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from the not-what-soylentils-want-to-hear dept.
If ignorance is bliss, does a high IQ equal misery? Popular opinion would have it so. We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson – lone stars, isolated even as they burn their brightest. As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
The question may seem like a trivial matter concerning a select few – but the insights it offers could have ramifications for many. Much of our education system is aimed at improving academic intelligence; although its limits are well known, IQ is still the primary way of measuring cognitive abilities, and we spend millions on brain training and cognitive enhancers that try to improve those scores. But what if the quest for genius is itself a fool's errand?
The first steps to answering these questions were taken almost a century ago, at the height of the American Jazz Age. At the time, the new-fangled IQ test was gaining traction, after proving itself in World War One recruitment centres, and in 1926, psychologist Lewis Terman decided to use it to identify and study a group of gifted children. Combing California's schools for the creme de la creme, he selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the "Termites", and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day.
As you might expect, many of the Termites did achieve wealth and fame – most notably Jess Oppenheimer, the writer of the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy. Indeed, by the time his series aired on CBS, the Termites' average salary was twice that of the average white-collar job. But not all the group met Terman's expectations – there were many who pursued more "humble" professions such as police officers, seafarers, and typists. For this reason, Terman concluded that "intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated". Nor did their smarts endow personal happiness. Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average.
As the Termites enter their dotage, the moral of their story – that intelligence does not equate to a better life – has been told again and again. At best, a great intellect makes no differences to your life satisfaction; at worst, it can actually mean you are less fulfilled.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:44PM
If God speaks to you, you will cease to be an atheist despite your inability to prove anything. And I can't show you a thing you refuse to look at, or even believe in the possibility of its existence, now, can I?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by SubiculumHammer on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:57PM
Yes. I do make an assumption that Job hearing God is evidence to Job that God exists, and not just a delusion. I suppose that assumption is based on an idea that observing an all powerful being would shred away all deception and leaving only the visage of truth of that being's alpha-omega. I mean, who would want to believe in a God incapable of that?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:08PM
If some entity that I couldn't even prove exists started talking to me, I'd question my sanity, not start believing in god.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:35AM
You cannot prove that anyone but you exists. All your perceptions and memories could be wrong. So by your logic, if someone ever talked to you, better assume you're already insane.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday April 17 2015, @12:08AM
You cannot prove that anyone but you exists.
That's amazing, Mr. Solipsist. Now, apparently according to *you*, we should have no standards of evidence for anything. I'm tired of this brain-dead objection; you're not clever.
So by your logic, if someone ever talked to you, better assume you're already insane.
No, I think I'll go with what has shown to be reliable (science); I have no reason to suspect that the universe or others don't exist. If that means I have to 'assume' the universe exists, then so be it; that allows me to live my life without questioning everything in existence, which is unproductive. On the other hand, I don't believe in deities because there is no actual evidence of such a thing, and I have zero reason to believe in such things. If everything is an illusion, then this illusion is rather consistent, and trusting in science will allow us to get closest to the truth (in this illusion or otherwise).
So no, because I'm not a fucking solipsist.