How Smart People Talk About Themselves
Jan. 7th, 2018 04:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithGood observations. I will add ...
Brilliant people do a couple of things that average people rarely if ever do. 1) They can lock onto an idea with absolutely unshakeable force. That hyperfocus is actually a change of brain state, sometimes called 'zone' or 'flow' in which a better quality and quantity of output is possible. 2) They can teleport from A to Q while everyone else is still looking for B. So if you're listening to someone and they do either of those, chances are, they're smart. And the smarter they are, the more they do that stuff, and the less average people understand them. Anyone can have an occasional zone or leap of intuition. A genius does it routinely.
Brilliant people do a couple of things that average people rarely if ever do. 1) They can lock onto an idea with absolutely unshakeable force. That hyperfocus is actually a change of brain state, sometimes called 'zone' or 'flow' in which a better quality and quantity of output is possible. 2) They can teleport from A to Q while everyone else is still looking for B. So if you're listening to someone and they do either of those, chances are, they're smart. And the smarter they are, the more they do that stuff, and the less average people understand them. Anyone can have an occasional zone or leap of intuition. A genius does it routinely.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-07 03:40 pm (UTC)I've always liked this line. Has nothing to do with intelligence, just how you choose to apply yourself. I've been listening a lot to the How I Built This podcast recently, and it illustrates this perfectly.
Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-07 07:11 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-07 07:42 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-07 08:55 pm (UTC)I just grew up with it, so it was sort of obvious.
>> See, e.g., my most recent ex-spouse. I keep asking "what is it you're scared I'm going to do?" <<
In my case, make them look bad at their job. I'm sorry, if a preschooler can identify termites more accurately than the damn exterminator, you are bad at your job and deserve to be replaced with someone who can actually identify insects. FFS, people!
Now multiply this by most careers. I am routinely better at lots of things than alleged professionals, and it is maddening. They're afraid I'll point out the Emperor has no clothes, because that's what I do. I would do it politely and discreetly if that ever worked, but hell, even making a big public stink only works some of the time.
>> but they're not really scared of me, they're scared they can't measure up to me. Which is happening in their own heads, I'm not judging them for it. <<
Well, that too, I suppose.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-09 01:41 am (UTC)Now to figure out if I actually can turn wire and beads into something useful for quantum calculations. The illustrations I've found look like nothing so much as a set of four tetrahedrons in a particular configuration, but I don't know (yet) how much of an oversimplification that is.
And that is another thing extremely intelligent people do: follow their own curiosity, diving headfirst into some topic they might never have heard of ten minutes ago and not coming up for air for a week or more.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-09 02:16 am (UTC)<3 wordcandy.
>> Now to figure out if I actually can turn wire and beads into something useful for quantum calculations. The illustrations I've found look like nothing so much as a set of four tetrahedrons in a particular configuration, but I don't know (yet) how much of an oversimplification that is. <<
The shape of the amplituhedron evidently depends on the equation it goes with. So they are different shapes, but there is one that looks to me like four tetrahedrons stuck together. It should be feasible to construct.
>> And that is another thing extremely intelligent people do: follow their own curiosity, diving headfirst into some topic they might never have heard of ten minutes ago and not coming up for air for a week or more. <<
Yep.
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" "Last night."
I cracked up laughing.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-10 02:53 am (UTC)That and one or two others are fairly straightforward. The real trick would be to give them the flexibility to adjust as the equations shift. Not sure how to do that with materials that are pretty much stuck in Euclidean space.
Of course I'm doing my usual look-at-the-2-dimensional-representation-try-to-translate-it-into-3-D thing, with the added complication that 4 or 5 dimensions would really make it simpler.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-10 02:57 am (UTC)I'd be happy with a static one.
