How stoned are you?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

last time I took it on facebook 140, that's why I like facebook lol

That explains a lot....

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by chalsall

That explains a lot....

yeah well I redid an iq test from a while back and just got told I was near 140 as well and no not facebook.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

yeah well I redid an iq test from a while back and just got told I was near 140 as well and no not facebook.

Still explains a lot.

Here's a hint. The appropriate use of capital letters goes a long way when you submit a résumé....

[kracker]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Still explains a lot.

Here's a hint. The appropriate use of capital letters goes a long way when you submit a résumé....

Yes, I know what you mean.. (ha-ha).
Also, don't be stoned....

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by chalsall

What's your IQ?

Whatever it is that IQ tests actually measure, it seems to be independent of someone's ability to express their ideas in a way which other people will understand.

I can well believe that science_man_88 has an IQ of 140. I have on occasion engaged him in conversation in PMs, and it's been clear to me that his thinking is way ahead of what he's actually managed to convey in words or mathematical symbols.

[LaurV]

Solving IQ tests is a matter of experience.

I can score 160-180 and over in the most (culture free, and language trap free, i.e. don't ask me when some American president was born, or what Shakespeare wants to say with that or that phrase) IQ tests. This has nothing to do with my intelligence, but it is related to experience. After taking few thousands of IQ tests, they start repeating themselves. Not in words, but in thinking. You know what kind of answer the test-designers expect from you, and where you don't know, you have a high chance to guess. What is left are numerical puzzles, where you can't answer yes/no or pick from a (short) list, but with numbers I was always good. So I can easily score high. Far away from me the thinking that I am such an intelligent guy. I am just an experienced one. I still have this passion of solving "intelligent" puzzles, and this helps in time, by accumulating the experience I was talking about. When I see an IQ test, I not only know the answers, but I also guess (mostly right) what type of questions will come. Because I saw so many tests like that in the past. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

I scored 18 questions right (from 25) in Haselbauer-Dickheiser test, after only a month or two of crunching them (that is IQ of 190 or so). Only one guy in the world was able to get 23 answers right, and there is one problem which was never solved by anybody (as they claim, the one with the small encryption). The best puzzle which I consider that I ever solved in my life is the problem #2 in that test (the one with triangles inside of circles, etc). It took me few days to figure out the last "equation" (in the chronological order of solving, not in the order they are written). I could not answer right to any of the problems with moving balls - it seems like I am missing that part of "dynamical (!?) spatial (?!) intelligence. For some of the problems which I solved, I really gave stupid (but right!) solutions, "math geek" style, for example the one with colored squares (I think it was #22), it took me half a day to make (and solve) the system of equations, and weeks later I found out randomly that I could add the columns and lines and compare, and get the result in 20 seconds, no matter how a color multiplies the number in a cell, the same multiplies is used vertically and horizontally. The test is designed for "intelligent people", not for "math geeks", you should be able to solve it without high-level of math knowledge. Elementary math should be more then enough. Well, for some other problems, like the one with cannon balls, knowing power series helps a bit .

And as we speak about, from the problems I could not solve, there is the one (last one on the test) with the furbles, I would really like to know the answer, and the explanations to it! It still bothers me after 6 years! I solved in few different ways during the times when the test was in vogue, but all my answers proved to be wrong when I reported them.

Talking about IQ tests, generally, it is extremely difficult to design a good IQ test. How do you exactly define "intelligence"? Do you include adaptability? Knowledges? Surviving skills?

A good test should be knowledge-free. Culture free, too. If I design a test and ask culture-connected questions (Romanian history, huh?) some people will automatically start with a handicap. The test has to be math-free too. If I am asking about integrals and number theory, well... a very intelligent guy which is not very educated in math would not stand a chance against a math-library-rat (a literal translation of the French expression "rat de bibliothèque", which would be much more appropriately transcribed as "bookworm").

The best IQ test I ever meet is - guess what ! - the Sudoku game. It can be played not only with numbers, but with colored balls, geometrical forms, whatever. Its difficulty does not stays in knowing history, English, geography, chemistry or math. Even my daughter when she was 5, could solve simple Sudoku problems (with numbers! figures! which she barely knew their meanings, but remembered the form of the strokes). Also, the game can be from the very simple, to very complicate. The disadvantage is that such "test" targets a special type of intelligence, completely ignoring the other types (see my comment above about moving balls in H-D test).

Other could argue that combinatorial capacity is not intelligence. I knew a guy who worked like a plumber and he was really stupid (no pun intended, he could do nothing beside of his job, he was always poor, because he was too honest, and many times worked for free, he could not read or write, and had trouble adding and subtracting) but he could play very good chess games (he occasionally beat me) because he had a very good combinatorial skill, he had no idea about chess openings or whatever, and could not easily remember games played in the past, but as he told me, he was literary analyzing millions of combinations in his head, like a computer. They were "just there". Is this intelligence? and if so, what kind?

I could talk eons about this subject. Unfortunately I have to work today!

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by LaurV

...

http://www.highiqsociety.org/
http://www.iq-test.com/

What does everyone think? (And perhaps this should be moved to a different thread.)

http://www.iqtest.dk/main.swf -- I found this years ago but never actually did it. It's timed at 40 minutes.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

http://www.highiqsociety.org/

I know that. They are the same guys (Haselbauer and Dickheiser established that society, and the web page. In fact, the thing which made them famous was the test I was talking about. Years ago they got big press coverage with "the test to find the most intelligent person on the planet", that was the point when the "society" started to rise, they were completely anonymous before, and they continue to be anonymous now since they took the test down from the web. Their actual "motor" for testing is crap. I tried to become member in the past, they wanted money. Not much but I don't like the idea to pay even a dime to be member of such group. What for? Asking for money makes the things look commercial, and one can get the idea that everybody can became member if he pays the right amount of money (which in fact, may be true!). I am the same guy with or without paying membership to them.

[ewmayer]

There was a thread a few years back about the unbearable stupidity of IQ tests.

[retina]

.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

Our best (out and back) solo century we averaged 18MPH. And the terrain had a lot of hills. We love hills for so many reasons.

Depending upon how you rounded things that could be between 5h 24m and 5h 43m, which is a good effort regardless of the exact value. But two questions come to mind. How many vertical feet and what was the temperature?

I attempted to a century a few days ago and had to bail out after 4h 20m. I've done centuries before and never had a problem with hills and never had to quit before, but this particular ride was really hard. This is the first time I have ridden in a country where the daily temperature regularly climbs above 40C. I thought with the air cooling I would get at ~30km/h I would be fine but apparently not so.

Once the temperature was above 40C I was really feeling how hard it is to ride. My heart rate was up 20bpm more than usual and I just couldn't get the rhythm going. So after 4.5 hours and 44C in the shade^[1] I hit a virtual wall, had no energy and had to quit after 125km horizontal and 800m vertical.

I also lost 3kg that day (which I assume was just water loss) even though I was drinking copious amounts of fluid throughout. Had a minor headache that evening so I think it was a mild case of heat stress. I didn't previously realise how much of a difference the temperature can make.

Vertically speaking I've done centuries with 3000m+ vertical and found that quite draining. Those extra climbs affect the overall time quite a lot. But generally when vertically it is 1000m or less then 6 hours is doable quite comfortably.

^[1]My on-bike odometer showed over 50C out in the sun on the road. I don't know if that is correct, but it certainly did feel like it was hotter than hell. I think next time I will have to go out at night, but I'll have to get some good lights for this hire bike and that might not be so easy to find around here.