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Originally Posted by zpivat  I'm very interested in anything related to intelligence, and to those of you who know you have a high (i.e: 130 or higher) IQ (or at least have been regularly labelled so by your peers), I wonder how you think? How do you analyze information or situations? Are you almost always able to think quickly, solve problems quickly, understand things quickly? Do you think in a visual or abstract way?
Feel free to share anything you can think of  |
I've been professionally tested twice; both times, I was comfortably within your target range.
I tend to think in words, and to a small degree, in pictures and textures. I don't tend to think in sounds or smells, although I can 'play back' music in my head (this is distinct from just 'remembering' it). How I analyze information and situations depends on the information and situation; I tend to heavily relate to what I know and/or have internalized (the latter includes some abstract principles).
I often understand, solve problems, and think quickly, but nowhere near 'almost always'; I would consider the latter a sign that I was spending too much time with problems which were too easy.
How quickly I understand depends on my current active interest, my mental state (tired, alert, foggy because of a physical illness, etc), the material, the way it is presented, and my relevant background knowledge. If something follows naturally from what I already know, I may have already thought of it and confirmed it, or wondered if it were the case. If it relies on information I didn't already have, it may take longer, and possibly some mulling-over.
I tend to think in a fairly abstract way. I've been programming for nearly 9 years, and I've grown used to growing, layering, shifting, and changing abstractions. The single best programming language I've seen for this is Haskell: if you have any interest approaching this style of thought through programming, read the Haskell prelude; it's a joy of conciseness, due to the levels of abstraction.
When I learn something conceptual (such as a result from a mathematical theorem), if I have learned it well, it's almost always accompanied by a sensation of it clicking into place. Once this has occurred, I can use it in complicated chains of reasoning, relate new knowledge to it, and derive results from it. If it doesn't occur, I may be able to recite back the fact, but I tend to be extremely limited in what I can do with it.
There isn't a corresponding click for fuzzier knowledge (such as that gained when studying a language). In the case of languages, I can assess how much of something I understand, and whether it 'feels natural' yet (the progression for understanding, as opposed to production is, from "it's unintelligible" -> able to pick out bits -> "oh, of _course_ that's how it is/that's a valid way of expressing it / I would have said it differently, exactly like (this)".
Beyond that, I tend to have a good memory, for some things. I've been known to discuss mathematical calculations with someone, then pick up again, optionally rewriting what was written before, in another location some minutes later if something strikes me. I remember a large percentage of what I read. However, I tend not to remember visual things very well (I'm not very good at recognizing faces, and I used to have almost no visual recall for artwork/architecture, until I studied the Japanese Kanji).
If anyone has any questions or wants any responses, please PM me; I'm not monitoring this thread.