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> The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was tormented by the thought that he was “merely clever” and criticized himself and others for valuing cleverness over gen

> The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was tormented by the thought that he was “merely clever” and criticized himself and others for valuing cleverness over genuine wisdom. This torments me too. Growing up I was top of my class/district (same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component), but then when I started working with other smart people I realized that only gets you so far. To make wise decisions, you need to have the proper mindstate to make genuine "human" decisions, rather than using just your intelligence. In fact, if you're smart enough, you can "logically" prove wrong things to yourself like "this is impossible". Wisdom is knowing that whenever you say that, you have made a mistake in your logic at some point. It's very hard to teach people to start thinking like this. The junior engineers who can think on their feet are usually mentored better since that's the part you can't teach.. The tormenting part is this: the same can be said of most other areas of life. I've seen so many genuinely smart people completely mess up personal areas of their life by refusing to think, or do things differently. Despite having a strong apparatus for thinking, they don't "wake up" and use it, they just form all kinds of delusions that they can prove to themselves using their strong proving abilities. Despite being wise in some areas, this wisdom doesn't extend to the others. I think this is why depression rates are higher in more intelligent people. There's a better ability to comprehend and change your life, but that usually doesn't translate to the willpower and wisdom needed to do so. Those are separate things one has to have/train. An inbalance in the two causes great upset/lost potential.

