I've been staring at my celing the past 30-40 minutes and I've really come to accept something. I am sixteen. I have a low-A average in grade 10 at a local public high school. My question is; why do I see myself as intelligent? And why have others said the same? (note: please, no one get me wrong, I do not want this to turn into an 'aw, tyler you're smart' thread. that is not the aim). People in school have literally told me I am the smartest person they know. I got invited to a UofT class to sit in by a student I met while playing hockey. I've been able to actually not do one piece of homework and still pull off my low A average (I have one truly intelligent teacher and he doesn't mark much on homework. Still, he noted on my report card that my homework completion record was 'Needs Improvement' - right beside my final mark, 87) all year. I mean, what the hell? People in my school work their ass off for a mid 70 and I sleep half a day and get a mid eighty? The point is, everything seems to indicate I'm intelligent. But I'm not. I understand the word intelligence even less now. I just did some reading through my past contributions at sciforums and have realized that I have posted little to nothing of any intellectual substance. And that which did have any true substance was only me regurgitating what some intelligent human being once said long ago. I see people sitting around sometimes debating one philosopher against another's work and these people seem to consider themselves intelligent. Why? All we do is spit out what someone else came up with. For the first time in a while I'm reminded of my quote which, incidentally, came at a time when had you asked me and I felt like being honest I would say I consider myself an exceptionally intelligent person. Great are not those who hold the answers, rather those who pose the questions. I am just someone who holds a couple answers. Someone who's read a little. And yet for the longest time I considered myself intelligent. What this all boils down to is the fact that I have never once said anything original. I have no remotly intelligent original ideas, and I believe that shows that I am not intelligent. The point of this is that it is time for me to step down. I believe it was chosen whom I told about lunch times when people from school would in front of me listening to me speak or debating with me. I know that for the majority of the last school year if there was a political or philosophical question floating around I would inevitably end up getting my say in it. What I've now decided is no more. Like that guy at the end of Pi; if someone asks me a philosophical or political question not about a fact but opinion, I will simply tell them "I don't know, what's your view". I'm sixteen years old and I've accepted the fact that I'm not intelligent. Maybe someone near me is, and I think the best thing I can do is let them speak and find out if they have the potential to do great things and propose new questions.
Seems to me your teacher recognises your potential and is trying to get you to work harder. AS you say, you sleep half the day. Imagine how much better you'd do if you put some effort into study. I've made that mistake.
From The Cambridge English Dictionary... intelligence (CLEVERNESS) noun the ability to understand and learn and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason an intelligence test Boxers aren't really renowned for their intelligence. Compared to monkeys, dogs have a fairly low intelligence. It's the intelligence of her writing that impresses me. Seems to me you're no thicky Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Relax, go easy on yourself. You admit you are still young, but you are able to entertain mature thought. And you have common sense I think you're doing OK.
I too made the same mistake. I was bored to death waiting for the others to catch up. Sounds to me like you need a challenge...
Standing on the shoulders of Giants syndrome eh? I disagree. Great people of our past thought around the same corners that we do today. I think opinion and insight are far more important than discovery, which we seem to respect more than anything in our elders. Philosophical bent in one person or another seems like old repetition, but I reckon its important anyway. It's nice to know what people think and how people think, not how they say it... or who gave them their ideas.
heyya Tyler assuming you are who you profess to be... you are asking a question of your self which you will learn... ... in time... i guess as most things go Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! -that the answer is mearly a question in disguise! and the ability to answer the question may result in you believing something that may not define who you might consider yourself to be Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! which in its self is not wrong in any form more so to the nature of most things..."fluid" Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! as you may learn or already know - the meaning of words are very different in the minds of most people... some deep some shalow some both some undefinable in mear text Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! directly... (on a materialistic theory of relativaty) you are more intelegent than others because you have a different view point on issues that are glossed by other people so you intravertly construct self belief to that nature... which is good as long as you can devide you evaluations from EGO, LUST,(especialy in a highly hormonal time in your life) just remember... just because other people do not go shouting about certain things-you should not assume they are less intellegent... maybe they will be the one to invent the new pen that you will use to write a new scientific principal Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! and... RE: teen age sleep paterns... IT HAS BEEN CONCLUSIVELY REPORTED that you need to sleep in in the mornings!!! because you are sleeping in the mornings in the classroom it may be giving you a greater information retension from a more biologicaly 'fit' foundation,,,(and listening in your sleep to the teachers) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! try to stay open minded one of my fav quotes is from (i think) einstien "as long as you consider a fact to be one, you no longer consider what, it may be". stay in school! go to college and dont rush into any dead end jobs!!! that will be slavery for you and your mind! