That I.Q. Thing...

That I.Q. Thing by Titus Anderson

I don't remember exactly when, but when I was about 20 years old or so, I became interested in the subject of creativity and I.Q. This would have been around the year 1989, as I am forty seven today. Since then, the internet has come along and a plethora of new research and constant stream of information has become available. From time to time I keep my ear to the ground to see what is new. I thought I would take a minute here to post a few things I have learned over the years for those interested.

Frist of all, I.Q. is important because it is the study of your capacity as well as efficiency at solving problems. The benefits of this are obvious to all who recruit students, hire at companies or grant research money to researchers as well as to those who apply or need work or have problems to solve. Also, there is great satisfaction to be had when one beats a puzzle or a competitor or surprises oneself with a new invention.

From this point in the blog I will cover a few areas of interest in brief sections:

IQ Points

The median i.q. is 100 points. The standard deviation on most i.q. scales is 15 points and different societies, like Mensa, require a standard deviation of at least two for  membership. This is not easy for most people since the odds are about one in fifty for a person to have this kind of talent. Other societies for the gifted like the Prometheus Society or Giga, may require three or four standard deviations for membership. These individuals become even more rare with the odds of an individual being born with this kind of talent being one of 100,00 and so on.

Also, I.Q. points become more significant and logarithmically more difficult to achieve the higher you go on the scale. For example, a person with an i.q. of 100 points may be able to remember a 10 digit phone number with little difficulty but a person with an i.q. of say, 165, may be able to remember several hundred digits of random numbers for several days or weeks. That is more than a 65% per cent in crease in ability! One gentlemen with an i.q. of 200 (one of the highest and most rare) was able to memorize some 1600 pages of text.

Ainan Cawley Sets World Record (Funny Video)

Child Memorizes a Deck of Cards

Magnus Carlsen Plays 10 Chessgames Blindfolded

Jacob Memorizes 200 digits of Pie Backwards & Forwards

If you are wondering why those with higher i.q's are able to graduate early or take multiple classes at the same time, it is because their memory is far better than normal.

Activities for I.Q.

Are there any activities that you can adopt or practice for your i.q.? Playing an instrument (especially early in life), jogging, lifting moderate weights, juggling or drumming, learning a foreign language (especially early in life) and even some audio cd's claim to increase (albeit temporarily) interhemispheric communication (and thus i.q.) within the brain. Also, some applications for your smartphone like Elevate and Luminosity claim to increase your i.q.,

NOTE on brain games: The ability to increase raw ability or "capacity" is not the same thing as "efficiency" with what you have been practicing (math or guitar or Spanish). Your innate abilities will tap out somewhere and that is what I.Q. tests attempt to measure. For example, how many times can you double the number 49 in your head before you have to stop will tell you your capacity. How quickly and error-free you get to your limit is your efficiency.

Best Way to Learn

#1 With a tutor.

#2 In a classroom.

#3 On your own with a book.

Connections are made and kept with those with high i.q.'s (people with Asperger's Syndrome). For the rest of us, periodic studying, review and testing will help you retain what you have learned.

On graduation day from University, the average graduate has an I.Q. of 120 points (still well below Mensa) but it starts to decrease the day they step off of the campus.

Ideation

The ability to generate ideas is not the same thing as I.Q. If you have a knack for writing lyrics, designing websites, public speaking, or writing books or directing movies, that's great. A high i.q. doesn't mean you can do these things as fluently.

"Brain Food"

Fish, walnuts, ketones and possibly yogurt. (Your brain needs a lot of oxygen and sugar.)

Epigenetics and Ontology

"What you create, creates you in return." is a general axiom of "ontology". This can influence your i.q. For example language. Your facility with language (It's on i.q. tests as well as your SAT's.) has everything to do with your original tongue and may influence your brain's development and i.q. .

How intelligent you sound or how articulate you are usually has to do with practice (did you spend time reading outloud for others as a child?) and what your parents or school or culture wanted you to sound like. African people raised in the suburbs usually sound like they are "white" and if you hand them a guitar, will probably sound like they are "white" and not African, whatever that is. This is not because of their DNA but because of ontology. African's born in Great Britain sound proper and British, not at all like the scum of Skid Row, Los Angeles CA, from where I currently write this blog.

Epigeneticss is the study of your dna's expression over time (several generations) and what influences it's expression (environment, food, stress, parents, music & culture, wealth or poverty). It is a known fact that one of the most telling betrayals of those who tend  to to well at the University or gain admission to a top Univerisity is having parents who were also at top Universities or who are professionals. This does not account for the "outliers" who are in the top 5 percent of ability.

As far as culture or races are concerned, your innate tongue, vocation and your diet and environment will all have an influence on what traits and genes become dominant over several generations

10,000 Hours of Practice?

Malcolm Gladwell famously quipped that it takes 10,000 hours of practive to become an expert in a subject. This has been debated constantly but I think one thing is useful: Some of those you may compete with may have been practicing since they were teenagers.  A young man raised by professionals may have been required to add an extra 10-20 hours of practice per week to his math studies. By the time you meet him at age 22, he may have the equivalent of  a bachelor's degree in math while his peers are still learning.

