific establishment because of it.
Although I do think Oprah is EXTREMELY intelligent, I’m not suggesting she’s anywhere near the same IQ league as Langan, who has been called the smartest man in America, and is much more analytical about his metaphyisical ideas than Oprah is.
And yet it was Oprah who overcame the adversity to become the billionaire Queen of All Media while Langan became a bouncer earning $6000 a year. If not IQ, what made the difference? Oprah probably had certain talents, opportunities, personality traits, and support systems that Langan lacked.
Here’s an especially long interview with Langan.
oprah is a moron who’s LIED about her head size./
but langan i find impressive…even though he has or had a moustache.
i wouldn’t be that surprised if he really would make a “legit” ceiling score on the SAT or the RPM.
but in his interview with jensen he seemed to be clue-less.
Oprah did not lie about her head size. People lie about having a high IQ but very few people (especially women) would lie about having a big head. Celebs only mention their big head in self-deprecating humor.
Further Oprah’s huge head has been independently confirmed. Gene Siskel’s hatter was stunned by how huge Oprah’s head was. When Oprah appeared in The Color Purple, two wigs had to be sewn together to fit her head. When she was a young anchor woman and went bald after a bad perm, she had to wear scarves because the TV station could not find a wig big enough to fit her huge head.
i’d like to see a photo of langan standing…or some other picture where his head size relative to other humans could be judged.
he does appear to have a very very large head…but if he’s short….
He claims to be six feet. His wife’s head looks tiny compared to his
He’s definitely not six feet. I’d peg him at 5’10 max. To me his stature resembles that of someone who is 5’8 but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt with the assumption that the host Bob Saget is wearing dress shoes.
See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YtmDYrQEMg
Also see this website: http://www.celebheights.com/s/Bob-Saget-2374.html
That website gives far more clarity into celebrity heights than a simple Google search.
so i watched his First Person interview again and…
given his background…
he is impressive…
to me.
I find him extremely impressive too. He lives up to his putative brilliance in interviews. What do you make of his CTMU theory?
the Esquire article mentioned his super long and “un-publishable” CMTU too.
but i don’t know anything about it.
it’s been 750 mLs of Buffalo Trace this evening.
and langan was single until 40 something.
does he have any chillens?
the woman he married had shown more signs of intelligence than he had.
she had a PhD and had been a chess master.
Pretty sure they have no kids. Would be interesting if they did. If you consider the Mega Test valid, he has an IQ of 189 (sigma 15) and she’s supposedly 164 (presumably also on a Hoeflin test). The expected IQ of their kid would be 146, with a 95% chance of being between 122 and 168
i think all of that high IQ society above 160 stuff…
is STUPID.
including the hoeflin test.
but that’s not to say that there isn’t a legit test for such people.
it’s just to say that no such test has yet been developed.
my guess is that the super high IQ society folks would score ca 135 (the 1%) on “honest to goodness” IQ tests like the SAT.
i mean…
i scored the ceiling on the old GRE and i can guarantee i’m not at the ceiling of smartness at everything…i can’t do the rubic’s cube and i’m a pretty good chess player, but i still suck.
but in terms of my subjective and self-serving judgement of the intelligence of even those one might expect were very very smart…
i still think…
these guys aren’t where they are solely because they’re smart, because they aren’t that smart.
The Mega Test was a cool experiment in amateur psychometrics and a huge accomplishment given Hoeflin’s limited resources
In Ron Hoeflin’s research, the Mega Test correlated extremely well with the old SAT (0.8) ; indeed the old SAT, with it’ huge ceiling, was was used to norm the Mega Test through a fascinating statistical technique called score pairing/equipercentile equating.
