11 ms·

Long, long ago, I came to the conclusion that intelligence was inversely related to sanity. Not a scientific observation, just that people who I knew who were v

Long, long ago, I came to the conclusion that intelligence was inversely related to sanity. Not a scientific observation, just that people who I knew who were very smart also tended to have difficulties in more ways than the people I knew who had typical intelligence. Typical issues were depression, insecurity, difficulty relating or communicating with others, ... Certainly you can find people with these issues in all groups who have these attributes, and certainly there were many very intelligent persons who had their shit together, but issues seemed to be more common among the very intelligent persons.

rory 6y ago
Very-low-intelligence people also have high rates of psychological disorder as well though. Perhaps brains that are atypical in their intelligence also tend to be atypical in other ways.
- toolz 6y ago
  my ignorant hypothesis is that being too far from average decreases your chances of having a healthy social life and being highly social would be the underlying factor in predicting health both physically and mentally.
  - smeej 6y ago
    Agreed. If you live in a world that is designed mostly for and by people who are unlike you in some significant way, it's hard not to feel like an outsider. And if feeling like an outsider is classified as a type of poor mental health or anxiety, well...
    - MaximumYComb 6y ago
      I feel that the best thing someone with a really IQ can do is enter into a work culture where their IQ is going to be kind of average. Their work peer group will overlap their social peer group and they'll have a sense of belonging. If you have a really high IQ child then get them into schools/clubs where they are more normal.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure "psychological disorders" map a lot more to being abnormal than smart specifically. It's really hard to cope when you aren't getting that social hit that comes from belongingness.
amelius 6y ago
Too much thinking is unhealthy. The brain's main purpose is to be idle as much as possible. Perhaps your intelligent friends would do better if they meditated regularly.
- tux3 6y ago
  And how much thinking led you to this conclusion, exactly? ;)
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  In case people were looking for research like I was, here's one study that seems to support this: https://www.wtsp.com/article/tech/science/harvard-study-thinking-too-much-die-sooner/67-083211b0-6cec-44c8-9d04-d6f36547780b https://www.wtsp.com/article/tech/science/harvard-study-thin...
- andreygrehov 6y ago
  Downvoting without thinking is also not healthy, because @amelius is right. In fact, there are quite a few HN submissions discussing the side affects of too much thinking.
- smeej 6y ago
  It really seems to matter how you define "purpose."
giantg2 6y ago
Sounds like you're describing me... except I lack the intelligence
- sound1 6y ago
  Well now you are describing me :-)
carabiner 6y ago
Meanwhile, we see significantly less depression in higher levels of educational attainment: https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Weighted_prevalence_of_probable_depression_by_race_ethnicity_and_educational_attainment_in_U_S_adults_N_26_382_/13045089/1 https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Weighted_prevalence_of_...
- HPsquared 6y ago
  Someone who has high IQ and depressed, may still perform poorly at school. This can also be a vicious cycle. High IQ alone isn't sufficient for educational attainment, it's not even particularly necessary in most fields: for most people education is a matter of hard work and rote learning.
  - carabiner 6y ago
    Of course. Gifted students are sometimes failed by schools. But I think it's safe bet that a random large group of college grads will have a higher average IQ than adults who only finished high school. Don't you?
    - HPsquared 6y ago
      Taking the average, that's probably true. It's open for debate though, whether the effect of depression (and other mental disorders) could have just as much influence as IQ when it comes to educational attainment. Both factors can play their own part (though they may be correlated with each other as well)
      - carabiner 6y ago
        Have you heard of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis? The idea that being really smart comes with major pitfalls most of the time is part of it IMO. I love the idea of the tortured genius, and really enjoyed Good Will Hunting. But by every study out there, having high IQ almost always leads to a better life across the board (relationships, physical health, mental health, money). There are exceptions, but some people are just smarter and that pays off in many ways. It's not fair, but neither is life.
seph-reed 6y ago
I spent years thinking this was hell and people were actively trying to fuck with me because I could not understand peoples ability to be ignorant... it literally was not possible in mind to be so oblivious. I've since realized that "herd mentality" is a totally functional survival mechanism, and as long as you don't think logically the other parts of the brain have no problem accepting that culture isn't just some made up game of pretend, or that popularity is a reasonable judgement of correctness. I've met many another unique thinker who couldn't understand how so many people could be so blind to things right in front of their face. And it drives them a little bit crazy too.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  People mostly get by on heuristics.
  - robocat 6y ago
    Very smart people use “heuristics”. They will do something, tell you it was obvious, not be able to rationally explain why they are right, and turn out to be 100% correct. It is a pattern I have seen in some very smart people I know that appear illogical on their surface.
- astrange 6y ago