jason-phillips 4y ago
> To make wise decisions, you need to have the proper mindstate to make genuine "human" decisions, rather than using just your intelligence. I recognize this as empathy. It is something of a superpower when used to its full potential.
- nwienert 4y ago
  It’s more than that. I’d argue there are “IQs” for culture (what’s the best outcome in a meta sense), power (what words/actions lead to maintaining dominance), social (how does everyone likely feel and react to what I say, related to power) and many more. So undervalued by many.
tonnydourado 4y ago
> same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component Does it? Could be as much a product of a privileged upbringing and generational welth reproducing themselves. Do you have an adopted sibling you grew up with, that had the same environments and opportunities, but turned out to be a moron? As a control group, you know. I find odd how people are so quick to jump to genetics to explain a thing so complex as a human being inside a society. There's SO many forces acting on it at all times, picking genes over all the others feels like an oversimplification.
- dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  I said suggests, not proves. It can't prove anything, it's just one data point. It does seem very unlikely for a dozen people to score so well academically if genetics wasn't a factor at all, or? Why didn't other, richer people score higher than any of them? And why did they marry other intelligent people? > privileged upbringing and generational welth reproducing themselves I come from an ex Soviet satellite state, I don't think your assumptions of what my parents/grandparents' life was like is accurate. I had a more privileged upbringing, but that doesn't explain 2 generations away.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    > (same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component) I am not at all put off by genetic explanations (go genes!), but it does equally suggest environment and upbringing as a common element, it's a series of poster children for it.
    - dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
      I concede you have a point there. My opinions are colored by my experiences. As a personal story that I will share since it also has value as an experiment: I did not see my father between the ages of 0-3 and 7-19. That means he was not there for a large part of my developmental phase, in which I formed a lot of my viewpoints on the world (at the time, obviously). What astounded me was that when I met him, he shared a lot of those viewpoints. A lot of my behaviour that I thought was specific to me, was not. Even small things like preference for walking etc. I will not list everything obviously but it really ingrained in me that a lot of what I considered "my identity" was not chosen in any way by me. We grew up in rather different environments/countries too. I think most humans would rather not face the fact that their identity is scarcely chosen. But learning to accept that means you can experience a lot more, since your ego doesn't mind losing parts that aren't "really part of it" anyway. Or at least it's less scary.
agumonkey 4y ago
Interesting bit about limits, I'm in a similar boat. But beside the social aspect of reaching groups of stronger people, something that changed is that my brain used to grok everything out of the blue, and one day.. it didn't.[0] It's not that things became harder but as if a big wall of confusion appeared, while other were still seeing clearly (or so it seems to my panicked eyes). During the years I managed to climb stairs I couldn't before, so it's not a matter of being able to grok things, but what became out of phase with college level content in my brain that killed any speed. [0] for instance, I was top of my class not by choice but merely because I enjoyed reading all the things all the time because it was so natural, so pleasurable. That pleasure is far away most of the time now. The emotional / personal aspect of abuse of "thinking" is also interesting.
- parthianshotgun 4y ago
  Any idea why that happened? Did you fall down or something?
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    No, nothing physical or traumatic. The 'one day' was a figure of speech, it was the post high-school -> college transition. I became too lazy before, college through a lot more stuff at once, and it was more about very abstract principles rather than usual objects. You don't use a function, you imagine all functions on highly dimensional spaces .. also psychologically I wasn't used being behind the pack, stress and negative emotion will make you trip faster. There's also something about how college material is presented maybe, it's a bit obfuscated behind notations. Or maybe that's just me not being in sync with high level thinking anymore. As a kid I loved all weird notations without feeling lost.
- lukas099 4y ago
  I can totally relate with everything being interesting, and then not. School went from easy to horrifying.
SubiculumCode 4y ago
"Growing up I was top of my class/district (same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component). No it doesn't. It implicates an inheritable component, just not necessarily a genetic one. Education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc.
- eastbound 4y ago
  > Education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc. Wow, would you think it’s possible that there is a correlation between intelligent people and groups which create education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc.?
szundi 4y ago
Not only genes, but certain memes can be inherited also without any DNA.
citizenpaul 4y ago
>genuinely smart people completely mess up personal areas of their life by refusing to think This really reminds me of some guy I used to work with. He would spew random madness like people don't really need to eat because alive is an arbitrary state. I really have no idea how he functioned outside of his CS job. He was also annoying at work because I would say things like the customer needs this then he would retort with some more madness like "well if you think about it blah blah the customer doesn't really matter." An I would just have to be like "ok thats great just get your feature assignments done on time". through gritted teeth. He did always get his work done.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  The pedant is like a man living zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. You'll never get anywhere pedantically deconstructing things with no bounds.
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    Yeah I always said he is either going to be dead in a dariwin award level situation or destroy the world. He currently works at Northrop Grumman so not looking good for us.
jmcgough 4y ago
Ironic that there's several assumptions around things you've tried to logic out without looking at research. >I think this is why depression rates are higher in more intelligent people. There's a better ability to comprehend and change your life, but that usually doesn't translate to the willpower and wisdom needed to do so. Other possibilities: - intelligent people have a history of being bullied and develop anxiety/depression from that - they struggle with impossibly high expectations placed on them - genes associated with intelligence increase risk of mental illness - they rely too much on their intellect at an early age and fail to develop other important skills - intelligent people may be more arrogant and have difficulty maintaining friendships - a higher correlation of neurodivergence and the difficulties of living in a world not designed for them
- dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  > Ironic that there's several assumptions around things you've tried to logic out without looking at research. Yes, exactly! I'm aware of it and can't stop doing it. You do it too I bet. It's a very annoying flaw in the human psyche. edit: to be clear, you can stop. It requires some energy to open up your mind though, so you can't do it forever or you'll burn out, at least in my experience.
- janeerie 4y ago
  The other alternative is that this is not actually true. I’m having trouble finding any evidence that intelligence is correlated with depression.
  - ReactiveJelly 4y ago
    Maybe it's sampling bias, then. Intelligent people are more likely to realize they're depressed, go online, talk about depression, and meet other intelligent people who are also depressed?
ip26 4y ago
they just form all kinds of delusions that they can prove to themselves Perhaps this is another manifestation of the fear of failure that prevents some smart people from taking chances. E.g., admitting they were wrong and the normies were right would mean they aren’t smart after all, so they entrench and apply every brain cell to convincing themselves they are right, to the point of delusion.
rafaelero 4y ago
> I think this is why depression rates are higher in more intelligent people. It's not. Intelligence is negatively correlated to both anxiety and depression.
- lostNFound 4y ago
  >Genetic loci shared between major depression and intelligence with mixed directions of effect[0] >Although intelligence conferred no consistent independent effects on depression, it did increase the risk for depression across samples once neuroticism was adjusted for.[1] >Those with high IQ had higher risk for psychological disorders (RR 1.20 - 223.08). High IQ was associated with higher risk for physiological diseases (RR 1.84 - 4.33).[2] [0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01031-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01031-2 [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486156/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486156/ [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324# https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...! [3]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-highly-intelligent/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-...
  - lukas099 4y ago
    I guess one way to look at this is that it's risky having a higher-performance brain. Kind of like how a sports car breaks down more often than a basic sedan or wagon.
Rebelgecko 4y ago
>same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component Were you raised by your parents?