This is where you have ten people who took both the Mega Test and the SAT. If the highest score in this sample had an SAT score at the one in a million level,then the highest Mega score in the sample is also assumed to be at the one in a million level, even if it’s not by the same person who got the highest SAT score
Oddly, the WAIS only correlated about 0.13 with the Mega Test in Ron’s samples
How did you arrive at the figure of 189 (sd 15)? From what I’ve read, the calculated ceiling of the Mega and Titan is ~173 (sd 15). The nominal ceiling is 190 (sd 16).
What is your personal estimate of the IQ of Langan?
Old SAT
47 Mega
WAIS-III
Was the claimed IQ of 195 arrived at by extrapolating from only those 3 tests?
I’m curious about what you guys speculate my intelligence to be.
I mean, I know my IQ but it’s fascinating to see all of these estimates by smart people of one another.
I agree that the conservative ceiling of the Mega Test was probably around 5 sigma, but given Langan’s two 5+ sigma scores on tests measuring different cognitive abilities, his comprehensive IQ may very well be in the 6-sigma realm.
at the very least langan is someone who should have been “selected” by a just society.
but wasn’t!
…
but maybe not.
maybe contemporary society is so broken that all of the very smartest or merely the very smart but “different” have no place…
that is, no place appropriate to their ability.
but at the same time, and langan may be an example, the very very smart usually find some place for themselves or have rich parents…
that is,
there are no, or almost no, very smart homeless people…unless ted kaczynski counts as homeless.
and this all makes sense…even from peepee’s pov…
that is…
IQ is always good…
until…
you’re so smart that your whole society is intolerably STUPID…
and you have “better things to do with your time” than…
make money.
i was actually onto langan before peepee as i had a subscription to Esquire at the time.
the guy was making ca $6500 (that’s USD peepee) per year as a bouncer on long island and living in a hut next to a garbage dump.
I’ve been interested in IQ since age 12. I knew Chris Langan (over the internet) before the Esquire article was published.
What exactly has Chris Langan done to merit such high esteem? I had never even heard of him until I visited this blog. To me he seems a lot like Marilyn vos Savant—a person whose intellect has been inflated and exaggerated by the media, who never produced anything tangible to “prove” their intellectual prowess. (Yes, I realize that Chris created a quite impressive scientific theory; however, this theory seems to be largely rejected by other scientists, which makes me seriously question its credibility.)
Don’t get me wrong—I have no doubt that he is an intelligent man, just nowhere near as intelligent as he portrays himself. Care to convince me otherwise? I’m open-minded, but extremely skeptical. Why is this man not well-recognized in the scientific, academic, or literary field? Why is he not heralded as a genius on the level of Goethe or Einstein or, hell, even Marie Curie?
Why is this man not well-recognized in the scientific, academic, or literary field?
Because he came from poverty and abuse and thus didn’t have the support or opportunity to get ahead in life.
“Because he came from poverty and abuse and thus didn’t have the support or opportunity to get ahead in life.”
While I am sympathetic to his plight and realize that poverty has prevented many great minds from achieving their potential, I find it hard to believe that a white male living in the United States would, after so many years, still be unable to achieve recognition in any of these fields, especially considering the media buzz that once surrounded him.
“Further, if Langan is really as smart as his Mega score suggests, few academics would understand his work, nor would they credit him if they did because he’s not part of the club. To acknowledge the existence of Genius outside academia is to undermine academia’s legitimacy and they presumably don’t want to lessen their own power.”
This is a more valid reason than the one listed above. Still, though, couldn’t one say the same about Tesla and Einstein before they were recognized in academia? Perhaps Chris Langan will go down in history as a genius before his time, but I am highly doubtful. In addition, I have serious doubts about the validity of IQ tests that measure beyond 160, and particularly the validity of the so-called “Mega test.”
Did Chris Langan ever take the WAIS or Stanford-Binet? I am much more confident in the ability of those tests to assess intellect than an obscure high range IQ test that very few people have ever taken.
Still, though, couldn’t one say the same about Tesla and Einstein before they were recognized in academia?
