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I so wanted it to be all fact...
You'll find that most alleged ultrapolyglots are, well, alleged ultrapolyglots.
The same goes for claims of eidetic memory.
From what I can recall there was only one proven claim of eidetic memory. A woman who could remember pretty much everything. She could even tell the researchers what she ate for breakfast on a certain morning years before in great detail.
I also vaguely recall this, and I think it was a woman with 'savant syndrome', who could recall chronology of specific things like her breakfasts after a head injury in her youth. Obviously this is a hard thing to test (unless she was enrolled in a long term test where someone kept tabs on her life and then asked her questions about menial specifics from years ago). I don't recall her otherwise having a great memory, but instead a memory specific to minutia directly related to her everyday activities (for instance she didn't memorize all license plates or every book she read etc.).
Eidetic memory is rather specific,... its long-term visual memories, of things one has seen or read ('eidos' means 'seen' in Greek). To my knowledge there are a few savants like Stephen Wiltshire who both possess keen visual memories and ways of showing that memory, but these aren't long term, meaning if you asked him to re-draw one of his city-scapes from 10 years ago he would struggle. And it doesn't translate across the board to everything he read or has seen, meaning he really is keen on architecture and passively commits its incredible details to memory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_possess_an_eidetic_memory
edit Kim Peek is the famous Rain Man savant who could commit written word to memory, but I'm not knowledgeable as to how well this was tested.
I remember seeing a documentary with a few people like that. Some kind of super memory. Where they could replay memories in their heads like movies. And how it was sometimes kinda horrible because of how vividly they'd relive traumatic things
I take insulin for that
The same goes for claims of knowing what "eidetic" means.
It was all too good to be true- it honestly reminded me of claims made about certain Korean leaders.
Yeah but those are all true.
You are now a mod at r/Pyongyang
Serious question, are the people on that sub for real or is it just sarcasm?
It's was so obviously a lie though. Who the fuck thinks a two year old could learn latin?
Two year olds could learn Latin. No two year old that has ever existed has "taught himself Latin". Anyone with any experience with two year olds know they don't teach themselves shit.
My daughter disagrees. She taught herself about fire. She taught herself how the TV works. And she taught herself that shitting her pants feels bad.
I was being a bit facetious but a more accurate statement would be "two year olds can't teach themselves a language"
The Romans did.
A lot of people who like factoids.
Actually, that part isn't so unreasonable, as there are other prodigies who have been documented as doing something similar.
For instance, take Kim Ung-yong who was solving differential equations and speaking in 7+ languages on TV by age 5.
Maybe not the complete truth.
The part I described was what he performed on television -- there is literally a recording of it. I saw a clip of him working out a simple differential equation as a 4 or 5-year-old a while back.
No human brain could develop that fast in 2 years.
A baby can always show off how it's clever but genius is concrete after 5-6.
The quintessential child genius, Mozart, wasn't even that good. He started banging out melodic intervals at 3, but didn't compose anything until 5. Filthy casual.
So you read the first paragraph. Clickbait title leads to otherwise interesting article.
reddit in a nutshell
The Wikipedia page is basically "Here are a bunch of things claimed, most are exaggerations or unverified or just lies"....not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this. That some guy at some point had a bunch of fairy tales told about his intellectual prowess?
You're supposed to read more than the first paragraph - damn..
Only noticed I left out some text, and that u/ANGZT86 had the info in before me.
[citation needed] or Circle reference for the ability to read at that age.
I don't know what you're trying to say.
Sorry, the footnotes in the article.
I was a single minute before you, but great to see us call it out!
It's an absolute bullshit claim that somebodies IQ can be 250-300.
First, somebody with an IQ in the 200s is likely the smartest person in the world, somebody with an IQ in the 210s would likely be the smartest person ever, someone with an IQ of 300 doesn't exist. Second, IQ tests stop being accurate when it comes to the extreme end of the spectrum, and the IQ scale starts to become so inaccurate it's meaningless before you even hit 200. Third, if his IQ scores were swinging by 50 points people were making meaningless bullshit guesses, a swing of 50 IQ points is huge.
It pretty much doesn't make sense. Just so people understand what a person of 300 IQ is which this analogy. It's like having the very fastest people running a 100 meter dash in just under 10 seconds but then somehow a guy who can run it in 8 seconds appears. It's a freak jump. An IQ of 210 is probably already once in 20 billion thing.
Even the creator of the IQ test said that it was a horrible way to measure intelligence as it only covers certain aspects of human intelligence. Intelligence is a fine balance of a number of factors.
