Would you like to be cleverer?

[TheGreatIndoors]

Hello

I watch The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon and muse about whether my life would be better if I were super-clever.

Imagine being able to really and truly understand complex subjects eg physics and philosophy. Being inside your own head would be really interesting!

But your life is frustrating because most people don't understand you or your ideas or just talk crap basically, as far as you are concerned.

I suppose it must be like me living my life surrounded my monkeys rather than other humans. Presumably you would have to actively seek out a small pool of other super-intelligent humans. (Your colleagues at NASA or whatever)

In the programme of course life is harder for Sheldon as he has social difficulties.

Would you like to be cleverer?

Is there anyone who wishes they were LESS clever?!

Sometimes they say that ignorance is bliss after all! Maybe OVERthinking about concepts like the meaning of life/the universe makes one miserable?!

I would love to be cleverer. I don't think my social life would be affected. I already have social issues. People don't understand me anyway, it would be nice if it was because I was super intelligent and not just because I'm a bit odd.

Sheldon is quite obviously autistic.

I’m intelligent (not into astrophysics and not going to win a Nobel prize). I would like to be more organised so that I can use my knowledge more efficiently.

I'd have liked to be a doctor but I am just not quite clever enough. I'm a B/C student not an A*/A one. I'd just like that extra level!

I'm not sure I aspire to great philosophical learning, it doesn't seem to bring much joy.

I'm plenty clever, albeit in the normal human way rather than the extreme Sheldon way (I do actually have a degree in theoretical physics, but I doubt I'd pass A Level now). What I'd love is better concentration and more motivation.

No. My brain is fucking massive. I’m already v v clever which means that I take on too much because I know I can apply mega mental horsepower and get through tons of stuff. I also have ADHD and my hyperfocus is amazing. But I’m fucking knackered and I can’t stop thinking and learning and would like to be a lot more vacuous.

You'd like to be a lot more vacuous? How about, just a bit less clever? You don't have to drain the whole ocean at once. 😆

Oh I'd love to be more cleverer, it took me ages to get my head around subjects like maths(algebra etc)and physics yet I'm pretty good at stuff like accounting and tax. I also wish I was better at remembering too although that could be to do with my age🤣. My teenage son is a whizz kid at physics,science and music ...whereas to me it's so foreign. He's got such empathy and compassion too for people and is so wise and I always think I'd love to come back as someone like him in my next life!! My mother in law reckons he was here before (if you believe in that) as he has such wisdom for a person his age.

No I don't think I would actually. I'm clever enough that I get very frustrated as it is when people around me don't get things quickly. Like a pp I have ADHD and do a million things all at once and don't understand why other people go so slowly. If I was properly clever I think I'd be even worse. I was pretty good at maths and physics at school but didn't it further than A level because I didn't find it that interesting. I'd like to earn more money but in my experience (in corporate offices) the ones being promoted aren't that clever, they're just the right fit and either charming or aggressive enough to win through.

I can do words but I’m rubbish with numbers. I can do arithmetic, with concentrated effort, I got a C in maths O-Level in 1972.

Just looking at the puzzles in the Sunday Times and completed Cell Blocks and the ‘warm-up’ Sudoku, but the Teaser may as well be written in another language. I wouldn’t know where to start, with pen and paper or in my head. I know if I took it round to my neighbours in their late 70s, a retired civil engineer and a science teacher, they’d each grab a notepad and have the solution in minutes, because they know how to approach it.

I’d love to be clever enough to do that. And I’d love to be clever enough to pipe sealant in a straight unbroken line around my shower.

I'm absolutely shite with numbers but apparently scored high in my IQ tests in the 80s and sailed through the 11+.
I've got a massively creative brain, excellent with language and communication and know how to figure people/situations out to get the results I need.
I'd love to be a bit more mathematical but that side of my brain is much slower than the wonder side of my brain!

Education is nothing without ambition or potential.

Iron Man (I know, fictional) is a good example. He was a weapons manufacturer to start with, made millions. One of the top three smartest men in Marvel. Focused solely on one goal. Then he became Iron Man, and the needs of the team forced his creativity into making unlimited energy sources, space travel, harnessing alien energy, bleeding edge armour, time travel...

I'm clever academically because I can write a paper on my specific subject but I barely know anything else outside of my niche area. I have a TERRIBLE memory, and am atrocious at quizzes.

So yes, I'd love to be cleverer. And just more up to date with politics, history etc, I hate feeling ignorant which happens all the time with my very clever DW around.

