I think many young intelligent people are conceited and presumptuous (me included maybe)

[noname223]

The meeting with that physics professor impacted me a lot. Maybe a little bit too much. Lol. It triggered my imposter syndrome a lot. Many professionals were impressed by my cognitive skills and education. Though this professor did not buy it any second. He saw right through it that I am a wanna-be smart ass. And that most of my knowledge is rather superficial. I think he felt like only when one habilitated (I might exaggerate) on a subject one should have a strong opinion on something, I think he was heavily annoyed by my behavior to pretend to have sophisticated takes on topics I don't know anything about.
I was in a crisis when I met him and made some slightly offensive comments on other people. Though he misunderstood some of them - it is complicated but I did not want to mock them. Still he was pretty angry about them. I think he thought I look down at less intelligent people. I think my annoying wanna-be smartass takes stem from bullying when I was a teenager when everyone called me stupid. He did not know that. Maybe an honest opinion is better than the usual psychiatrist opinion who know this excuse.

I tried to analyze some of my behaviors and why he perceived me as not that intelligent. I think he would call the speculations in this thread also presumptuous. I think he mainly believed in statistics as a source of truth. And that humans are way too influenced by biases to overcome these fallacies the easy way. I could imagine he had the work of Daniel Kahneman in mind. I already elaborated on that. Fast and inuitive thinking tends to biases and relies too much on prejudices. So he interpreted my sharp comments as overhasty and conceited (I could imagine)

I think not only I have the problem that I think of intelligence as something cool. For example when you can impress other people with witty or funny comments. However i think many people (me included) tend to worship intelligence. These people tend to become smug, arrogant, presumptuous and condescending. I think I tend to such a behavior when I feel like someone could offend me. I had psychosis and sometimes I am paranoid about people. I have good punchlines in my mind to counter such people. Gladly I am good at deciding for the right people to surround me to. When I feel comfortable in my environment I also feel less anxiety. In fact I love to make my friends laugh with witty comments. I satisfy my pathological need to impress people and I reward the people who are the greatest gift in my life.

This physics professor impressed me in many ways. He was the most intelligent and best educated person I ever met. That he hated me hurt me a lot. Though I try to learn some lessons of that. For example being less certain about the future. The future is extremely hard to predict. The man was extremely humble. He was the opposite of being conceited. He was an average man and even showed sympathy for some pop culture series. I want to include that here. I think many people (maybe me included) look down too much at the pop-culture. Everything that is popular was bad. I think David Foster Wallace was pretty good at pointing out the beauty of mainstream films. I also listened to interesting thoughts of Slavoj Zizek on the pop culture. I think many young people tend to make an event out of intelligence as a battle wits. Like in the Zizek and Peterson debate where the audience celebrated it like a soccer game. Intelligence or IQ seems to become like a comparison of the dick size. (Sorry for the vulgar term but it fits perfectly). Some people (I know some) are so obsessed by IQ measurement on a ridiculous level. To a point where they waste all their life time on it sucking themselves off for it while being anything but productive. I know people like that. It is such a waste of time and it seems to be so childish. I think intelligence as a source for self-confidence is janusfaced because many people become smug when they think too much about it.

I have two extremely intelligent friends at college. I think I am an overachiever. The other two are way smarter than me but my grades are way better. We sometimes discuss things. I had to go in detail about the two. There are a lot of nuances and differences between them. They have a way better self-confidence than me. (probably healthier). I tried to learn my lesson of my experience with the STEM professor. Expressing less certainty on topics I don't know much about. One of them interprets that as insecurity. He tends to my old behavior being super confident and by that being convincing other people. I ask myself whether this is a positive or negative pattern of behavior. I ask myself how substantial and sophisticated our knowledge can be at this age. One of them is heavily into the science community. I think he has by far the most knowledge on specific science related topics. However he barely has knwoledge of media events, the pop-culture and the world outside of the science bubble. Personally I like to dissect media events how they report on it and how the reports are biased. I think a lot about it. Though I think I am not particularly good at it. I am a little bit too much of a sheep. I am searching and found more science articles to binge listen/read to expand my usual bubble. I love to compare the different narratives in the media. I might have some medica biases though I am working on lessen that.

I think young people tend to overestimate their knowledge. DFW wrote that at college age he always felt like he was smarter than his professors and underestimated their wisdom. When he grew older he understood that. (DFW might even have been smarter than most of his professors)-
Personally I (strongly) doubt I am smarter than my professors. Some of them seem to be not extremely bright but I am not that special too. When my college friends make kind of smug comments on my professors I feel like that might be a little bit too much. I think we are still pretty young and it hard to judge. On the other hand this might be my usual worshipping of authority figures. And maybe I am not smart enough to judge on my college friends. Personally I feel like I am good at sounding smart and competent but I think my underlying education is rather shallow. It is enough to entertain a suicide forum but I think in conversations with experts I had no chance. However I already search for topics where I want to become an expert In topics where I know many details, the pro and cons - also what is spared out in the usual debates. I think I have to become better in quantitive analysis but this bores the shit out of me. I guess I need to do it when I want to break my current limits.