Langan’s work might be Genius level, but perhaps not Genius level enough to breakthrough the barriers to entry the way Tesla and Einstein did. Or perhaps their work was easier to understand, or of too much practical relevance to be ignored
Perhaps Chris Langan will go down in history as a genius before his time, but I am highly doubtful. In addition, I have serious doubts about the validity of IQ tests that measure beyond 160, and particularly the validity of the so-called “Mega test.”
Did Chris Langan ever take the WAIS or Stanford-Binet? I am much more confident in the ability of those tests to assess intellect than an obscure high range IQ test that very few people have ever taken.
He took the WAIS-III on 20/20. They said he was off the scale but did not give a precise score. The WAIS-III does not assign IQs beyond 155, but that’s way below a perfect raw score on the test, so with a little extrapolation, the psycholgost could have assigned him an IQ above the official ceiling, though it might have been meaningless since none of the items on the test are super hard. A high score is mostly about your ability to not do anything dumb rather than your ability to do something brilliant. Tests like the Mega were created to measure the latter.
I spent a bit more time researching him just now, and he still seems like a complete and utter fraud to me.
We will simply have to agree to disagree.
I don’t buy environmental/poverty for people being failures, especially in adulthood. So what he had shitty life circumstances? So did a lot a of people (like the aforementioned Oprah) and they still succeeded. So what if he’s way smarter than any scientist/thinker in the world and he’s being unfairly ignored? The same could be said of that Shinichi Mochizuki guy. hell, Galileo was even persecuted for his beliefs.
i agree…to an extent…a tenuous extent…
the problem is that what one accomplishes and what one is capable of accomplishing can be VERY different.
man isn’t only a social animal.
he is THE social animal.
i agree with langan that the “high IQ community” should have “a place at the table”.
the only problem is…
from what i’ve read…
that the very high IQ don’t agree on anything.
Further, if Langan is really as smart as his Mega score suggests, few academics would understand his work, nor would they credit him if they did because he’s not part of the club. To acknowledge the existence of Genius outside academia is to undermine academia’s legitimacy and they presumably don’t want to lessen their own power.
that’s a trope/cliche to a large extent…
but not entirely…
in fact…
i’ve been a “victim” of it myself…a real “victim”…or so i would like to think…
that is,
i scored in the 99th+ percentile on the GMAT verbal but in the 6th percentile on its “analytic writing”…and more than 6% of test takers had english as a second language…i assume.
and i passed all of the objective SoA exams, but was told my writing was incomprehensible on the subjective exams.
i read and re-read what i’d written. it all seemed very clear to me.
and…
dad ab english (harvard 1966), grand-dad ab and phd english (princeton) and mom ba and ma english (less prestigious schools).
of course i told the SoA to FUCK OFF.
what else could i have told them?
“What exactly has Chris Langan done to merit such high esteem?”
He solved extremely difficult questions on IQ tests…That is why he is famous like vos Savant and Rick Rosner,,, The IQ questions does not make society better or it is not that spectacular to solve them, but no one else can solve them as good as them…
Most well-known, heralded geniuses are intellectuals who specialize in a specific area. Langan however has allegedly gained an extremely high level of mastery in a wide number of different subjects, such as mathematics, philosophy, literature, communications theory, economics, government, physics, and logic. Several close associates who worked with him on various projects have said that his concept mastery speed was astounding, and marveled at his ability to make complex connections between ideas and other concepts.
You know someone that worked with him.
I think intuitively I sensed there was a pervading consciousness in reality, a la Spinoza.
But Langan claims to be able to prove it scientifically, which is remarkable and a major breakthrough.
Langan makes one big error in his social program thinking. i.e. he doesn’t understand the need for violence for evolution to progress. Sad as it is.
But Zion knows.
one of the things langan says in his First Person interview echoes something my own father told me…a long long time ago…in a galaxy far far away…
society is built for average.
