High IQ - blessing or curse?

[Michael]

There is an almighty gap between what IQ tests can measure and what we want to them to show. “If you tell anyone their IQ at any age they will remember it for the rest of their life,” says Professor John Rust, the director of the Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge. “It’s like an astrological chart.” Rust reminded me of the contrast between the quasi-spiritual idea of intelligence rooted in western language and culture – the notion of a single, overarching quality comparable to, say, a saint’s halo – and what we can learn from our response to a series of logical problems. Yet in the absence of anything better than IQ tests, whose questions still underpin many modern “ability” tests, people continue to see something in these IQ scores that, while not meaningless, do not hold “the answer”.

...

“High cognitive ability is very often a mixed blessing,” Patrick O’Shea, the president of one such society, the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE), told me. Too wide a deviation from the mean IQ of 100 brings with it an inherent isolation. “If you have an IQ of 160 or higher,” O’Shea explained, “you’re probably able to connect well with less than 1 per cent of the population.”

So, do you think that high IQ is a blessing or a curse? Would you like to have your IQ raised by 10 or 20 points if it could be done?

I'm curious about what people think about this topic. :D

Article (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4add9230-23d5-11de-996a-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=a712eb94-dc2b-11da-890d-0000779e2340.html)

For what its worth, I've long asserted that "ignorance is bliss" and only the ignorant are happy. I suppose I'm biased by having a rather high IQ to begin with. For me, there is no question that high IQ is always a curse.

[Donkey]

I don't know what my IQ is, nor am I particularly interested in having it tested, or particularly trust the results.

However, while I agree that ignorance can be bliss, I don't think that high cognitive ability necessarily mandates being less happy. I (think that) I am relatively intelligent, but I am also terribly happy most of the time.

I also think you make an error in implicitly equating intelligence and knowledge/stupidity and ignorance. While the two are related, I don't think they are the same. Knowledge is what you know, intelligence is how you analyze it. Even the most intelligent person will arrive at erroneous conclusions without sufficient inputs.

Example

Find x
y = x + 1

No matter how smart you are, you won't be able to determine what x (or y for that matter) is. This is a lack of knowledge.

Find x
3 = x + 1

Now you have sufficient knowledge to determine x. However you also have to have the analytical ability to figure out how to get there. (Although I grant that in such a simplistic equation, this can also be a matter of knowledge).

x = 2. There. I'm smart. ;)

[Dominick]

x = y -1

That's not a joke. It's a valid mathematical answer to the problem. That's why I voted 'curse'. You may be right when giving such answers but you're still perceived an ass.

[partofme]

I would consider paying quite a bit for a higher I.Q. I'm not sure what mine is though. I took a online test once and it said 125 but I'm not sure it was official and I've been told that really they can't make one that is accurate online. But yeah intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing. My sister-in-law was near the top of the class in high school and college and her husband was valedictorian in high school and maybe college if I recall. While she was super smart he was amazing in that he didn't even spend a whole lot of time studying. He could look something over or listen to a lecture and get almost anything right away yet when when I talk to either one of them I'm certain that when it comes to everyday knowledge I'm light years ahead of them. In fact if I didn't know better I wouldn't think they where very smart at all. I think a big part of that is he only committed himself to what would get him a good grade or help him with his career later. He has no real thirst for knowledge beyond that is is pretty disinterested in any intellectual or academic topics outside of classes. While he is really good at math his biggest advantage is that he just has a really good memory.

[andrewl]

Example

Find x
y = x + 1

No matter how smart you are, you won't be able to determine what x (or y for that matter) is. This is a lack of knowledge.

Find x
http://www.detronizator.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/find_x_lol.jpg



Andrew

[andrewl]

So, do you think that high IQ is a blessing or a curse? Would you like to have your IQ raised by 10 or 20 points if it could be done?

I'm curious about what people think about this topic. :D

Article (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4add9230-23d5-11de-996a-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=a712eb94-dc2b-11da-890d-0000779e2340.html)

For what its worth, I've long asserted that "ignorance is bliss" and only the ignorant are happy. I suppose I'm biased by having a rather high IQ to begin with. For me, there is no question that high IQ is always a curse.