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! and above all else!!! keep grooving Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Tyler What this all boils down to is the fact that I have never once said anything original. I have no remotly intelligent original ideas, and I believe that shows that I am not intelligent. It is truly a wise man who admits he knows nothing. The point of this is that it is time for me to step down. I will simply tell them "I don't know, what's your view". I'm sixteen years old and I've accepted the fact that I'm not intelligent. Balderdash !!! Poppycock !!! Are you a man or a mouse ? Damn it, if you give up using your mind by merely saying, "I don't know," then you may as well join a religion. I just did some reading through my past contributions at sciforums and have realized that I have posted little to nothing of any intellectual substance. So what ? Simply start contributing that which you'll be satisfied. Instead of posting your first thoughts, sit back and think a while, sleep on it if you must and post the next day. Original thoughts of intellectual substance may not come immediately, give it a little time. No big woop. And if I hear anymore whining about this subject from you, I'll come to Toronto and kick your lily white ass !!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, i've noticed that too -- so much of it is regurgitation. But i've also noticed that in regurgitating, people sometimes put different concepts together in new and interesting ways. What is intelligence? What is it to be intelligent? To me there are different kinds, and most people lump them together into one. I've come to call one sort "brainpower," also known as IQ. This is the ability of a person's brain to do complex computations and analysis. To some extent you can increase your brainpower, by exercising your brain in various ways. Another sort i call "innate wisdom." There's nothing that you can do to increase this -- you're born with it. This is how some children appear wiser than others even having had the same sorts of life experience. Some people have a lot of brainpower and little innate wisdom, and most people consider them dull. And then another sort i call "actualized wisdom." This is the extent of which a person has consciously actualized their innate wisdom through life experience. Those who have more innate wisdom tend to learn from their life lessons more quickly than those with less, so that people with more innate wisdom tend to manifest actualized wisdom more quickly. The greater a person's combined innate and actualized wisdom is, the vaster their inner perceptions are, and the more they can see the big picture of things, even while caught up within the drama of being human. Together, innate wisdom and actualized wisdom make up a person's natural inner depth, and is what some people call "common sense," and what most people call wisdom. Just my current view of things... "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein "There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago." - J. Robert Oppenheimer "Doubt everything at least once, even the sentence 'Two times two is four.'" - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
me but you r intelligent. unless of coures u continue 2 wish 2 beleive u arnt. i myself am a total dullard. i cant read or write, and i hav no opinion about anything except 4 what im doing right here and now, and that is thinking about what i am goin 2 eat and my chores bcos im kinda hungry and bcos i care 4 my apartment. i live 4 whatever is in front of me at the moment. my only desire is 2 never b ungrateful 4 who i am, what i have, and the ppol who care 4 me. i try not 2 hav any dealings with the so called intellects of the world who sneer at dullards like i. my only other wish is that wen I get married, other ppol will look at my wife and say “hmmm. she could hav done better than that there dullard!”
I went through some of the same things. The problem is that in school, people are taught to regurgitate what was told to us. Why do you take notes/ pay attention in school? So you can say the same stuff on an exam. One of the problems in school that i had was that I had orginal thought, and now that i think about it, would have been better regurgitating what i had been told. Schools can't test application of ideas in real life situations. Real wisdom comes from application of ideas in the real world. When i was young 10 or so... i began to "study" human thought and behavior, and i began to understande things like why people react to situations and things like that. You just need to find something that you like then begin to formulate your own ideas on subjects. You might think that you don't have your own ideas on things, but it's only because you are taught to not have your own ideas. Once you can break that wall down, you will be happpier, and will see your true wisdom!
It depends on what you mean by intelligent. Intelligence comes in many forms. Some people can flat out memorize, some people have a lot of brain power, some people are creative, and some people are wise. I believe most people are intelligent in their own ways. I don't judge someone's intelligence by the way they write or by the way they look or speak. There is not enough information. Only intelligent people would think that way Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You can work on to "appear" intelligent online if you spend a lot of time or if you write pretty or if your writings are well organized. The only thing people can see online is the way you write. In real life it is surprising how many people judge another person's intelligence by just the way they look. That is the same online. In all the sports forums which I waste most of my times on, the only way I can sort of judge one's intelligence by how many original and clever ideas they bring to the table relative to people of their age. I noticed a lot of "respected" posters never say anything new. In their analysis, they often just repeat what others have already said but just say things better and have wider range of vocabulary. I always respect knowledgable and wise people even though they might not be that intelligent.