jason-phillips 4y ago

> To make wise decisions, you need to have the proper mindstate to make genuine "human" decisions, rather than using just your intelligence. I recognize this as empathy. It is something of a superpower when used to its full potential.

nwienert 4y ago
It’s more than that. I’d argue there are “IQs” for culture (what’s the best outcome in a meta sense), power (what words/actions lead to maintaining dominance), social (how does everyone likely feel and react to what I say, related to power) and many more. So undervalued by many.

tonnydourado 4y ago

> same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component Does it? Could be as much a product of a privileged upbringing and generational welth reproducing themselves. Do you have an adopted sibling you grew up with, that had the same environments and opportunities, but turned out to be a moron? As a control group, you know. I find odd how people are so quick to jump to genetics to explain a thing so complex as a human being inside a society. There's SO many forces acting on it at all times, picking genes over all the others feels like an oversimplification.

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
I said suggests, not proves. It can't prove anything, it's just one data point. It does seem very unlikely for a dozen people to score so well academically if genetics wasn't a factor at all, or? Why didn't other, richer people score higher than any of them? And why did they marry other intelligent people? > privileged upbringing and generational welth reproducing themselves I come from an ex Soviet satellite state, I don't think your assumptions of what my parents/grandparents' life was like is accurate. I had a more privileged upbringing, but that doesn't explain 2 generations away.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  > (same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component) I am not at all put off by genetic explanations (go genes!), but it does equally suggest environment and upbringing as a common element, it's a series of poster children for it.
  - dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
    I concede you have a point there. My opinions are colored by my experiences. As a personal story that I will share since it also has value as an experiment: I did not see my father between the ages of 0-3 and 7-19. That means he was not there for a large part of my developmental phase, in which I formed a lot of my viewpoints on the world (at the time, obviously). What astounded me was that when I met him, he shared a lot of those viewpoints. A lot of my behaviour that I thought was specific to me, was not. Even small things like preference for walking etc. I will not list everything obviously but it really ingrained in me that a lot of what I considered "my identity" was not chosen in any way by me. We grew up in rather different environments/countries too. I think most humans would rather not face the fact that their identity is scarcely chosen. But learning to accept that means you can experience a lot more, since your ego doesn't mind losing parts that aren't "really part of it" anyway. Or at least it's less scary.

agumonkey 4y ago

Interesting bit about limits, I'm in a similar boat. But beside the social aspect of reaching groups of stronger people, something that changed is that my brain used to grok everything out of the blue, and one day.. it didn't.[0] It's not that things became harder but as if a big wall of confusion appeared, while other were still seeing clearly (or so it seems to my panicked eyes). During the years I managed to climb stairs I couldn't before, so it's not a matter of being able to grok things, but what became out of phase with college level content in my brain that killed any speed. [0] for instance, I was top of my class not by choice but merely because I enjoyed reading all the things all the time because it was so natural, so pleasurable. That pleasure is far away most of the time now. The emotional / personal aspect of abuse of "thinking" is also interesting.

parthianshotgun 4y ago
Any idea why that happened? Did you fall down or something?
- agumonkey 4y ago
  No, nothing physical or traumatic. The 'one day' was a figure of speech, it was the post high-school -> college transition. I became too lazy before, college through a lot more stuff at once, and it was more about very abstract principles rather than usual objects. You don't use a function, you imagine all functions on highly dimensional spaces .. also psychologically I wasn't used being behind the pack, stress and negative emotion will make you trip faster. There's also something about how college material is presented maybe, it's a bit obfuscated behind notations. Or maybe that's just me not being in sync with high level thinking anymore. As a kid I loved all weird notations without feeling lost.
lukas099 4y ago
I can totally relate with everything being interesting, and then not. School went from easy to horrifying.