Growing up i found that kids who were told they had a high IQ became obnoxious. Kids who found out they had a low IQ sort of resigned themselves to a life of stupidity.

I'm glad i was never tested, although i might have been in junior high when i decided school was way less fun than hackey sack and giant reefers. I remember being put in a room and i had to do some strange tests. I remember being creeped out by the whole experience, but nobody ever told me the results and i was never moved anywhere, which probably means i was average.

Andrew

[Greendruid]

I spend about 4 lectures in my Humankind class discussing the origins and uses of the IQ tests. They were originally designed by French anthropologist/psychologist/naturalist Alfred Binet in the late 1800s. Binet was a student of Paul Broca, one of the founding French anthropologists. Broca asserted that external cranium size would correlate with intelligence. After gathering some data and leaving out those that didn't prove his theory, he published his data. Binet attempted to expand Broca's data by collecting the same information. Binet didn't lie about what he found though and he trashed his teacher's theory.

Binet went in search of a better measure of intelligence but was never able to find one. In the meantime, he was asked by the French government (I can't remember which branch nor at what level) to design a test that would evaluate children and separate out those who were intellectually less developed for their age than their "normal" counterparts. This performance score was termed the child's "intellectual age" Those whose intellectual ages were significantly below their biological ages were termed "mentally retarded". The purpose of all of this was to be able to put children into two groups. Binet began by assessing the scores by subtracting the biological age from the intellectual age. A negative score would indicate a problem and at a certain level of significance, intervention by the school/teacher would be encouraged to help the student catch up. Binet was corrected in his methodology and a German psychologist (name escapes me) suggested that the intellectual age be divided by the biological age instead. This quotient would then be multiplied by 100 and would better represent the statistical gap in development if there was one. This is why 100 is an average score.

Unfortunately, Binet's warnings about his test, which later came to be called the intelligence quotient test, were rarely heeded. He warned that:

1) This test was designed to assess the intellectual development (not end state) of a child.
2) The scores of children of average scores and above had no bearing on each other - they could not be internally compared because the test questions weren't designed to do this.
3) The questions and answers were greatly influenced by cultural upbringings, so much so that Binet even suggested different questions be developed for children in the different regions of France and even from town to city where an urban and rural setting might represent an influence.

And so, the story continues with several American and European scientists of various stripes doing different things with this test. Most of them to the dismay of poor Binet because none of them took heed of his cautions. Binet recognised that intelligence was such a complex thing that to reify it (and I'm using my 20th century analysis here, not his 19th) into a tangible thing that can be measured, let alone boil it down to a few criteria, was a terrible mistake. It cheapens human intelligence by giving it a single score. It's about like describing a picture by saying, "It's nice".

The most horrifying misuses of the IQ test took place in the United States and Canada - or at least the examples I'm aware of. A psychologist by the name of R.M. Yerkes used a modified version of the test on new army recruits in WWI. He got a huge sample of course once all the bases started to co-operate with administering the test. It was supposed to divide the recruits into the tasks they would be best suited for. The intelligent could be kept back to operate the machinery, the not so intelligent could go to the front lines as cannon fodder. Unfortunately, this ended up dividing the army recruits along very racist lines. White naturalised Americans were the most intelligent, followed by first generation Western and Northern Europeans, followed by Southern and Eastern Europeans, followed by US Blacks. Interestingly, the White naturalised Americans on average ranked at an intellectual age of 13.08, just above moronity!

These test results then leaked into the hands of eugenicists. One in particular, Brigham, a psychology professor at Princeton University, pushed for the restriction of immigrants into the US in the 1920s. This in turn was used by Laughlin in his presentations in congress to support the Immigration Act of 1924 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924). It resulted in as many as 6 million southern, central and eastern Europeans being turned away from immigration into the US.

The amazing thing to me is that those in the US who were in favour of this eugenecist agenda ended up being pretty close to siding with the Nazis in WWII on a cultural level. What a different world it would be if they'd have gotten their way. They had an almost identical build up towards the sort of racism the Nazis were promoting in the 1920s and 1930s. Scary.