Your claim before that IQ genes aren’t to be found in common variants is incorrect, Cochran made a post on that: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/idiot-proof/ even Hsu agrees that theory indicates that we should be looking at the common variants
if langan shaved his ‘tache and got rid of the HUGE chip on his shoulder…
he’d be very impressive to everyone…
everyone with taste anyway.
i don’t know what it is.
it isn’t even the substance of what he says.
he’s just CLEARLY very very smart.
rosner?
smart…ish…but not so much as langan.
and i think jew-lion went so far as to say that…
average is average…
BECAUSE…
the current average is the most “fit” genome.
totally absurd of course.
but one must remember that lion is a jew.
OMG 😉
who would’ve guessed david bowie was mortal?
and at only 69.
my parents are older than that.
and the stars look very different today….
but lucky david…
nomi preceded him by 32 years and 5 months.
we can be heroes.
i…
…i will be king…
you will be queen…
like dolphins can sing…
i still think the AIDS epidemic has yet un-realized religious, moral, political, and philosophical implications…
namely the ultimate truth of Cynicism.
i find it endlessly fascinating.
we can be heroes
we can be heroes
we can be heroes
just for one day…
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/world-aids-day-the-1990s-01.jpg?quality=65&strip=color&w=838
No idea he died until just now. That’s crazy. He wasn’t even that old…
I was wrong in what I said earlier. It seems he does understand retro-causality. This is how I would explain it. A hologram is a matrix of a fully connected network. Each node has links which are branches in the many worlds model. You can follow a path node to node by the exponential number of branches determined by (branches = (n^n)^(future state(new number of node(n)))). What happens when retro causality is involved is that the past contains nodes of past events. The manifold is a database of all past events(nodes). We can influence the past the same way we can influence the future. The branches simply connect backward to the nodes in the database. This means that if you make a mistake the error correction will link back to a node where you can make a different choice then you did before. This is exactly the same as when you are looking at YouTube videos and you have 12 options of videos that appear on the screen. When you choose an option the new video may give you options that loop back to the original video. This way you can experience a future where you can go back to your original state and pick an option that is beneficial to you. All of this is happening in parallel. Every atom(node) in your body is trying to find the path which benefits it the most. Every atom(node) returns to its past state if it finds that it made a bad choice. This maintains the coherency / integrity of your body as a fractal loop forward in time. Huge mistakes usually means that when you die you need to travel a greater distance back in time to a point where error correction is possible. As you increase your abilities to become more aware of yourself you have more control because you are aware of the greater number of options available to you. You become aware of more branches going forward in time and backward in time. (fractal loops of nonlinear time). This is also the associative network of everything connection into itself (auto-didactic gestalt).
People with greater Intelligence begin with a network structure that that associates faster. Working memory and Processing speed is intelligence (IQ) and this is why associations happen in parallel consciously. Unconscious associations are represented by general intelligence (g). This is how I can derive higher levels of abstraction from what Langan has said in this comment on this blog. (expertise is a full connected network of associations).
(Time hierarchies are nested loops of parallel abstractions(self awareness))
g = age^((IQ – 100) / 5)
I am the cat from outer space.
Psychic abilities are possible. Because you can influence where the wave collapse happens with self awareness. Quantum Chi is how Jesus produced his miracles.