Circumstances

What do Leonardo da Vinci, Tony Stark, DARPA and Alan Turing and even the United Sstates have in common? Two very imporatant things for innovation: War and money. It is a known fact that a number of resourceful companies, countries and even individuals become highly creative at times of war but also have the resources and liesure to investigate, practice and execute.

As an aside, some European contries that have always been white, are not necessarily hubs of innovation, and some are actually failed states economically and philosophically. I bring this up because some argue that being Caucasian is equivalent with being "superior".

Multiple Types of Intelligence

Howard Gardner, the famed Harvard psychologist has delineated several types of intelligence of a human being for a more holistic evaluation. There are: Music, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Ecological-Existential.

I'll leave you to research these on your own. Suffice it to say that human beings require a number of different faculties to be calibrated to make smart decisions about the world they live in not just math, for example.

Psychological Traits

This section is mostly anecdotal since you will find exceptions constantly. However, suffice it to say, you will find more mensans in physics and research labs then you will in say, Hollywood or truck driving school.

The gifted tend to be fiercely independent. This is sometimes displayed in a disdain for BS and BS artists (politicians, etc.) They will sometimes ignore conventional modes of dress or style. They tend to pride themselves for not being "under the influence" (of culture, tv, propagandists, etc.).

They tend to enjoy using their wits the way professional athletes or boxers enjoy living by their ability to compete athletically. Hence, hours spent studying or researching may be quite pleasurable.

Nicknames. Nicknames are not uncommon at all but sometimes I can't help but notice that a lot of the gifted tend to have nicknames. Maybe this is because they are more likely to be "individuals". One young girl who comes to mind with an exceptional i.q. in the 170 range, changed her legal name to reflect how she felt about herself. Her new name would now be Promethea Olympia Kyrene Pythaitha. (Her original name was Jasmine.) Another fellow I know of is called "Scorpion".

• Read more about the Stanford program for gifted children where Jasmine is a student.

  Jasmine Lee, a seven-year-old Montanan with an IQ of 173. She spoke in complete sentences at six months, and was writing at the age of one. She reads Homer and studies quantum physics. She loves learning, and studies 14 hours a day. Too smart for first grade, she is taught by her mother at home, and through a Stanford-run gifted student program that uses the Internet. When she's nine, she'll go off to college. But by taking this unusual path, has she given up essential social development?

The gifted  also tend to appreciate ecology, systems and intelligence and can't understand why the masses can't alter their lifestyles according to the newest feedback. Drive electric, dammit.

Jeffrey Ford TED Talk

Chris Langdon Interview

(Even our inability to get the trash properly separated and recycled is a HUGE failure of all. According to Davos we have gone through a year's worth of resources in eight months. Have you done anything to curb your consumption by 33%? No? Nothing? Not even meatless Mondays?)

Also facility with at least one musical instrument seems to also be common. Sports and competitions (like chess or gaming) is also common.

Devices for Your Brain

There are a few devices created with the idea in mind to 1.)increase neuroplasticity within the brain 2.)increase interhemispheric communication and 3.) supplements specifically for your brain.

At this time I am not going to go into a lengthy explanation of these devices (transcranial direct current stimulation) but here are a few links for your own research:

Vielight
HaloNeuro
Soterix

You can find cheaper models if you google "tcds machines".

Audio CD's
Although the cd's don't claim to increase i.q., they do often claim to increase "neuroplasticity". Here is an example to check out: Centerpointe

Supplements for your brain, commonly called nootropics. You can research this on your own but a few links to get you started:

[This blog isn't finished yet.]

There are also newsletters and podcasts devoted to this subject.


How necessary is this stuff anyway? Well, that depends upon you. That's the relative answer. Jordan Ellenberg a mathematical prodigy who wrote the book, "How Not To Be Wrong" says that plenty of mathematical breakthroughs have been accomplished by people with ordinary i.q.'s. Further, he says that "genius is something that happens, not something that you are". Which I find to be an amusing counterpoint to what is commonly thought of about geniuses. Lastly, Malcolm Gladwell also noted that the world is run by people with i.q.'s in the 120's.

In absolute terms we can say that it is the reason for our well being and progress. People with high range intelligences are more likely to patent products, start a company, get a professorship, find grant money, choose where and how they live, live longer and retire with money in the bank. In fact, if you were 21 years old with the option of having a million dollars or an i.q. of 132 you better pick the i.q. of 132 without the million dollars. Smart people are more likely to keep the money they make. Low i.q. people are apt to lose it.

The credit for the information in this last paragraph is owed to Jonathan Wai, a researcher in psychometrics and the gifted.

In Conclusion

I tested my own I.Q. in my 20's and it was above average but not exceptional. The future hold promise: synthetic biology, CRISPR, nootropics, stem cells and the like will change our lives for the better and longer. We must create a worldcentric ecosystem not an ethnocentric ecosystem that behaves as though guided by the invisible hand of intelligence. That is how we all surive and thrive and find fulfillment. Not by being at war. War is killing the planet. Idiot.


-Nietzsche

Resources and Fun:

The Top 10 Smartest People in the World

The Smartest Kids in the World

Child Genius Official Series

Titus Anderson Twitter Feed & Favorites

Sabrina: Teenaged Girl Builds Her Own Airplane and Flies It

Cambridge Brain Sciences

BrainHQ

Cognifit

If you would like to make a small donation to support this blog, you can here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=B5PDBHY8L88AJ