I agree with joeman. We need more people like him that don't judge others so quickly. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
thed, "Seems to me your teacher recognises your potential and is trying to get you to work harder. AS you say, you sleep half the day. Imagine how much better you'd do if you put some effort into study." It's true, I could probably be doing much better. But I figured it's grade 10 and the marks don't really matter. wet1, "I too made the same mistake. I was bored to death waiting for the others to catch up. Sounds to me like you need a challenge..." I do. The problem is, I don't appreciate a challenge that I find. I need one to be thrust upon me. I need to have some kind of authoritative person or driving reason within myself to take a challenge seriously. So far, school has not given me many of these challenges. sublime, "Standing on the shoulders of Giants syndrome eh? I disagree. Great people of our past thought around the same corners that we do today. I think opinion and insight are far more important than discovery, which we seem to respect more than anything in our elders. Philosophical bent in one person or another seems like old repetition, but I reckon its important anyway. It's nice to know what people think and how people think, not how they say it... or who gave them their ideas" That's a good point. But I don't believe being able to spew back what others have said is true intelligence. It's knowledge. riple, "that you need to sleep in in the mornings!!! because you are sleeping in the mornings in the classroom it may be giving you a greater information retension from a more biologicaly 'fit' foundation,,,(and listening in your sleep to the teachers)" I love class. Class gives me a chance to catch up on my rest. Q, "It is truly a wise man who admits he knows nothing." The only knowledge is in knowing that you know nothing. Knowledge is not intelligence. Anyway, not important. "Are you a man or a mouse ? Damn it, if you give up using your mind by merely saying, "I don't know," then you may as well join a religion." Oh saying 'I don't know' does not mean I do not know. It just means I'll let the other people around me voice their opinions without me having to correct or interupt. Lykan, "Yes, i've noticed that too -- so much of it is regurgitation. But i've also noticed that in regurgitating, people sometimes put different concepts together in new and interesting ways" That's very true. Good point. Ender, "Why do you take notes/ pay attention in school? So you can say the same stuff on an exam. One of the problems in school that i had was that I had orginal thought, and now that i think about it, would have been better regurgitating what i had been told." Take notes? Pay Attention? Hehe. I went through a grand total of one Five Star notebook this year worth of notes. Half of them math, half of them science. And I didn't actually write them down during the year. Just when exam time came I opened up my text book and rewrote everything I wasn't 100% sure I knew. "You just need to find something that you like then begin to formulate your own ideas on subjects. You might think that you don't have your own ideas on things, but it's only because you are taught to not have your own ideas. Once you can break that wall down, you will be happpier, and will see your true wisdom!" That's it. I feel I can't accept myself until I've reached some kind of original idea. Joeman, "It depends on what you mean by intelligent. Intelligence comes in many forms. Some people can flat out memorize, some people have a lot of brain power, some people are creative, and some people are wise. I believe most people are intelligent in their own ways." Multiple Intelligences. I never really followed that. In school they taught Multiple Intelligences to us in such a way that it was perceived as 'everyone is equally smart, just in different ways'. That's complete bullsmack. There are different ways to be smart, but not everyone is equal in their intelligence.
What is so difficult to understand? Did you see how IQ tests are formulated? There are many types of intelligence. Memorization, thinking speed, information construction and deconstruction, logic, math, liguistics, multidimentional visualization...There is more but that is all I can think off. It is very likely you are weak in one of these areas. I am very good with forming mental images of different shapes and then rotate them around. Some very smart people I know cannot do it. That's why they are lawyers not engineers. If you don't have good memorization ability, you can't become doctor. You have to memorize the latin name of every bones and lymph nodes in your body. Now my point is people in life have a tendency to do things they are best at and avoid things they are not so good at. Actually our capitalist system plays a big role at that. The competition forces people to pursuit what they are best at. People who are not good at certain things eventually will be forced to do something else. People not good at hockey might find they are good at soccer. That is why what I meant by everyone is intelligent at their own way. Each intelligence category I described has a Guassian distribution. that means there are people who are smart all across the board, and there are people who are dumb all across the board as well. The average score is also Guassian. People ON AVERAGE don't have the same intelligence, but there is a very good chance each person can have above average intelligence in one or two ways. That is laws of probability. With that being said, there is always something a person can do better than YOU. That is why I don't consider someone a greater or lesser human beings based on perceived average intelligence. In forums I usually have equal respect for all posters. Everyone's opinion carries the same weight.
Agree with Joeman. I like physics very much, but my maths are not good enough, and I am not smart in the way a physicist must be. The only feild I feel I'd make interesting contributions to is philosophy. So maybe I study nursing for two years, become an RN just so I have something to fall back on, and then get my masters in philosophy. After that, who knows. Tyler: Actually, I wouldn't say you lack intelligence. More that, perhaps you lack self-insight. But you know whether you do better than I.