If Chris Langan had better opportunities in life he would probably be as smart or smarted than Stephen Wolfram weighing in how successful he could have been at attaining his goals. Most definitely I am in the position Langan was in. (Isolated social environment). Yet he is still smarter than I am. When you adapt the environment to you then it is not the environment that makes you smart it is your ability balance yourself under horrible or delightful situations. Only a select few have the ability to tough it out where they are in life. Evolutionary the smartest people survive the coldest winters. Social conditioning is the icing on the cake when you successfully eliminate evolutionary pressures. A warm house is a good place to study and make plans with your peers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3304659/Schoolboy-genius-17-develops-maths-theory-calculates-problems-faster-COMPUTER-idea-did-it.html
It would be interesting to know what ancestral background Chris Langan has… British, or German, or maybe jewish like Rick Rosner…
If intelligence is the ability to adapt, and Chris Langan is one of the most intelligent people (if not the smartest person) in the world, how come he has failed so spectacularly time and again to adapt to his circumstances? The deck was (and is) stacked against him; but if he’s so clever, why hasn’t he managed to turn things to his advantage? Why, as a student, couldn’t he find some way to scrape together the funds to finish his education? Why, when he was handed fame on a platter in the late ’90s, didn’t he use it as a launchpad to share his ideas with a suddenly willing audience? Why, though his single-minded goal seems to be recognition for his CTMU, hasn’t he just gone back to university and earned the necessary academic credentials? What’s with that?
Langan may be a brainiac, but he doesn’t seem to be all that competent. I wonder what else lurks beneath his bulbous head besides that impressive intellect.
Anyways, this is a very interesting post. Do you think you’ll do any more on Langan? Do you find him to be more verbally or mathematically acute?
If intelligence is the ability to adapt, and Chris Langan is one of the most intelligent people (if not the smartest person) in the world, how come he has failed so spectacularly time and again to adapt to his circumstances? The deck was (and is) stacked against him; but if he’s so clever, why hasn’t he managed to turn things to his advantage?
Adapting the situation to your advantage ultimately means maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. For most people, money and status buy pleasure and minimize pain, so IQ is correlated with these variables in the general population, but for Chris, the greatest pleasure comes from something not even money can buy: a coherent understanding of the universe. And the greatest pain comes from being denied the free time to answer life’s big questions.
So for Chris to spend a lot of time and energy pursuing money, credentials, or prestige would not be adaptive given his unique incentive structure.
Anyways, this is a very interesting post. Do you think you’ll do any more on Langan?
Yes
Do you find him to be more verbally or mathematically acute?
I haven’t seen enough evidence to make an educated guess
I don’t buy it. In what world does twenty years as a bouncer represent the maximization of pleasure for one who wants only intellectual stimulation? What you’re describing sounds more like the life of a professor; yet, Langan failed even to complete university. People with much harsher circumstances have achieved much more.
At the very least, Langan has fallen short of his potential; this particularly because he not only wanted to achieve “a coherent understanding of the universe” (as you said) but also win acceptance for his CTMU, which he has not. The saddest thing is that Langan so clearly knows he’s failed, which can be witnessed in his bitter rants against the closed nature of academia (which he has a point about).
Let’s rewind to 1999; I can’t imagine why Langan didn’t just go back to university and get the magic stamp that he so clearly thinks would lend his theory credibility. I’m pretty confident that any university would’ve been thrilled to have the famous “smartest man in the world” study at their school. With his brain, he could have earned a degree in just a few years. Had he started in 1999, he could by now be a tenured professor at nearly any institution in the world. Instead he, what? Goes on conspiracy-theorist radio shows?
This is not a man who is adept at adaption.
Going to a dogmatic university would not be appealing for someone like Langan who could probably test out of most of the offered courses if he so pleased. Sitting through 4 years of bland courses would certainly be a bore given his mental capacity.
Sitting through 4 years of bland courses would certainly be a bore given his mental capacity.
Yes, I imagine university would be quite tedious for someone that brilliant
Returning to university at 47, he would have been seen as a freak & he would have had to eat humble pie & suck up to academics he hates & compromise his values
And even if he did all that, what are the odds of a 47-year-old in poverty starting university as an undergrad & becoming a tenured professor at an elite school?
Are you kidding? There are plenty of people 47 years old and older at any university, particularly in graduate programs. And if this was an issue of pride that kept him from returning to university, and by extension winning credibility for the CTMU, then his inability to bottle his pride and think ahead to the completion of his ultimate goal provides more evidence for my point that he isn’t that great at adapting.
