How to train your intelligence

[Jannes]

So I have many flaws when it comes to my intelligence which immediately stick out. I have ADHD and sometimes fail to understand super easy stuff. And it also doesn’t help that I am not interested in many things people talk about like politics, stars, history, important events and so I just don’t have a lot of general knowledge you can triumph with in social settings. And because of that there are a good chunk of people that I met in my life that think that I am as dumb as bread. I know I am not dumb (maybe average) and I heard the opposite also quite a few times and I graduated high school with pretty good grades without that much effort, did something like an intelligent test where I was a bit above average and stuff like that but I am still doubting myself quite often and there is still a lot of fear in me to look like a fool. And I think it influences me unconsciously quite a bit when it comes to career choices for example. I study math and philosophy to become a teacher and maybe I only chose math because I know that most of society has a lot of respect for mathematicians so this way I would always have an "intellectual backup“ that guarantees my ego to identify as intelligent when worst comes to worst and I make a fool of myself. 
I know that this fear to look stupid is way to big in me to simply let it go. So I thought about if there are games or techniques that train your intelligence. I thought about chess or something like that. Just a little fun hobby. Just something to have that I am not that dependent and therefore bias in my career path. But there are many different forms of intelligence so I am curious to know if something like chess even trains a broard spectrum of intelligence or just hammers on a certain kind of intelligence. 

Edited July 18, 2022 by Jannes

[Jacob Morres]

you ever check out leo's video on infinite intelligence?

[Carl-Richard]

Find a passion and excel in it. Forget mind training techniques: learning by doing. Develop deep and holistic intelligence, not some shallow quantitative intelligence that you can measure with a test.

[thisintegrated]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Find a passion and excel in it. Forget mind training techniques: learning by doing. Develop deep and holistic intelligence, not some shallow quantitative intelligence that you can measure with a test.

This basically.

It's like attaining happiness.  The more you focus on it the less you'll succeed.  Focused on the stuff that will naturally result in you training your intelligence.

[Jannes]

5 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Find a passion and excel in it. Forget mind training techniques: learning by doing. Develop deep and holistic intelligence, not some shallow quantitative intelligence that you can measure with a test.

I have that. That’s where the compliments came from. And I wouldn’t trade it for a high iq. I am also not to worried about my intelligence because of that but still enough to write a thread about it I guess. You can compensate a lot from having a deep holistic intelligence but some “actual“ intelligence also plays a minor part imo. But you might be right with finding your passion. I am definetly doing the life purpose course in semester break.

[Jannes]

7 hours ago, Jacob Morres said:

you ever check out leo's video on infinite intelligence?

Yes but I only remember it very vaguely. One of the key parts was that you can grow your wisdom infinetely even if you have low iq right. In wisdom is what actually is important.  

[Rob06]

Sounds like what could help you is simply becoming more interested in life, other people, and all the different aspects of life (politics, nature, social stuff, whatever). I used to be pretty narrowly interested but slowly became more interested in everything. It didn't only raise my intelligence (I assume it did), but also just made life more joyful, which is the more important point. 

Another point might be that our society has a pretty limited view of what intelligence is. Are you intelligent if you can do mental arithmetic very fast? Well, then I'm pretty stupid  .

I do believe my actual IQ was raised over the years by the regular practice of meditation, but can't verify that. 

[Jannes]

On 19.7.2022 at 1:49 PM, Rob06 said:

Sounds like what could help you is simply becoming more interested in life, other people, and all the different aspects of life (politics, nature, social stuff, whatever). I used to be pretty narrowly interested but slowly became more interested in everything. It didn't only raise my intelligence (I assume it did), but also just made life more joyful, which is the more important point. 
 

There are quite a bit of topics that I find interesting about society and life but only when it goes in depth and you analyse the deeper psychological or philosophical issues behind these things. I am just not interested in “facts“ if that makes sense. And many people only exchange “facts“ which drives me insane. 

On 19.7.2022 at 1:49 PM, Rob06 said:

I do believe my actual IQ was raised over the years by the regular practice of meditation, but can't verify that. 

It definetly makes you more focused and more energy efficient. When you can only focus on one thought at a time instead of constantly being distracted and loosing track of that thought then of course you will think more effectively. But it’s not like your have a faster car, its just that you finally took the hand of the handbrake so your car can finally drive at max speed. But I guess it’s the same as having a faster car with handbrake on so it doesn’t matter. 

[Raze]

Read the ultramind solution and thinking fast and slow
 

Try Berg learning

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cVBohQ2x1c

 

[Yarco]

You're describing everything I hate about traditional schooling, mostly the rote memorization of facts for just long enough to pass tests and then forgetting them.

You would probably do better learning by doing. For example if you're interested in frogs, go out to a lake and observe them and catch them, to discover for yourself, instead of just reading facts in books.

Career-wise you probably want to focus on something practical to do with your hands, like woodworking or some other trade. Where someone can stand next to you and apprentice you, without having to spend hours reading about it in books.

Lots of people are "dumb" in a general intelligence sense that they don't know a bunch of random useless facts. But ask them to troubleshoot and fix a car, or whatever their area of genius is, and they can work miracles.

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Yarco said:

You're describing everything I hate about traditional schooling, mostly the rote memorization of facts for just long enough to pass tests and then forgetting them.

YES

1 hour ago, Yarco said:

You would probably do better learning by doing. For example if you're interested in frogs, go out to a lake and observe them and catch them, to discover for yourself, instead of just reading facts in books.

Career-wise you probably want to focus on something practical to do with your hands, like woodworking or some other trade. Where someone can stand next to you and apprentice you, without having to spend hours reading about it in books.

Lots of people are "dumb" in a general intelligence sense that they don't know a bunch of random useless facts. But ask them to troubleshoot and fix a car, or whatever their area of genius is, and they can work miracles.

In my childhood I always loved to do little creative handicrafts like making a little functional backpack out of paper for my playmobil male or different badges for rewarding learned skills in my scooter crouw.  
But 3D printer are out and AI will probably manage those jobs in the future. 
And it’s not like I can’t remember stuff. When I am really passionate about something I can soak up an incredible amount of information in a really short time (like when I started playing Pokémon online and remembered every pokemons name, stats, attacks, typing and so forth in no time). But with all my effort I couldnt even learn the names of the 16 states in my country because I cared so little about it. So passion is everything for me. Everybody remembers things better when they are interested in it but for me it’s more black and white. So if I were truly passionate about medicine for example which is incredible learn heavy I am pretty confident I could do it. But I am not so there is no chance in hell I could do it. 
Math is okay and philosophy isn’t that much and also pretty interesting so it’s okay. But I will definetly take the LP course this semester break and see what comes up.