"Aw, Tyler, you're ever so smart!" Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But I don't see why you should worry. There are many intelligences (e.g. mechanical intelligence), and what the world classifies as "smartness" does not apply to every single person. We are all talented in our own ways. You don't have to give stunning answers to the most provocative of questions, nor do you have to feel like you should understand everything, because nobody does. No one's perfect; you shouldn't feel inadequate because amazing ideas don't fall out of the sky and hit you on the head. It takes time, and good ol' inspiration. As you said, you are young - you have tons of time. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (I think I might be going through the same thing as you, too. Embarrassingly enough, my friends call me "The Walking Dictionary". In public. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! One friend even admitted she was afraid of me at first, once I told her I had been to gifted. I hate it. It feels like they're putting you on a pedestal, and one small discrepancy will mar your image forever. Fortunately, I've been able to let them know I am human, after all. Unfortunately, I think my "hi-i'm-the-local-idiot" gag is working too well; they've forgotten that I can still feel emotions, and that I'm still sharp as a marble! (wait a minute...) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) The fact that you can doubt yourself and try to search within for an answer proves that you are intelligent. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Joeman; I understand the concept, I just think the way it's now believed is left-wing bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. 'Everyone is equally smart in different ways!' Oh yeah, and everyone's equally blonde, just in different ways. And everyone's equally athletic, just in different ways. There are different intelligences, but in school they implied we were all equally intelligent. "Well johnnie may be good in math but susie's good in science." "Um, teacher, but what if johnny gets like a 95 in math and susie gets a 80 in science and it's her best mark?" "They're just differently intelligent." "Oh I realize that. Johnny is strong in math, Susie is strong in science. But Johnny is much stronger in math than Susie is in science. So then Johnny is smarter than Susie." "No, they're differently intelligent." "But..." "Multiple Intelligences." It was shit. That kind of arguement got me kicked out of class. Xev; "Actually, I wouldn't say you lack intelligence. More that, perhaps you lack self-insight. But you know whether you do better than I." How so? I will flat out deny that I lack self insight because there is no question within myself that I feel I don't really know. However, why would you say I lack self insight? All I have decided is that I cannot consider myself actually intelligent until I have come up with some original idea. Or formulated something intelligent that was different than previous thought. Blue; "But I don't see why you should worry. There are many intelligences (e.g. mechanical intelligence), and what the world classifies as "smartness" does not apply to every single person. We are all talented in our own ways" That's something you tell a kid with a C average. I'm not stupid. It's just that I think the term intelligent is thrown around far too easily. I can grasp any idea, I can memorize and interput concepts within one hearing/seeing/reading of them. But that cannot be what intelligence is. That is just the ability to spew out what someone else has said. "You don't have to give stunning answers to the most provocative of questions, nor do you have to feel like you should understand everything, because nobody does. No one's perfect; you shouldn't feel inadequate because amazing ideas don't fall out of the sky and hit you on the head. It takes time, and good ol' inspiration. As you said, you are young - you have tons of time." I don't feel stupid, don't treat me like that's what I feel. I know I'm not a dumb person, no dumb person could get the grades I do without effort. I just am fed up with people giving the term intelligent to half the fucking population (though, not as much as I despise the 'everyone is equally smart in different ways' bullsmack). Intelligence is original ideas. Intelligence is the ability to make incredibly complex concepts and ideas into a simple, easy to understand example. (for all you people who think Steven Hawking is an idiot - he makes very complex things seem very simple. talk to people who know absolutely nothing about science, hand them A Brief History and they'll have a basic grasp of many things. why? because he explains things in simple terms - and yes, this does limit what he can say). "I think I might be going through the same thing as you, too. Embarrassingly enough, my friends call me "The Walking Dictionary". In public. One friend even admitted she was afraid of me at first, once I told her I had been to gifted. I hate it." Have to be gifted? Didn't everyone have to be tested at your school? "The fact that you can doubt yourself and try to search within for an answer proves that you are intelligent" No it doesn't. How does it do that? It just proves that I've read enough to know how to search within myself. And I don't doubt myself. I just can't accept any label of intelligent given to me until I've done something intelligent.
Err..I don't follow. Do you mean the Literacy Test? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And you didn't have to be gifted, I just dropped out so I could go to Haig. I'm sorry. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I didn't mean it that way, I thought you were a little sad, so I thought it might cheer you up. I guess it didn't work. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"Err..I don't follow. Do you mean the Literacy Test? And you didn't have to be gifted, I just dropped out so I could go to Haig." In grade 5 in my school we all had to be tested. Then in grade 7 I was made to take a test again because I opted to go to not go to gifted school in grade 6 and my junior high wanted me to be in their gifted program. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way, I thought you were a little sad, so I thought it might cheer you up. I guess it didn't work." Don't worry, I chose the wrong words there. I said that much too harshly and I apologize.
