5 ms·

I haven't taken an IQ test, so I don't know exactly what that is like, but I've taken PSAT/ACT/GRE/GMAT tests, and it seems obvious to me that your performance

by sofal 18y ago

I haven't taken an IQ test, so I don't know exactly what that is like, but I've taken PSAT/ACT/GRE/GMAT tests, and it seems obvious to me that your performance on those tests is greatly influenced by how fast you can think. If the IQ tests are anything like the other standardized tests, it is of absolutely no surprise to me that quick thinkers have higher IQs and I don't understand why it should come as a surprise to anyone else. Furthermore, assuming that IQ score depends on quick thinking, I'm not at all convinced that being smarter implies that you think faster.

amichail 18y ago
You make a good point. A slow thinker might be able to accomplish great things given enough time. Maybe we should consider such a person intelligent. But even then I suspect that a quicker thinker with similar experience would be able to accomplish even greater things in that same period of time.
- xenophanes 18y ago
  For philosophy, I don't think thinking speed is an important bottleneck. For a startup rushing a product to market, then it's one of several bottlenecks to watch out for.
- sofal 18y ago
  I think you may be able to hold the accomplishments/time ratio constant while varying the quickness of thought. However, the quickness of thought that I'm talking about may be different than what the article is addressing. For example, in a math class it may take me a while to comprehend each step that the teacher is taking which makes me lag behind the rest of the class, but given enough time to fully understand everything, I can outperform the average without too much trouble. So it can be in the way that I attack problems. I slowly and methodically learn about all of its parts until I finally comprehend it all and then conquer it relatively quickly, whereas others may quickly learn about something but have to repeat the process a few more times to get it to sink in. Maybe this kind of slowness has nothing to do with the speed at which nerve impulses travel, but it sure doesn't help with job interviews.
- dejb 18y ago
  It's possible though that this is analogous with running. An IQ test could be seem as a relative sprint whereas the business of solving genuinely complex problems might be a marathon. A 'sprinting test' may actually provide a rough gauge of general fitness and physical ability - and in so doing be a rough predictor of marathon performance in the general populace. But at the higher levels those with fast twitch muscles are actually at a disadvantage in a marathon against those with slow twitch muscles. Extrapolating the sprint result to the marathon only works at the very crudest level. Of course I'm not saying this is actually the case with intelligence but in certainly could be.
randallsquared 18y ago
"it is of absolutely no surprise to me that quick thinkers have higher IQs and I don't understand why it should come as a surprise to anyone else." It's surprising to me because I do fairly well on IQ tests (top 2%), and yet I think more slowly than most people, and I have friends who are at least as intelligent as I (it seems to me) who are even slower than I am at figuring things out, but they do eventually get there, and often surpass me. It takes me longer to find the correct answer than many other people around me in almost any situation where they do find the correct answer. The difference seems more like finding the correct answer more often, rather than more quickly. While quickness of thought can provide the illusion of higher intelligence, I don't think it can have much to do with it in the long run; it doesn't matter how much you speed up a dog, he'll never figure out lots of things a chimpanzee can figure out -- intelligence seems almost orthogonal to speed to me.

by sofal 18y ago

amichail 18y ago

You make a good point. A slow thinker might be able to accomplish great things given enough time. Maybe we should consider such a person intelligent. But even then I suspect that a quicker thinker with similar experience would be able to accomplish even greater things in that same period of time.

xenophanes 18y ago
For philosophy, I don't think thinking speed is an important bottleneck. For a startup rushing a product to market, then it's one of several bottlenecks to watch out for.
sofal 18y ago
I think you may be able to hold the accomplishments/time ratio constant while varying the quickness of thought. However, the quickness of thought that I'm talking about may be different than what the article is addressing. For example, in a math class it may take me a while to comprehend each step that the teacher is taking which makes me lag behind the rest of the class, but given enough time to fully understand everything, I can outperform the average without too much trouble. So it can be in the way that I attack problems. I slowly and methodically learn about all of its parts until I finally comprehend it all and then conquer it relatively quickly, whereas others may quickly learn about something but have to repeat the process a few more times to get it to sink in. Maybe this kind of slowness has nothing to do with the speed at which nerve impulses travel, but it sure doesn't help with job interviews.
dejb 18y ago
It's possible though that this is analogous with running. An IQ test could be seem as a relative sprint whereas the business of solving genuinely complex problems might be a marathon. A 'sprinting test' may actually provide a rough gauge of general fitness and physical ability - and in so doing be a rough predictor of marathon performance in the general populace. But at the higher levels those with fast twitch muscles are actually at a disadvantage in a marathon against those with slow twitch muscles. Extrapolating the sprint result to the marathon only works at the very crudest level. Of course I'm not saying this is actually the case with intelligence but in certainly could be.

randallsquared 18y ago

"it is of absolutely no surprise to me that quick thinkers have higher IQs and I don't understand why it should come as a surprise to anyone else." It's surprising to me because I do fairly well on IQ tests (top 2%), and yet I think more slowly than most people, and I have friends who are at least as intelligent as I (it seems to me) who are even slower than I am at figuring things out, but they do eventually get there, and often surpass me. It takes me longer to find the correct answer than many other people around me in almost any situation where they do find the correct answer. The difference seems more like finding the correct answer more often, rather than more quickly. While quickness of thought can provide the illusion of higher intelligence, I don't think it can have much to do with it in the long run; it doesn't matter how much you speed up a dog, he'll never figure out lots of things a chimpanzee can figure out -- intelligence seems almost orthogonal to speed to me.