And what are the odds of receiving a tenured professorship? Really damn good. Chris Langan wasn’t just some 47-year-old in poverty; he’s a genius with lots of name recognition. Getting into university at the height of his fame would have been a breeze. After that all he’d have to have done is prove his mettle (or do you suddenly doubt him?)
More to the point, even that structuring of the situation missing the main idea, which is that if Langan really were so great at adaption, he wouldn’t have wasted his life in poverty until 47 anyways.
Reading back over my most recent comment, I hope I don’t sound overly combative. I’m not interested in starting a pissing contest. Cheers.
No you don’t sound too combative at all, especially not compared to people here.
My theory is that since Langan has a super high IQ, by definition he must be a brilliant problem solver, so if he failed to solve the most important problem of all (getting what he wants in life) then it must be an extremely difficult problem to solve
Either that or there are important aspects of intelligence conventional tests are missing
It’s also important to distinguish between his cognitive ability to adapt & how adaptive his personality is, since only the former is intelligence as i define it
I’m sure on some level he understands that he should put his pride aside, just as an obese person understands they should put the junk food aside, but understanding it cognitively and having the emotional discipline to do it are two different things. There’s a fine line between intelligence & personality traits
My theory is that Langan is simply “too smart” for his own good. He’s an egomaniac who has difficulty forming normal relationships. He likely didn’t want to return to university because he felt his teachers were stupid and had nothing to teach him. But it’s not just his intelligence to blame; I think another culprit is the bullying he faced at school and the beatings by his stepfather. I’d wager that these scarred him and stunted his naturally weak social skills. He closed up and became prickly and defensive (this can be witnessed in his interview and online interactions). I honestly think he seems extremely bitter and wronged, as if life hasn’t given him what he’s owed. He may even have a point, though I bet a fair bit more of it is his own damn fault than he’d admit.
Further, I take issue with the definition of intelligence as the ability to adapt. Suppose I’m a high school student, and my goal is to become the most popular kid in school, thereby getting laid by many girls and propagating my genes. My IQ is 170 (hypothetically) and my chief competitor has an IQ of 85. Yet, while he makes the entire class laugh with ease, my humor just goes over their heads. It’s not that I don’t have jokes, it’s just that nobody thinks that math humor is funny. Hasn’t my overwhelming intelligence now become a liability?
Don’t get me wrong; intelligence can and usually is useful to adaption — but it doesn’t equal adaptive ability. Different situations require different skill sets, such as interpersonal skills.
An interesting comparison can be drawn between Chris Langan and Terence Tao; though both are off-the-charts brilliant, their lives have turned out completely differently. While Langan has spent his entire life doing manual labor, Tao has succeeded phenomenally. How can this be explained? I’d be interested to hear your take.
My initial thoughts:
Tao’s genius is mathematically oriented. His verbal skills, while above average, are nothing extraordinary. Therefore, he recognizes his limitations and avoids the egomania that has proved so destructive for Langan.
On the other hand, Langan is astronomically gifted in both areas. He’s always the smartest guy in the room. He can switch with ease between contrasting different explanations of 3D space and examining the literary merits of Herman Melville. In his mind, therefore, he has no intellectual superiors (or peers, for that matter).
Obviously, that Tao grew up in a stable family while Langan was raised in poverty probably had a huge impact as well.
Further, I take issue with the definition of intelligence as the ability to adapt. Suppose I’m a high school student, and my goal is to become the most popular kid in school, thereby getting laid by many girls and propagating my genes. My IQ is 170 (hypothetically) and my chief competitor has an IQ of 85. Yet, while he makes the entire class laugh with ease, my humor just goes over their heads. It’s not that I don’t have jokes, it’s just that nobody thinks that math humor is funny. Hasn’t my overwhelming intelligence now become a liability?