  "Not being ignorant" requires studying a lot, which might be caused by relative inability to go out and play sports, or a condition like hyperlexia, or ADHD-type hyperfocus on refreshing HN. Plus it's not always beneficial. For instance people like to heavily research before they vote in major elections but it's not like that's worth the effort.
- robocat 6y ago
  It is also very intelligent to understand that “logical” thinking is not an optimal solution for many needs. Seriously: watch for smart “illogical” people and be prepared to have your mind blown by just how smart some people are at something you are likely subpar at (your comment fits a stereotype of mine).
elwell 6y ago
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." - Ecclesiastes 1:18
madaxe_again 6y ago
I think the article points at the correct root cause of most of this - “overthinking”. It isn’t just the overanalysis of day to day occurrences, the worrying about tangibles and the ratifying possibilities of every decision, the playing out of realistic hypotheticals - there are vast categories of intangibles to mull over which will really get you down if you consider them deeply enough. Most hyper-intelligent people I know are more or less consumed by existential dread. Some cope better than others - and that’s usually environmental. I found building a business ultimately unfulfilling, as no matter what success we found, it all just felt like so much artifice, sand castles in a playpit - and in the meantime I’d worry about the collapse of civilisation (my god, it’s a razor’s edge we blunder blithely along), the insignificance of all human existence in an immense and dispassionate universe, whether anything is even real, anyway, and then, what does real even mean. Down the miserable fucking rabbit hole you go. A change of scene was good. I dig holes, build things, cut and plant trees, sow seeds, and while the dread is still most definitely there, it’s bearable with a more direct connection to the here and now, the simplicity and challenges of the changing seasons, of just surviving in nature. Oh, and appreciating just how little control I actually have over my environment - my decisions don’t mean shit more often than not, as nature usually has other ideas, and a coin toss is just as good. Which makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn’t intelligence itself, but what the intelligent choose to do with it - typically some highly abstracted field, where it’s easy to feel disconnected from everything, and where the decisions to be made are complex and deeply interconnected in their inputs and outputs. It’d be interesting to slice the Mensa survey by profession. It might be stronger than the IQ correlation.
bena 6y ago
You ever have to watch someone struggle with something you know how to do extremely well? Like watching someone take 5 seconds per keystroke because they have to hunt and peck on the keyboard while slowly and deliberately sounding out the letters they're typing? You know that feeling of wanting to just push them out of the way because you could get whatever completely done by the time they finish the next step in the process? You ever felt like grabbing someone's face and just point blank ask them why they don't "get it"? Because it's the simplest thing in the world to you? Now imagine your entire life was that. Of essentially having to wait for people to catch up to where you were. Couple that with the nagging thought in the back of your mind that you could be the one that's wrong because so many people are on the other side of the issue. What do they see that you don't? And then when they finally do catch up, treat it like it was the most obvious thing ever. I can see how that would wear on people. How that would make them depressed, how they would be difficult to relate to, how it would be difficult to communicate with them. Sometimes I feel saying that intelligent people have difficulties relating to people or communicating with others is akin to saying it's difficult to run as fast as Usain Bolt. It's like "No shit, but it's not a problem on Bolt's end".
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
  Yes, and they wind up working alone because they don't have the patience to explain to people who take too long to understand what they are trying to do. That behavior gets interpreted as self-centeredness and lack of team spirit, leading to loneliness and a more or less self-imposed banishment.
- float4 6y ago
  > Now imagine your entire life was that. No, because you should shape your life differently in that case. The people I know who were both intelligent and depressed dramatically improved their life by doing less thinking. Exercise, play a musical instrument, explore nature, help people in need, go after that girl/guy you like. But no. Instead, those aforementioned people spent the majority of their time doing stuff that require intelligence: solving hard problems, debating others "for fun", philosophising. And then, at the end of the day, they felt sorry for themselves because they were oh so intelligent. Luckily they fixed their issues, and I'm convinced that most people who fall in this category can do the same.
FabHK 6y ago
> intelligence was inversely related to sanity That stands to reason, if we assume that evolution arrives at largely efficient (specifically locally optimal) solutions: any trait that comes in handy would be selected for until its negative consequences (on average) just compensate any further increase. This would predict that higher intelligence is correlated with something detrimental, whether it be insanity or something else. EDIT: Someone said it much better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573055
nullsense 6y ago
Same here. It became somewhat obvious after learning to think about the world in terms of distributions. Most everything at the top and bottom ends of the distributions are problematic in some way. IQ seems no exception.