I am definitely not Sheldon intelligent by any stretch as I am average with maths and I hated physics but I am clever in other subjects and the only reasons I don't have a qualification higher than my degree is money and my mental health. I am deciding whether to pursue the assessment for ADHD. I am definitely neurodivergent and have lived with this for so long that I have developed my own strategies for coping and so on. I know someone who has lived a normal life as in married with children, simple jobs etc and she has a low iq. If she had been born when I was she would have been diagnosed with a mild learning disability I am as sure of that as I can be using prior experience of working within mental illness and learning disabilities.

My head is a very strange place to be and my brain is very busy. If something happens for example I will think of many scenarios, issues, problems etc etc which can plague me for many hours. I am socially awkward and I try my best to pretend to be like the person or group of people who I am speaking to but it gets tiring plus my previous cpn told me not to do this because I should be myself but people don't seem to like me very much! My best and only friend says that is not true but thinks they sense differences on me. I get frustrated with people when they can't solve a problem or understand the things I do. I am aware that I do not always come across very well but in my head it always makes perfect sense!!!!

100% wish I was . I don't even have an education. I would be more than happy with GCSE level

Education and intelligence are only very loosely related. Would you do some GCSEs as an adult?

@Pinkypurple24 your local college has adult education courses, including everything from basic reading and writing, right up to GCSE's and Access to University courses, they could find you a starting point if you wanted to get an education later in life. Lots of people miss the boat for some reason and you can go back and there are free courses, now is the time to sign up, some also start in Jan. You can ring their helplines and tell them what happened with your education first time around and they will help you find the right type of course (and as I say, the levels vary from nothing to I did quite a lot but didn't continue).

I think I'm sadly getting stupider as I get older. Just not as sharp as I once was.

And yet, I really really REALLY don't suffer fools gladly. I have so little patience with morons. (People who can't understand concepts and ideas and only think about what they're having for dinner or where they're going on holiday next year)

Sometimes I will make a (imho) really good quip in conversation and no-one will get it. Either because they don't understand the cultural reference or because they are so po-faced. Whereas I know in the right group of people, it would be appreciated!

I am introverted - can perform but need a lot of time alone to recharge.

I'm also quite low energy. I can only do a maximum of one THING a day - so if I'm working, that's it. If I'm shopping, that's it. Because I like to do it all perfectly and not be rushed.

@Pinkypurple24 the fact you WANT to learn shows you're doing better than most!

The world is your oyster now with online learning and the like. You don't need to sit exams though. You can learn just for the fun of it.

What sort of thing do you fancy?

I would love to be less clever. Being stupid looks like it’s a breeze.

I have learning difficulties. Things dont really sink in. Sometimes I see words that seem intelligent when infact they mean something simple. I see them all over mn and it really throws me when I read a post. It would be nice not to have to look up every word that I don't recognise. But it won't actually change because it won't sink in

I used to think I was quite clever (studied philosophy, incidentally) but now I'm in my 40s my brain has atrophied by parental exhaustion and meanwhile some of my male colleagues are at their absolutely intellectual peak.
I feel like a husk and embarrassingly stupid by contrast.

Interesting question -

The most cheerful person I know is basically dumb as a rock (he is practical but literally no ability to think conceptually about anything beyond what's immediately in front of him - works with his brother doing skips ). He doesn't worry about anything like climate change or geopolitics as he figures the smart people will solve it all eventually or he just doesn't know about it.

I've been reading about Sam Bankman Fried and it opened my eyes to this whole raft of super super intelligent (albeit mainly autistic) people who just are essentially too smart to function because they cannot understand why anyone would care about what they view as total trivialities. The autism is admittedly part of it but I think their insane intelligence exacerbates it. But it's also scary as whole swathes of finance jobs will have to be increasingly done by those people due to the maths requirements.

No, I’m happy with my level of intelligence. I wish I was more motivated in its application.

I wouldn't mind being a bit academically cleverer, or having a bit more drive to achieve things, but not if it meant sacrificing a slice of something else that's useful such as social skills or calmness in a crisis.

You're scared of the wrong thing for two reasons
a) Their lack of social understanding means that they're easy to control, and unable to make any actual use of their sophisticated discoveries
b) The biggest influence on our lives aren't intelligent people. It's the opposite. Politicians, businesspeople, people of that ilk.
And they gain their influence by connecting other people .. creating a cumulative effect, rather than using their sole intelligence to directly do something.

Even in academia, unless you're a known superstar protected by the right people. You can be super smart but not get any funding or have any attention paid to your research.

Back in the 90's companies like IBM used to have teams of researchers given carte blanche, no timelines, just pure research. That doesn't happen anymore.

Very Intelligent, charismatic people with no moral compass are the most dangerous. Happily, there doesn't seem to be too many of them