The other example is of course of the thousands of Canadians and Americans, specifically those in the state of Virginia, who were sterilised on the grounds that the American population had to be purified and that those performing poorly on an IQ test would water down the nation. This was still going on in both countries up until the 1960s on unwed mothers, prostitutes, children with behavioural problems and petty criminals.

So, at the end of this essay/rant I have to say that IQ ratings are bogus and measure nothing I'm interested in. I have seen the "intelligence" of knowing how to weave a basket and conveying this information from grandmother to grandchild without the use of language - by showing the child what to do with the child in the lap of the grandmother and the grandmother weaving the basket with her grandchild's hands in her own. This was from someone who never learned to read or write. I have heard the "intelligence" of a musician being able to hear a piece of music once and replicate it on their own instrument of choice in perfect pitch without being able to hold a meaningful conversation with other people. Intelligence is almost as amorphous as culture and I shutter to think of the lives that have been lost or irrevocably altered in the name of supposedly being able to measure it. I remain ever skeptical of the efforts by humans to claim to know themselves in this respect. I care not to live in that Brave New World. Intelligence is too big, too varied and too faceted to describe with a single number.

[Dominick]

:goodpost:

Though I would contend that whatever it is that is measured by IQ does seem to correlate with social awkwardness which is a curse. Things like Asperger syndrome appear to be more prevalent amongst those that register high IQ's.

[SMadsen]

A most excellent post from Greendruid :thumbsup: Thanks for the read.

[Michael]

I spend about 4 lectures in my Humankind class discussing the origins and uses of the IQ tests. They were originally designed by French anthropologist/psychologist/naturalist Alfred Binet in the late 1800s. Binet was a student of Paul Broca, one of the founding French anthropologists. Broca asserted that external cranium size would correlate with intelligence. After gathering some data and leaving out those that didn't prove his theory, he published his data. Binet attempted to expand Broca's data by collecting the same information. Binet didn't lie about what he found though and he trashed his teacher's theory.
I certainly agree that IQ tests are not an effective or objective measure of intelligence. Human intelligence is far too complex to be represented by a single-dimensional number.

That being said, I do find that I'm pretty damn good at guessing IQ scores for people I know well. This isn't random. I can tell who has a high IQ and who doesn't just by interacting with them. Clearly, IQ tests are measuring something (I'm not sure what it is measuring, but the results do appear to be remarkably consistent within the context of a common socio-cultural group).

And sociologists have found that 'high IQ' is an identifiable social group with statistically significant common attributes - so again, IQ clearly measures something.

Indeed, this thread was meant to demonstrate of those things. That is that most people who do have a high IQ do perceive it as a 'curse' rather than a blessing. The rate at which high IQ people experience social alienation is remarkable and notable.

So, bottom line is that I'm not ready to discard IQ scores as functionally useless. Yes, they are misleading and really don't measure what most people believe that they measure. But they do measure something and that something is definitely related to cognitive abilities and problem solving.

The other example is of course of the thousands of Canadians and Americans, specifically those in the state of Virginia, who were sterilised on the grounds that the American population had to be purified and that those performing poorly on an IQ test would water down the nation. This was still going on in both countries up until the 1960s on unwed mothers, prostitutes, children with behavioural problems and petty criminals.
The Province of Alberta is the other North American 'hotspot' for this type of public policy. I believe they only stopped in the early 1970s.

So, at the end of this essay/rant I have to say that IQ ratings are bogus and measure nothing I'm interested in.
High IQ is second only to homosexuality for suicides. High IQ also correlates rather well with high school dropouts as well. That seems to be a socially significant factoid.

I agree IQ scores ought not to be used for public education or any public policy. But that doesn't mean the test is useless.

Intelligence is too big, too varied and too faceted to describe with a single number.
Too true. Unfortunately, human intelligence is too important and too valuable to society for IQ tests to be entirely ignored.

[Sucre]

(First : very good post from Greendruid ... Very interresting and comprehensive :))

To (try to) answer the question...