rory 6y ago

Very-low-intelligence people also have high rates of psychological disorder as well though. Perhaps brains that are atypical in their intelligence also tend to be atypical in other ways.

toolz 6y ago
my ignorant hypothesis is that being too far from average decreases your chances of having a healthy social life and being highly social would be the underlying factor in predicting health both physically and mentally.
- smeej 6y ago
  Agreed. If you live in a world that is designed mostly for and by people who are unlike you in some significant way, it's hard not to feel like an outsider. And if feeling like an outsider is classified as a type of poor mental health or anxiety, well...
  - MaximumYComb 6y ago
    I feel that the best thing someone with a really IQ can do is enter into a work culture where their IQ is going to be kind of average. Their work peer group will overlap their social peer group and they'll have a sense of belonging. If you have a really high IQ child then get them into schools/clubs where they are more normal.
seph-reed 6y ago
I'm pretty sure "psychological disorders" map a lot more to being abnormal than smart specifically. It's really hard to cope when you aren't getting that social hit that comes from belongingness.

amelius 6y ago

Too much thinking is unhealthy. The brain's main purpose is to be idle as much as possible. Perhaps your intelligent friends would do better if they meditated regularly.

tux3 6y ago
And how much thinking led you to this conclusion, exactly? ;)
themacguffinman 6y ago
In case people were looking for research like I was, here's one study that seems to support this: https://www.wtsp.com/article/tech/science/harvard-study-thinking-too-much-die-sooner/67-083211b0-6cec-44c8-9d04-d6f36547780b https://www.wtsp.com/article/tech/science/harvard-study-thin...
andreygrehov 6y ago
Downvoting without thinking is also not healthy, because @amelius is right. In fact, there are quite a few HN submissions discussing the side affects of too much thinking.
smeej 6y ago
It really seems to matter how you define "purpose."

giantg2 6y ago

Sounds like you're describing me... except I lack the intelligence

sound1 6y ago
Well now you are describing me :-)

carabiner 6y ago

Meanwhile, we see significantly less depression in higher levels of educational attainment: https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Weighted_prevalence_of_probable_depression_by_race_ethnicity_and_educational_attainment_in_U_S_adults_N_26_382_/13045089/1 https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Weighted_prevalence_of_...

HPsquared 6y ago
Someone who has high IQ and depressed, may still perform poorly at school. This can also be a vicious cycle. High IQ alone isn't sufficient for educational attainment, it's not even particularly necessary in most fields: for most people education is a matter of hard work and rote learning.
- carabiner 6y ago
  Of course. Gifted students are sometimes failed by schools. But I think it's safe bet that a random large group of college grads will have a higher average IQ than adults who only finished high school. Don't you?
  - HPsquared 6y ago
    Taking the average, that's probably true. It's open for debate though, whether the effect of depression (and other mental disorders) could have just as much influence as IQ when it comes to educational attainment. Both factors can play their own part (though they may be correlated with each other as well)
    - carabiner 6y ago
      Have you heard of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis? The idea that being really smart comes with major pitfalls most of the time is part of it IMO. I love the idea of the tortured genius, and really enjoyed Good Will Hunting. But by every study out there, having high IQ almost always leads to a better life across the board (relationships, physical health, mental health, money). There are exceptions, but some people are just smarter and that pays off in many ways. It's not fair, but neither is life.

seph-reed 6y ago

I spent years thinking this was hell and people were actively trying to fuck with me because I could not understand peoples ability to be ignorant... it literally was not possible in mind to be so oblivious. I've since realized that "herd mentality" is a totally functional survival mechanism, and as long as you don't think logically the other parts of the brain have no problem accepting that culture isn't just some made up game of pretend, or that popularity is a reasonable judgement of correctness. I've met many another unique thinker who couldn't understand how so many people could be so blind to things right in front of their face. And it drives them a little bit crazy too.