I would say intelligence itself is always an asset because I define it as the ability to adapt, but certain parts of intelligence can be liabilities, such as greater understanding (since it causes one to have different taste in jokes) or at the biological level, brain size (since it’s metabolically expensive & physically burdensome )
It’s like if you bought a computer to solve all your problems, but the computer cost you thousands of dollars to maintain & took up all the space in your home. So while the computer might be brilliant at solving your problems, it’s very existence is causing problems
But the computer can still be defined as a good problem solver, it’s just that merely having that computer might create more problems than it solves
Similarly, i think intelligence can still be defined as the ability to adapt, but it’s very existence might give one a harder situation to adapt to. The ability to problem solve, but the building blocks of intelligence can create problems in their own right.
This is likely because high intelligence evolved only recently, so evolution hasn’t had time to tweak with it, allowing folks to have both extreme adaptability without being maladapted.
I know that sounds contradictory but I think it’s just paradoxal
Intriguing. However, I’m still not convinced that the definition of intelligence as the ability to adapt is entirely warranted. Adaptability is the ability to adapt; a copious degree of intelligence can enhance this trait, but there is not a linear relationship between the two (as their would be if intelligence = adaptability).
Furthermore, if intelligence is the essence of adaptability, then there must be no major components of adaptability not taken account of in cognitive capacity. Yet, traits such as interpersonal and intrapersonal skills aid in adaption; and while these may correlate with intelligence, they are not themselves elements of it.
Harking back to the idea that too much intelligence can be a liability, I’d postulate that intelligence, generally speaking, has a second bell curve from the one we usually use — one of adaptive efficacy — with the ideal IQ being between perhaps 130 and 160. However, I must caveat that “ideal” IQ is relative to purpose; one desiring to be a theoretical physicist will want a higher IQ than one wishing to be a businessman.
To be clear, I don’t quibble with the definition of intelligence as the ability to solve problems; I just don’t see any reason to think all adaption is about problem solving.
To be clear, I don’t quibble with the definition of intelligence as the ability to solve problems; I just don’t see any reason to think all adaption is about problem solving.
Well I specifically define intelligence as the cognitive ability to adapt: to take whatever situation you’re in and turn it around to your advantage. The ability of the mind to minimize the cost/benefit ratio of behavior
To me all this is equivalent to saying intelligence is the cognitive ability to solve problems, because:
Problems, by definition, are disadvantages
Thus, solving problems = turning situations around to your advantage
As for interpersonal skills, it depends how you define them. If you define them as understanding the social world, they are cognitive abilities & thus part of intelligence, & are even included on some IQ tests (i.e. WAIS Comprehension subtest)
But if you define them as liking people or being friendly, then these are personality traits: emotionally adaptive but not part of the cognitive ability to adapt
Every behavior is cognitive.
Pumpkin is right. Making money, as I’ve realised is not everything. I get most of my pleasure, like many on these blogs from knowledge acquisition. Freud talked about a small number of people that can game the pleasure/pain catechism by doing a Tesla/Newton.
I believe Langan is probably one of those people. He would be happy reading books in a shack.
Most writers are like that. And musicians. And visual artists.
I est I can have an awesome lifestyle, for me, for about £25k expenses.
Many people make money to get women. It is much easier to become good looking, than to make money.
Many people make money to get women. It is much easier to become good looking, than to make money.
As the saying goes, “you can be young without money, but you can not be old without it.”
Touche!
Hey Pumpkin Person, can you estimate the IQ of George Herbert Walker Bush?
Okay I will, sometime this month or the next
Personally I think you’re more infatuated with Oprah than you really ought to be.
I believe she is probably more intelligent than the average bear, given her success and the necessity for the most part of intelligence in navigating the world of show business but an intelligence so especial as that which you predict? Doubtful at best.
Chris Langan, I believe, probably did genuinely score perfectly on the SAT, but I don’t treat him as a unique example of brilliance. I believe people with extraordinary IQ’s that lack the skillsets, dedication and exemplary academic record of their poorer-performing (Though intellectually strong) peers have developed a need over time for themselves to be taken seriously on the basis of their intelligence but this ignores wholly the reason why those taken seriously ARE taken seriously at all; the meritorious statements and conjectures they have made and Chris as an example has produced little conjecture at all to be evaluated.