I just read a book on this subject, just published recently (eminent publisher) and the title attracted me:
Trop intelligent pour être heureux (http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=7698)
Too intelligent to be happy
http://www.douance.be/douance-ahp-jeanne-siaud-facchin-adulte-surdoue.htm

I did not have the time to finish the book because I lent it to a friend of mine, whom I believe to be superiorly intelligent, but also very very unhappy ...

The psychologist who wrote the book has practical experience with children with high QI. These children usually have problems at school. They tend to be solitary, strange behaviours and ... average to bad grades. What she says is that it is not just about the kind of intelligence that IQ measures, but also about "sensibility". This produces inadapted children and adults who see things, feels things the average human being does not. And this makes them unhappy.

May I ask a question to the posters here ?

How do you see numbers ? How do you remember them ?

[Dominick]

May I ask a question to the posters here ?

How do you see numbers ? How do you remember them ?
That's a very difficult question to answer without the technical background and terminology for such things.
The closest I could come to an answer is : I don't have to think about numbers. When I see '48', I immediately also 'know' that it's 6*8, 12*4, that it's square is 2,304 and so on. Quite handy but I wouldn't call it intelligence. It's merely the nature of the wiring in the brain, literally.

Similiarly, I don't have to train or focus or anything to remember numbers. To this day I still know that a company I worked for until 1988 went bankrupt with a deficit of 15,845,617 BEF. I don't know, figures just stick while everything else drops through the sieve faster than the speed of light (which is 299,792,458 m/s BTW :angel:)

PS the first quote in your above post is incorrect as it points to 'New Reply' here at DWF. PM me the intended link and I'll fix it.

[Michael]

May I ask a question to the posters here ?

How do you see numbers ? How do you remember them ?
I see numbers as visual representations (a lot of my 'thinking' is visually based). That means when someone says "five", I literally 'see' the symbol of "5" inside my head. If you ask me what is "5 times 6", I literally see the "5" and the "6" they merge into a "30" instantly. When I "move the decimal" I literally see a little 'mouse-trail' of the decimal place moving. (weird eh?)

Though, when it comes to remembering numbers, I have no idea - they just "pop-up" and I don't 'see' the numbers. I can certainly remember all the licence plate numbers for my parents cars (including one from back when I was a little kid), plus every telephone number and area code I've lived at. I also have my 16 digit driver's license number memorized (don't know why) - and my social insurance number - and I never have to use these things - they are just numbers on plastic cards. And once I "learn" a telephone number, I remember it forever - I still remember the phone numbers of several of my grade school friends! :D

So yes, I have a pretty damn good memory for numbers. They just 'stick' in my head. Obscure numbers, any numbers. I have lots of favorite numbers (with multiple digits) based on how the numbers look sitting next to each other.

[Michael]

http://www.detronizator.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/find_x_lol.jpg



Andrew
OMG! :rofl:

That had me howling with laughter! Absolutely brilliant!

(its probably a Canadian ting eh?)


I would consider paying quite a bit for a higher I.Q.
I suspect many people would if given the chance. Not everyone, but quite a few.

I'd say that there is probably a law of diminishing returns there. A modest increase to an average score would probably be fairly beneficial to some people. Going beyond that, probably not. I doubt if any high IQ people would want more of it - unless they get into the freak-show aspect of it all. I'm not that high, but I'm way above average and I wouldn't want more of it.

As Greendruid's post suggests, a high IQ score isn't necessarily representative of higher intelligence - and intelligence itself seems to be quite independent of 'wisdom'. ;)

[Sucre]

Thank you Dominick and Michael for your answer. This is very interresting.

Can the other posters reply as well as a kind of poll ? :)

This is not a trap question and it is not an IQ question (i.e your response will not reveal whether you are closer to 150 or to 90 ...)

I'd be very interested to gather experience, then I will tell you what the psychologist writes in this book about the way the brain works in some cases and you might be surprised...