HPsquared 6y ago
People mostly get by on heuristics.
- robocat 6y ago
  Very smart people use “heuristics”. They will do something, tell you it was obvious, not be able to rationally explain why they are right, and turn out to be 100% correct. It is a pattern I have seen in some very smart people I know that appear illogical on their surface.
astrange 6y ago
"Not being ignorant" requires studying a lot, which might be caused by relative inability to go out and play sports, or a condition like hyperlexia, or ADHD-type hyperfocus on refreshing HN. Plus it's not always beneficial. For instance people like to heavily research before they vote in major elections but it's not like that's worth the effort.
robocat 6y ago
It is also very intelligent to understand that “logical” thinking is not an optimal solution for many needs. Seriously: watch for smart “illogical” people and be prepared to have your mind blown by just how smart some people are at something you are likely subpar at (your comment fits a stereotype of mine).

elwell 6y ago

"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." - Ecclesiastes 1:18

madaxe_again 6y ago

I think the article points at the correct root cause of most of this - “overthinking”. It isn’t just the overanalysis of day to day occurrences, the worrying about tangibles and the ratifying possibilities of every decision, the playing out of realistic hypotheticals - there are vast categories of intangibles to mull over which will really get you down if you consider them deeply enough. Most hyper-intelligent people I know are more or less consumed by existential dread. Some cope better than others - and that’s usually environmental. I found building a business ultimately unfulfilling, as no matter what success we found, it all just felt like so much artifice, sand castles in a playpit - and in the meantime I’d worry about the collapse of civilisation (my god, it’s a razor’s edge we blunder blithely along), the insignificance of all human existence in an immense and dispassionate universe, whether anything is even real, anyway, and then, what does real even mean. Down the miserable fucking rabbit hole you go. A change of scene was good. I dig holes, build things, cut and plant trees, sow seeds, and while the dread is still most definitely there, it’s bearable with a more direct connection to the here and now, the simplicity and challenges of the changing seasons, of just surviving in nature. Oh, and appreciating just how little control I actually have over my environment - my decisions don’t mean shit more often than not, as nature usually has other ideas, and a coin toss is just as good. Which makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn’t intelligence itself, but what the intelligent choose to do with it - typically some highly abstracted field, where it’s easy to feel disconnected from everything, and where the decisions to be made are complex and deeply interconnected in their inputs and outputs. It’d be interesting to slice the Mensa survey by profession. It might be stronger than the IQ correlation.

bena 6y ago

You ever have to watch someone struggle with something you know how to do extremely well? Like watching someone take 5 seconds per keystroke because they have to hunt and peck on the keyboard while slowly and deliberately sounding out the letters they're typing? You know that feeling of wanting to just push them out of the way because you could get whatever completely done by the time they finish the next step in the process? You ever felt like grabbing someone's face and just point blank ask them why they don't "get it"? Because it's the simplest thing in the world to you? Now imagine your entire life was that. Of essentially having to wait for people to catch up to where you were. Couple that with the nagging thought in the back of your mind that you could be the one that's wrong because so many people are on the other side of the issue. What do they see that you don't? And then when they finally do catch up, treat it like it was the most obvious thing ever. I can see how that would wear on people. How that would make them depressed, how they would be difficult to relate to, how it would be difficult to communicate with them. Sometimes I feel saying that intelligent people have difficulties relating to people or communicating with others is akin to saying it's difficult to run as fast as Usain Bolt. It's like "No shit, but it's not a problem on Bolt's end".

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Yes, and they wind up working alone because they don't have the patience to explain to people who take too long to understand what they are trying to do. That behavior gets interpreted as self-centeredness and lack of team spirit, leading to loneliness and a more or less self-imposed banishment.
float4 6y ago
> Now imagine your entire life was that. No, because you should shape your life differently in that case. The people I know who were both intelligent and depressed dramatically improved their life by doing less thinking. Exercise, play a musical instrument, explore nature, help people in need, go after that girl/guy you like. But no. Instead, those aforementioned people spent the majority of their time doing stuff that require intelligence: solving hard problems, debating others "for fun", philosophising. And then, at the end of the day, they felt sorry for themselves because they were oh so intelligent. Luckily they fixed their issues, and I'm convinced that most people who fall in this category can do the same.

FabHK 6y ago

> intelligence was inversely related to sanity That stands to reason, if we assume that evolution arrives at largely efficient (specifically locally optimal) solutions: any trait that comes in handy would be selected for until its negative consequences (on average) just compensate any further increase. This would predict that higher intelligence is correlated with something detrimental, whether it be insanity or something else. EDIT: Someone said it much better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26573055

nullsense 6y ago

Same here. It became somewhat obvious after learning to think about the world in terms of distributions. Most everything at the top and bottom ends of the distributions are problematic in some way. IQ seems no exception.