Smart man nonetheless.
intelligence by itself doesnt mean anything unless it produces some outstanding result. those outstanding results are influenced by many other factors like tenacity, curiosity and even luck. ramanujan could've been another euler but he had the worst start ever and couldn't get far. now the most he can be is an intriguing story. it's a shame that if ramanujan grew up in today's world, he could've gotten all the education he needed on his own from the internet. he would've probably taught himself programming and made mad money.
there was also a high iq guy who works as a bartender because he didn't have the drive for intellectual work.
To be fair, we don't actually know that.
Fat tails
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Looking at that list, I see Kasparov with the wrong IQ. I used to be pretty into chess, and the highest IQ he had measured was 135, as reported by Der Spiegel. Kasparov is noted for having an utterly staggering memory in particular.
As I stated before, someone with an IQ in the 200s is likely the smartest person in the world. We have one guy on that list who is 210 and likely one of the smartest people in history, and two other guys with 220+ IQ scores who are far smarter than the other people in history, and of course the guy we're discussing now. Given the statistical unlikeliness of the list, and the fact I know one of the IQ scores was completely made up, I'm not putting much stock in it.
IQ is just a ratio of your mental age vs chronological age. If he got into Harvard at age 11 and Harvard undergrads have an average IQ of (roughly) 122 that would put him at 200. And that is just assuming he was average for a Harvard undergrad. He could easily have been at 250.
This is one of the reasons why IQ scores aren't adjusted by age like this anymore and don't use mental age vs chronological age. You're now compared to your peers of the same age.
That's cool and all, but we are talking about a hundred years ago. It's exactly how they calculated IQ, and was the definition of IQ used for the 250-300 estimate.
Bullshit? Most likely. But you're arguing against yourself
Those statements do not argue against eachother.
Well sort off, as the first affirmation axplain the second. It does not invalidate it, it just makes it redundant.
iq is not equal to be smart, unless you redefine the word.
edit: for more details see the children comments of this one.
It is according to scientists studying it.
for sure who is studying the iq relates it to intelligence, but AFAIK it is not a extremely good metric. For example does not account for social skills
It does predict a lot of social skills too. But there is more to social skills than just IQ I agree. Still, that is not intelligence that is something else. A guy can be very intelligent but deaf. That doesn't mean that hearing is intelligence. Don't make intelligence into a garbage can category as it will lose its usefulness then. I asked women online if they thought intelligence was attractive and they said that intelligence was attractive as intelligence=charm. So basically they defined intelligence as something totally different from its basic concept and could therefore honestly say they were attracted to intelligent men.
Could he speak bocci?
It's been interesting to watch this wikipedia article evolve over the years. It seems like it goes back and forth between between "Here's a classic example of the early 20th century prodigy mythology." and "Here's an example that proves the validity of prodigies."
Last time I read it, it basically said "as an adult, he was a generic crank." Now it reads like he made impressive intellectual contributions to the world.
it's probabily very unlikely that he had the highest IQ ever recorded in human history as his sister's embellishment claims. Nonetheless, he was the youngest person ever accepted to Harvard University, in 1909, at the age of 11! That's pretty insanely smart by any measurement. He graduated by the age of 16 and wound up being a professor that was younger than most of his students (much to his displeasure based on the number of students that ridiculed him). Regardless of whether he was the "smartest man alive" I don't doubt that he was an incredibly bright man, possibly more so than most notable individuals in our modern historical record. And interestingly, as is occasionally the fate of the very intellectually gifted, he wound up suffering, in his case, in a sanatorium because of his political views. Fascinating, and tragic at the same time
What political views exactly? I know tolerance was a more or less foreign concept in that time but it's not that far from the socialism movement.
well, from wikipedia:
*be a really smart person
*determine that socialism is an ideal political system
*other, stupider people, take notice
*"we don't believe in socialism"
*"but I'm smarter than you guys"
*"yes, but"
*get thrown in jail, then exiled
No, getting admitted to Harvard has always been about the stock. Legacy students can be dumb as hell, but if their parents put up money, they're getting in anyway.
11 year olds don't get into Harvard because their parents are rich without being insanely fucking smart.
Yeah but I bet he couldn't name all the Pokemon.
Even if it was only partially true, what contributions did he make in academics?
Well being exceptionally intelligent doesnt mean you will/did/do contribute anything to anyone. It just means you are. Many "genius" people may not contribute shit and many "not so bright" people may invent/discover something amazing. People find outlyers fascinating!
The smartest person in the world today's only job is to write a column for the stupidest magazine in the world.
Wisely spoken.
I personally know three gifted girls. One has been on an emotional BSOD for many years, the other one did lots of substance abuse and is now a stay-at-home mom, and the last has some sort of memetic disorder (she's a robot). IQs 140, 145 and about 155-160.
None of them has ever invented/discovered something meaningful/amazing.
my mom has some kind of ridiculously high IQ but can't go to the store and buy a gallon of milk without getting arrested or some such drama.