PS. Too bad I do not have this book at hand. I did not even read it until the end. I bought it at a train station in Biarritz and read it in the train until Paris where I left it at my friend. I don't think I belong to the "surdoués" she describes in the book, but quite sure my over sensitive and very intelligent friend does ... I will not be able to double check what I write but will quote by memory.

[Sucre]

That's a very difficult question to answer without the technical background and terminology for such things.
The closest I could come to an answer is : I don't have to think about numbers. When I see '48', I immediately also 'know' that it's 6*8, 12*4, that it's square is 2,304 and so on. Quite handy but I wouldn't call it intelligence. It's merely the nature of the wiring in the brain, literally.

Similiarly, I don't have to train or focus or anything to remember numbers. To this day I still know that a company I worked for until 1988 went bankrupt with a deficit of 15,845,617 BEF. I don't know, figures just stick while everything else drops through the sieve faster than the speed of light (which is 299,792,458 m/s BTW :angel:)

PS the first quote in your above post is incorrect as it points to 'New Reply' here at DWF. PM me the intended link and I'll fix it.
What about individual numbers like 1,2,3,4,5,6 .. 9 ?

[Margot]

Thank you Dominick and Michael for your answer. This is very interresting.

Can the other posters reply as well as a kind of poll ? :)

This is not a trap question and it is not an IQ question (i.e your response will not reveal whether you are closer to 150 or to 90 ...)

I'd be very interested to gather experience, then I will tell you what the psychologist writes in this book about the way the brain works in some cases and you might be surprised...

PS. Too bad I do not have this book at hand. I did not even read it until the end. I bought it at a train station in Biarritz and read it in the train until Paris where I left it at my friend. I don't think I belong to the "surdoués" she describes in the book, but quite sure my over sensitive and very intelligent friend does ... I will not be able to double check what I write but will quote by memory.

Lately I've viewed numbers on the whole as super-evil entities hell bent on destroying my life. But as a kid I used to anthropomorphize them. Odd numbers were usually male numbers, and even numbers were usually female. One was a jerk, two was secretly jealous of one, three was a disinterested loner. Needless to say I never did very well in math-- I was too busy feeling sorry for four and feeling a sort of camaraderie with twenty-three.

Unlike the other folk here I can't manage to make numbers connect to each other. six and seven are not forty-two, they're just consecutive integers.

[Sucre]

Odd numbers were usually male numbers, and even numbers were usually female. One was a jerk, two was secretly jealous of one, three was a disinterested loner. Needless to say I never did very well in math-- I was too busy feeling sorry for four and feeling a sort of camaraderie with twenty-three.

:) nice answer :)

[Michael]

Lately I've viewed numbers on the whole as super-evil entities hell bent on destroying my life. But as a kid I used to anthropomorphize them. Odd numbers were usually male numbers, and even numbers were usually female. One was a jerk, two was secretly jealous of one, three was a disinterested loner. Needless to say I never did very well in math-- I was too busy feeling sorry for four and feeling a sort of camaraderie with twenty-three.

Unlike the other folk here I can't manage to make numbers connect to each other. six and seven are not forty-two, they're just consecutive integers.
I get the feeling that you and "bug" would get along very well! :D

[Donkey]

Lately I've viewed numbers on the whole as super-evil entities hell bent on destroying my life. But as a kid I used to anthropomorphize them. Odd numbers were usually male numbers, and even numbers were usually female. One was a jerk, two was secretly jealous of one, three was a disinterested loner. Needless to say I never did very well in math-- I was too busy feeling sorry for four and feeling a sort of camaraderie with twenty-three.

Unlike the other folk here I can't manage to make numbers connect to each other. six and seven are not forty-two, they're just consecutive integers.
I also am not a hue fan of numbers. I didn't used to anthropomorphizing them, though. I still do.

Two, four, sixteen, etc. are all good in my book. Three, seven, nine are evil. Six and eighteen are sort of traitorous for being divisible by three. Twelve escapes because it is also divisible by four (or two, twice).

[wphelan]

I don't think I see numbers unless they're printed on a page. They're just words or sounds.