>> Of course I'm doing my usual look-at-the-2-dimensional-representation-try-to-translate-it-into-3-D thing, with the added complication that 4 or 5 dimensions would really make it simpler. <<
New idea! :D Screensaver.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-10 02:53 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-10 07:04 pm (UTC)Now all I need is time. I have image in my head and materials in my craft room. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-07 05:42 pm (UTC)But I find myself increasingly leery of the very concept of intelligence, since so often it boils down to how well someone does a task we as a society values, with other forms of skill or understanding thrown by the wayside. (Along with the idea that intelligence might not be innate, that folks' understanding or skill can CHANGE. It's true, sometimes you just really do suck at a thing, but there are no skills you can be effortlessly great at forever; eventually, you HAVE to put forth effort, fail, and learn. Talent is no replacement for work.)
And if average people can't understand me, that's not a sign I'm smart; it's a sign I'm failing at my job.
--Rogan
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-07 07:49 pm (UTC)OTOH, sometimes a person just looks as if they leapt from A to Q - actually they already knew a chain of reasoning that goes from A to F, and another from G to Q, and just added F->G.
One thing that distinguishes an effective person from an ineffective one is if they can then explain the well-known-to-them routes from A to F and G to Q, as well as F to G, such that everyone else involved can understand them.
Well ...
Date: 2018-01-07 09:00 pm (UTC)I can do that for things I know well. I put two chapters on writing poetry in Composing Magic because most poetry instructions suck. Result: teachers are photocopying pages out of a Pagan liturgical handbook for use in ordinary writing classes. LOL
Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-01-07 11:49 pm (UTC)That is SERIOUS WIN, right there!
Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-01-07 11:56 pm (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-01-08 03:26 am (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-01-08 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-09 06:53 am (UTC)I can understand being wary of what some people call intelligence. But while there may be many dimensions to that thing, and many of those dimensions aren't well understood, that there is such a thing seems clear.
As for whether people understand you, it depends on your job. I'm tech support - part of my job is helping people see what I see. There, you're right, if I don't make myself understood, I'm failing at my job (or at least doing more poorly than I should be!). But if I were a research scientist, or a developer, it might not be relevant whether people understand what I think/say/do - so long as I'm able to implement my ideas without demanding they do.
Yes ...
Date: 2018-01-09 07:48 am (UTC)I can do it. That makes the work three times longer. I've timed it, when I was writing Composing Magic. If I edit a poem in my head, it's faster than if I slow down to write out all the steps. That's one of the things that having a linguistic coprocessor does for me.
Having to slow down and explain things is a chore. If I'm teaching, I'll do it, and I'm good at it. I can break down poetry or other topics into specific steps that people can follow. But I don't want to do that all the time, because I can do most things faster and better on my own.
When I'm exploring new things, I often skip ahead. This is a great benefit if I need to do things quickly because there is no time to study them slowly before something has to be done. Later on, I can always go back and find the parts that I skipped over. They often have useful information in them.
A lot of things, once I have the pattern in my head, I can apply it to new examples in ways that most people apparently cannot. Case in point, identity literature. I never have the patience to wait 20-30 years for other people to catch up, and besides, most of the interim steps tend to suck. It's idlit, if you show me a new trait, I will write you a hero of it. I may not get all the details right the first time, but that's okay, we just saved several decades. Trait-having people in my audience can correct any flaws and I'll update or write something new.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-10 01:59 am (UTC)I really didn't understand the basis of the A to Q in context, but I do notice that sometimes people do just that: jump from A to Q claiming insight, when it's really just sloppiness. And sometimes it is applauded as if it were intelligence.
And, as I said, I do think that there's a concept of intelligence. But I don't disagree with you on the concept of a *measurable* intelligence. I'm not sure it's something that can be measured, but I still think there's a thing - probably many things - that make it a useful concept to refer to those things. I could agree with you that there may not be a very useful concept, conveyed by the word "intelligence", if that were the sort of thing you were thinking.
Part of my point of view is fed by my disability, which I think reduces blood flow to my brain, and I know it can make me less intelligent in the moment. So for me, intelligence is definitely "a" thing, on some level.