SubiculumCode 4y ago

"Growing up I was top of my class/district (same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component). No it doesn't. It implicates an inheritable component, just not necessarily a genetic one. Education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc.

eastbound 4y ago
> Education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc. Wow, would you think it’s possible that there is a correlation between intelligent people and groups which create education, wealth, culture, prosperity, etc.?

szundi 4y ago

Not only genes, but certain memes can be inherited also without any DNA.

citizenpaul 4y ago

>genuinely smart people completely mess up personal areas of their life by refusing to think This really reminds me of some guy I used to work with. He would spew random madness like people don't really need to eat because alive is an arbitrary state. I really have no idea how he functioned outside of his CS job. He was also annoying at work because I would say things like the customer needs this then he would retort with some more madness like "well if you think about it blah blah the customer doesn't really matter." An I would just have to be like "ok thats great just get your feature assignments done on time". through gritted teeth. He did always get his work done.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
The pedant is like a man living zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. You'll never get anywhere pedantically deconstructing things with no bounds.
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  Yeah I always said he is either going to be dead in a dariwin award level situation or destroy the world. He currently works at Northrop Grumman so not looking good for us.

jmcgough 4y ago

Ironic that there's several assumptions around things you've tried to logic out without looking at research. >I think this is why depression rates are higher in more intelligent people. There's a better ability to comprehend and change your life, but that usually doesn't translate to the willpower and wisdom needed to do so. Other possibilities: - intelligent people have a history of being bullied and develop anxiety/depression from that - they struggle with impossibly high expectations placed on them - genes associated with intelligence increase risk of mental illness - they rely too much on their intellect at an early age and fail to develop other important skills - intelligent people may be more arrogant and have difficulty maintaining friendships - a higher correlation of neurodivergence and the difficulties of living in a world not designed for them

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
> Ironic that there's several assumptions around things you've tried to logic out without looking at research. Yes, exactly! I'm aware of it and can't stop doing it. You do it too I bet. It's a very annoying flaw in the human psyche. edit: to be clear, you can stop. It requires some energy to open up your mind though, so you can't do it forever or you'll burn out, at least in my experience.
janeerie 4y ago
The other alternative is that this is not actually true. I’m having trouble finding any evidence that intelligence is correlated with depression.
- ReactiveJelly 4y ago
  Maybe it's sampling bias, then. Intelligent people are more likely to realize they're depressed, go online, talk about depression, and meet other intelligent people who are also depressed?

ip26 4y ago

they just form all kinds of delusions that they can prove to themselves Perhaps this is another manifestation of the fear of failure that prevents some smart people from taking chances. E.g., admitting they were wrong and the normies were right would mean they aren’t smart after all, so they entrench and apply every brain cell to convincing themselves they are right, to the point of delusion.

rafaelero 4y ago

> I think this is why depression rates are higher in more intelligent people. It's not. Intelligence is negatively correlated to both anxiety and depression.

lostNFound 4y ago
>Genetic loci shared between major depression and intelligence with mixed directions of effect[0] >Although intelligence conferred no consistent independent effects on depression, it did increase the risk for depression across samples once neuroticism was adjusted for.[1] >Those with high IQ had higher risk for psychological disorders (RR 1.20 - 223.08). High IQ was associated with higher risk for physiological diseases (RR 1.84 - 4.33).[2] [0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01031-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01031-2 [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486156/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486156/ [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324# https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...! [3]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-highly-intelligent/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-...
- lukas099 4y ago
  I guess one way to look at this is that it's risky having a higher-performance brain. Kind of like how a sports car breaks down more often than a basic sedan or wagon.

Rebelgecko 4y ago

>same as my parents and theirs, which really suggests a genetic component Were you raised by your parents?