Long ago, my grandfather once said he saw numbers like a staircase. Or something like that. I might not be remembering correctly, but it didn't make sense to me at the time, nor does it now.

[Margot]

For what its worth, I've long asserted that "ignorance is bliss" and only the ignorant are happy. I suppose I'm biased by having a rather high IQ to begin with. For me, there is no question that high IQ is always a curse.

It's probably because I'm young and still have wide-eyed dreams of becoming the byronic hero, but I don't view having a high IQ as a curse.

True, I'm completely and utterly socially inept, but I'm not unhappy. Maybe it's because I've built myself a cocoon of bitterness and have given myself a high dose of Schadenfreude, but I could never actually want to be less smart. I like being annoyed too much.

[Donkey]

I think being extremely intelligent and analytical can make it very easy to sink into despair for humanity, the world, whatever. But I don't think it necessitates it. It can make the ugliness in the world much more visible to you, but I think if you can manage to stay hopeful or happy then it's not a problem.

I look at the world and wonder why it doesn't break my heart.

[Greendruid]

Addressing Sucre's query, I see numbers and their relationships somewhat similarly to both Michael and Dominick I think. I have a very good memory for numbers that are important to me (phone nos., important quantities, constants) but also see the relationships that they can represent. It's hard for me to say that either "ability" arose in childhood though. In other words, before becoming someone for whom numbers are a daily part of his working life, I don't know for sure that they had this kind of character to them. Spiritually, numbers are quite significant to me, especially with their relationships to what in druidry is called sacred geometry. The Fibinaci sequence, the five points of the pentagram, the four elements, the four directions, the 12 signs of the zodiac, these all have spiritual meanings to me that are quite different than the above significance that I attribute to numbers in the mundane of the everyday.

[Margot]

I see numbers as visual representations (a lot of my 'thinking' is visually based). That means when someone says "five", I literally 'see' the symbol of "5" inside my head. If you ask me what is "5 times 6", I literally see the "5" and the "6" they merge into a "30" instantly. When I "move the decimal" I literally see a little 'mouse-trail' of the decimal place moving. (weird eh?)


Just curious, but when you "see" these numbers, how do you see them? I mean, how do they look? Is it just a times new roman black five on a white background, or do you associate colors with them? I read somewhere one time someplace in a book about something that usually people who "see" numbers tend to find they associate colors to specific digits. It's a sort of super-simple synesthesia.

[Dominick]

What about individual numbers like 1,2,3,4,5,6 .. 9 ?
If I were replying to a fellow programmer I'd say they're part of the kernel.
But for humans that means uhmmm, that they are as basic as it gets. It's hard to explain but they're more fundamental than characters (a, b, c, ..).
Do I make sense ?

[Sucre]

OK, I have to give the key here... :) mfcfmetc.23 (why did you have to chose such a complicated pseudo ? ;)) unintentionally hit the nail on its head.

Again, I am giving back here the knowledge I gained by reading 2/ 3 of this book on the topic "Does intelligence make unhappy ?", written by a psychologist who has extensive experience with highly gifted children (*).

According to this psychologist, over average intelligence is not just about IQ. To know whether her client is highly gifted ("surdoué"), she has a number of tests carried out and IQ tests are only part of them. To get "diagnosed" as over average gifted, IQ will be 135 and +, besides there are a number of psychological tests to undermine the findings.

She has found out a number of things about highly gifted people. (The ones that struck me ...)

- First, they are not aware that they are above average. Most of the time, they just think they are "out of place". They are surprised when the diagnosis comes : "What me, highly gifted ? Are you jocking ?" This modesty comes from their experience in being outsiders, not really fitting in. Highly gifted children usually do not listen in class because they are bored, they are bored because they understand quicker than their classmates. Out of boredom, they start fooling around, especially little boys, and make themselves unpopular.

- Second, high gift has nothing to do with social success. High gift is to be found in all categories of the population, from the homeless to the top manager, the housewife or mother Theresa.

You do not need to be "gifted" to become a top manager, but ambitious, have connections and a high level of totesterone.