It reminds me of that old Feynman lecture gag, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or what his name is, if it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.
Personally I think you’re more infatuated with Oprah than you really ought to be.
I believe she is probably more intelligent than the average bear, given her success and the necessity for the most part of intelligence in navigating the world of show business but an intelligence so especial as that which you predict? Doubtful at best.
The fact that arguably the biggest brained member of an entire race and gender, is also arguably the most successful member of an entire race and gender is absolutely fascinating, given that brain size, money, and power are perhaps the most Darwinian correlates of IQ.
But it’s possible I am overestimating her IQ given that all of the above traits are only extremely crude proxies for intelligence, thus any estimate based on them will have a lot of error.
It may be interesting for all curious about Ron Hoeflin’s tests and a possible performance on WAIS of a Hoeflin’s tests best scorers
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/16vpmn/iama_member_of_the_mega_society_the_oneinamillion/
To my best knowleage , and from my own expearence, at least some of so-called HR iq tests give meaninfull results. Scorers with 170+ IQs on most trustfull HRT normally break IQ160 celling on traditional tests of battery type. The only problem with mr Langon as ‘the smartest man in America” is that he has achieved his 47/48 only on his second attempt. His first result was ‘only’ 42/48/
To my best knowledge , and from my own experience, at least some of so-called HR iq tests give meaningful results. Scorers with 170+ IQs on most trustfull HRT normally break IQ160 ceiling on traditional tests of battery type. The only problem with Mr Langan as ‘the smartest man in America” is that he has achieved his 47/48 only on his second attempt. His first result was ‘only’ 42/48/
Well the test has no time limit, and you’re not told what items you got wrong. so repeat testing might not invalidate the score
I attempted communicating with him recently. Quite a futile attempt, but I thought I had a fighting chance.
Once I tried a nonverbal well-designed on-line test with 4,3 sigma ceiling and no time limit, and got a score. 3 years later -a time gap well enough for forgetting the items – I retried the test. At this time I knew that the author allows drawing during testing and did it when I was unable to visualize something. Also, I was willing to invest as long time as it needs and maximum mental afford. . At one item I got kinda flashback – ‘yes, i clearly remember the item and I got it wrong first time. Now I see the solution”. I was exhausted in the end, feeling that I really did my best. I got +8 IQ score.
So, what we see ? The testee got some feedback from his first attempt and decided to change his strategy. It’s somehow unfair against the sample, right? I still ldon’t know what result is more valid. Your point of view is very close to mine but that all is still very confusing
It was on-line scoring, wrong answers were not reported
IQ tests were designed by IQ tests creators of course.
The most difficult puzzles made by them presumably can be solved by those who use/create it on their tests.
“Achievements” is not just the big ones but also the little ones conquered day by day or in long term as lost weight or learn to be kind with others.
IQ tests are the best mental game!!!
I thought super higher IQ should be like walking encyclopedia, but…
By the way http://miyaguchi.4sigma.org/hoeflin/titan/titanorm.html
See the red text below. A person #64 in the table is probably C. Langan, with 47/48 on the Mega and 48/48 on the Titan
That’s Rick Rosner.
No, that’s Rick Rosner
Now I know you are right
You think Langan, will find this blog eventually.
Hes voracious.
He should in time.
I’d be fairly sure Rosner has looked at this blog at least once.
I have reason to believe President Obama reads this blog.
No fuckin way. Why do you say that?
Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist who did a massively extensive interview with Obama for The Atlantic told Charlie Rose that Obama seemed very concerned about looking intelligent & Rose agreed.
If so, he’s probably googled his own IQ and my blog is one of the first few hits.
I’m sure he found it a long time ago. Just didn’t bother commenting.