I would probably forget the milk, go past the store and end up somewhere else.
Smarts and instability usually go hand in hand I guess.
Then there's me sitting around at home building computers all day. Fun.
When I was a kid they did an IQ check and I was like 130 something. Cool good for me. Oh highschool? Whats this? Oh hey girls! Oh hey drugs! Oh hey vodka! Oh hey Adult Swim! Annnnnnd now im a Redditor.
Although one more semester and ill actually be a scientist so it wasnt a total wash.
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Yeah but if you're really a genius, you'd prove it either by contributing to the world or enriching yourself. He did neither.
Thats not how IQ works. At all in fact. And on top of that many people just do whatever makes them happy. Maybe you are a genius of organising and decide to be a stay at home parent and run shit like a boss. Still a genius.
Marilyn Vos Savant claimed to have the highest recorded IQ of any living person. She wrote what was essentially a trivia and puzzle column for Parade Magazine.
I thought that she was just below Christopher Langan, who worked as a NYC bouncer.
Maybe, she claimed it at one time but of course someone else could have come along, or she simply could have been wrong.
I also recall a psychology textbook that had a photo of a hospital janitor with an extremely high IQ who would not do a more intellectual job because he "Didn't want someone taking advantage of his talent to make money."
Wiki section
Ugh you smarmy little cunt.
Guys, this isn't true, I promise.
But does he know why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
These IQ posts are the most annoying thing ever.
IQ can never be 'estimated' it just doesn't work that way, you either took a test or you didn't (ps...Einstein never did)
Different tests have different scales and standard deviations, there is no unified 'IQ Score'
IQ tests of children make an assumption the child will continue to develop, resulting in nonsensical scores when you get to extremes.
IQ score ranges are set based on sample groups with the scores corresponding to likelihood of the result. There are 7 Billion people on Earth and 100 Billion ever born. If we assume we're using the most popular IQ test, WAIS-III, with a Standard Deviation of 15:
An IQ of 135 put you in the top 1% - 1 in 100
146 gets you to 1 in 1,000
171 is 1 in a Million
190 is 1 in a Billion
195 is 1 in 10 Billion...aka 'Smartest person alive'
200 Brings you to 1 in 100 Billion or 'Smartest person that has ever lived ever'
205 is 1 in a Trillion and already outside the realm of a measurable level
223 is 1 in 10 Quadrillion an unfortunately the program I'm using won't even accept a calculation with more digits
250 would be like the smartest particle in the universe or something
Explaining this to people frustrates me. Getting my IQ test has done nothing but torment me my whole life. My parents expected way too much out of me, and I took great care never to mention it to anyone else.
He didn't like people, didn't finish school, was left-wing, hated violence and had no time for women - sound familiar? This man carried a burden.
he nearly figured out women
Wasn't smart enough to beat that tumor tho
It's not your fault.
..yea, i know that
Listen to me son....it's not your fault.
President Kamacho missed out on this guy. https://youtu.be/sGUNPMPrxvA?t=1m1s
For a second there I thought the title was a claim made by a certain toupee-wearing politician about himself.
That's how ridiculous these kinds of unverifiable statements are.
Dig this man up and clone him like a hundred times
I thought his head would be bigger.
A wasted talent.
on this criteria the avg african villager has an higher IQ than most white suburban american teens.
But did he know WHY kids like the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
a time where mentioning iq actually matters.
Sure, C-3P0
It was later acknowledged, however, that some of the claims made were exaggerations, with a researcher stating "I have been researching the veracity of primary sources of various subjects for about twenty-eight years, and never before have I found a topic so satiated with lies, myths, half-truths, exaggerations, and other forms of misinformation as is in the history behind William Sidis"
At least he spoke every language of the World! (his dad only spoke 27!)
I'm often told that I'm an idiot savant. Usually they forget to say the savant part but I get what they mean.
I had a large high school class. The valedictorian went to Harvard, the number two kid went to UCLA. Fast forward 15 years, the second place kid is now a professor at an elite university. The valedictorian isn't anyone on Google. Maybe she is rich and successful working behind the scenes.
Life is a marathon.
And on top of all that i never heard of him or anything he done ..... Just another "hey that guy was smart" but with a lot of exaggeration through time ....
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High IQ is good, what's bad is too high of an IQ. Similar to how being tall is good, but not being too tall as explained in this chart.
http://i.imgur.com/roOpC41.jpg
There is an essay explaining this phenomenon building off Sidis's example and is quite famous in high IQ societies. The Outsiders by Grady Towers.
http://www.worlddreambank.org/O/OUTSIDRS.HTM
I fully expected to see this chart.
That essay was the basis for Malcolm in the Middle.
Seriously, one theory is that an IQ difference of fifty points makes communication impossible.
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