- Third, for an outside observer with average gift, let say, high intelligence is not necessarily recognisable. Highly gifted children very often have bad grades at school (which does not imply that bad grades are a sure sign of high intelligence !!!). Highly gifted adults are shy and would rather not take part in a conversation because they "see" things and express them in a way most of us do not understand ("What is he/ she heading at again ?")

This psychologist defines intelligence as a comprehensive set of abilities and "high gift" as a combination of an above average IQ (> 130) and above average sensibility.

This is where the way we see numbers comes in.

She says that, amongst other criteria, highly gifted people will see numbers in colour. This is due to the over-production of a certain substance in the brain (sorry, as said I read the book during a train drive, gave it away and do not have it at hand to check the details).

She also says that highly gifted people are not aware that this is not the "usual" way to see numbers because they are so used to it that they think everybody see numbers this way.

Quite right : When was the last time somebody asked you the way you "see" numbers ? ;)

Three days later, by one of this strange accidents of life, I read an article in the International Herald Tribune, extracted either from the NYT or the Washington Post, about strange/ marginal brain diseases and "seeing" numbers in colour was listed amongst them !

Well, this part struck me because, I, myself, do see numbers in colour. At least individual numbers. 1 is white, lightly grey, 2 is red-brownish, so will be 12, 22 or 122 but even brighter than the individual 2, 3 tends to be green, 4 as well but almost white, similar to grey 6 which tends in the blue, 7 is a bright yellow and 8 dark blue, 5 is brownish toward black, 55 for that matter will be black and all the number in the 5 table ending with 5, 5,15,25,35,45,55,65 (eventhough it is multiple of 12 which is so red !), 13 is dark green but 14 only ligth green etc.

It also never occured to me that it could be otherwise !
MFCFM23's answer here was closest to it. :)

I do not believe that I have a brain desease :angel: . However, I find this type of findings fascinating and from now on I will keep asking people around me : "By the way, how do you "see" numbers?" :D




---------------------------------------------
(* French is "surdoué" and I had to google a bit to find an appropriate translation. I am not too happy with the present translation.)

[Michael]

Just curious, but when you "see" these numbers, how do you see them? I mean, how do they look? Is it just a times new roman black five on a white background, or do you associate colors with them?
I don't see these numbers with color at all. It is a "times-roman" type of thing - but they do appear to be black against a lighter background.

(* French is "surdoué" and I had to google a bit to find an appropriate translation. I am not too happy with the present translation.)
You've used the word that is correct in context. "Gifted" is the word used in English for above average intelligence.

[Dominick]

(* French is "surdoué" and I had to google a bit to find an appropriate translation. I am not too happy with the present translation.)

You've used the word that is correct in context. "Gifted" is the word used in English for above average intelligence.
I think I understand Sucre's unease about using "gifted". It's not quite the same. Surdoué carries the connotation of 'excessively gifted' (the sur part). Thus, surdoué in itself already contains the meaning that the gift is a burden too while 'gifted' is neutral in that respect.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Sucre.

PS a literal translation would be "overendowed" but that carries other connotations :D

[Dominick]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4375977.stm
is an article with a different perspective on the meaning of seeing numbers in colour. The researchers call the condition (though not a disease :)) synaesthesia. It's an indication of a more than average cooperation between the senses, a higher level of intricacy in the neural network so to speak.
While this is understandably more common among artists as seeing things in colour might be an incentive towards an artistic lifestyle, I don't think it can be used as a measurement for intelligence in the broadest sense anymore than the classical IQ.
As Greendruid concludes in his award winning post, intelligence has many faces. Both the classical IQ and this ability are just components of the whole in my ever so humble opinion.

PS Now I wish I'd see numbers in colours though. Sounds :cool:

[Dominick]

More about synaesthesia (http://www.syn.sussex.ac.uk/). This is interesting stuff. :thumbsup:
You can even take part in the research.

[Sucre]

I think I understand Sucre's unease about using "gifted". It's not quite the same. Surdoué carries the connotation of 'excessively gifted' (the sur part). Thus, surdoué in itself already contains the meaning that the gift is a burden too while 'gifted' is neutral in that respect.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Sucre.

PS a literal translation would be "overendowed" but that carries other connotations :D
Quite correct. Gifted is actually "doué" - Surdoué is more than that. And yes, a burden.

[Sucre]

More about synaesthesia (http://www.syn.sussex.ac.uk/). This is interesting stuff. :thumbsup:
You can even take part in the research.
Great. Thank you. You found it !

[Sucre]

While this is understandably more common among artists as seeing things in colour might be an incentive towards an artistic lifestyle, I don't think it can be used as a measurement for intelligence in the broadest sense anymore than the classical IQ.
This is a misunderstanding of my post. What you have found out to be called "synaesthesia" is only one component amongst many others, including classical IQ, to determine "above average gift". With synaestesia alone but a IQ of 110, let say, you would not qualify.

According to this psychologist, these unhappy highly gifted are highly gifted in all areas. And that is their problem.

Memory is selective. I read the book very quickly and only remember the criteria which apply to me :angel:. There were not so many actually. Seeing numbers in coulour struck me because I thought it was general when it is not. An excellent memory with all details is another one, i.e I remember years after the events all the details of a scene, the tone of the voice and the light in the eye, the weather outside, cold, hot, sunny or rainy, how people were sitted around a table, whether they had their arms folded when a decision was made, what type of paper was used anf whether the font was Helvetica or an uncommon one, what we had for lunch on that day or that very special evening.

I am aware that this is uncommon because this is how I remember in which minutes from which meeting which decision was made and by whom, only using this type of "scenery" memory and I can go back as far as 15 20 years back. People think I am well organised, but I am not : I only have a very good memory.

[Sucre]

I've done some reading about Synesthesia...
http://www.hindu.com/seta/2003/09/18/stories/2003091800090200.htm

"For some people who are otherwise normal, seeing colours in things as mundane as numbers or even particular tunes is not new. For instance, these people see the number two as a particular colour, say green and number three as red. The same is the case with different tones.

This bizarre ability was known as early as in the 19th Century when Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, first noticed this in some individuals. Unfortunately these people were labelled as crazy and not much was done to medically investigate the issue.... Called Synesthesia, the abnormal ability can be explained in terms of neuro connections in the brain.

Although branded as `crazy' people, these individuals are harmless. At times they use the faulty gene and hence their abnormal condition to their advantage."

:rolleyes:

[Dominick]

Although branded as `crazy' people, these individuals are harmless. At times they use the faulty gene and hence their abnormal condition to their advantage."
That's an idiotic statement if I ever saw one. There's no such thing as faulty genes except for clear cut genetic diseases. The applied science of genetics, which is an aberration of actual genetic science, and predominantly present in commercial settings, is eerily close to Nazi ideologies.
This whole article demonstrates that moronic ideas are as prevalent today as they were in the 19th century of e.g. phrenology.

[SMadsen]

Lately I've viewed numbers on the whole as super-evil entities hell bent on destroying my life. But as a kid I used to anthropomorphize them. Odd numbers were usually male numbers, and even numbers were usually female. One was a jerk, two was secretly jealous of one, three was a disinterested loner. Needless to say I never did very well in math-- I was too busy feeling sorry for four and feeling a sort of camaraderie with twenty-three.

Unlike the other folk here I can't manage to make numbers connect to each other. six and seven are not forty-two, they're just consecutive integers.
:hatoff: Love this post!

[drgoodtrips]

"See" numbers?

That seems an odd concept to me, but I've never really given it any thought. If I do math of some kind in my head, I don't really see anything in a visual sense. Ask me to perform some kind of basic arithmetic and there is no visualization at all. If you ask me to multiply or add 3+ digit numbers in my head, what appears in my mind is series of parenthetical items, though I don't actually see any numbers. For complex concepts, I usually use scratch paper a lot, and there still is no visualization, per se. I look at it, write some things down, and then at some point, the answer just occurs to me.

Numbers are arbitrary and abstract representations. I guess letters are too. I don't think in numbers when doing math in the same way I don't think in letters or words when speaking/pondering.