Honestly I doubt anyone will read this rambling at this point. Good game if you have reached this point of the thread. You might be one of the chosen 5 people who did not stop after the first paragraph.

 

[Ultracheese]

I went to an academic conference last month where I was the only 18-year-old high school senior in a sea of graduate students and professors. It was an awe-inspiring experience because being around people so much smarter than it humbles you so much. I've never been under the perception that I'm particularly intelligent, but being around people of higher intelligence just made me appreciate how little I don't know and how much I could learn from them. I think most of them thought I wasn't that bright, but I asked genuine questions and was gracious about how little I knew, and they were all very kind. I think most academics (as most people do) don't like what they perceive as bragging. You are so kind and self-aware here that I suspect you probably weren't. Sometimes it's the academics who are the vain ones, and they take pride in making curious, intelligent young people look stupid.

I can relate to a lot of the reasons you express as reasons you value intelligence and also strive to collect knowledge. I grew up (and still live) in a rural, working-class neighborhood where being "intellectual" wasn't something that was valued so much as just trying to make an honest living and conforming to outdated social values. I also was considered a special ed kid due to my autism. Reading books and knowing a lot about pop culture was my way of building self-confidence and giving myself some sense of value and individuality in an area that desired to stifle that.

I understand his concerns about intuition not always being a good source of critical thinking due to how difficult it is to escape prejudices. But one could easily say the same about statistics. I understand that statistics is a science and that sciences are considered to be an objective source of facts, but concern about the bias of statistics is a very prevalent sentiment that continues to increase (though these are mostly due to unrelated political discord, save that for another thread, haha).

I think most people tend to overestimate how much knowledge they have. Age certainly helps with it, the arrogance of youth, as they say, and especially if they have been coddled in such a way to believe that they're a genius of sorts. I think upbringing is the biggest factor less so than age. I think the best thing you can do is to continue what you've been doing now: staying open minded to what people have to offer and continuing your passion for topics that interest you.

 

[noname223]

I went to an academic conference last month where I was the only 18-year-old high school senior in a sea of graduate students and professors. It was an awe-inspiring experience because being around people so much smarter than it humbles you so much. I've never been under the perception that I'm particularly intelligent, but being around people of higher intelligence just made me appreciate how little I don't know and how much I could learn from them. I think most of them thought I wasn't that bright, but I asked genuine questions and was gracious about how little I knew, and they were all very kind. I think most academics (as most people do) don't like what they perceive as bragging. You are so kind and self-aware here that I suspect you probably weren't. Sometimes it's the academics who are the vain ones, and they take pride in making curious, intelligent young people look stupid.

I can relate to a lot of the reasons you express as reasons you value intelligence and also strive to collect knowledge. I grew up (and still live) in a rural, working-class neighborhood where being "intellectual" wasn't something that was valued so much as just trying to make an honest living and conforming to outdated social values. I also was considered a special ed kid due to my autism. Reading books and knowing a lot about pop culture was my way of building self-confidence and giving myself some sense of value and individuality in an area that desired to stifle that.

I understand his concerns about intuition not always being a good source of critical thinking due to how difficult it is to escape prejudices. But one could easily say the same about statistics. I understand that statistics is a science and that sciences are considered to be an objective source of facts, but concern about the bias of statistics is a very prevalent sentiment that continues to increase (though these are mostly due to unrelated political discord, save that for another thread, haha).

I think most people tend to overestimate how much knowledge they have. Age certainly helps with it, the arrogance of youth, as they say, and especially if they have been coddled in such a way to believe that they're a genius of sorts. I think upbringing is the biggest factor less so than age. I think the best thing you can do is to continue what you've been doing now: staying open minded to what people have to offer and continuing your passion for topics that interest you.

Your comment is pretty insightful and thoughtful. I can relate to many things you said. Thank you for adding another perspective to this thread. I think maybe two different brains together can bring more nuances into a debate than just a monologue of mine.
Futhermore I find it interesting that you went to an academics conference. It must have been exciting for you at that young age.

 

[epic]

You should be proud of yourself for such an honest self-evaluation which many people never do , let alone air it in public.

I can relate to a lot of what you have written . I used to be a "know-all " and "boisterous" type of a teen . I thought I had "figured out" complex scientific ideas when in reality my understanding of the subject was pretty superficial but that didn't stop me from airing my half baked ideas with confidence. Thinking back I can draw it to 2 factors-
1 . A healthy dose of self-doubt was missing .
2. From childhood , I grew up thinking that in order to be accepted I got to show results. This took the form of seeking external validation.

I had no professor who directly called me out rather it was a slow process of speaking to those around me . I started realizing they have done much more research on a topic than they let on .They had self doubt and were not interested to impress others. On the contrary they just wanted to keep their heads down and further their career as silently as possible.

 

[Ambivalent1]

I used to care about such trivial things. Then i turned 30.

 

[OceanBlue]

I only read the title - no human is intelligent, we can't rely on our brain at all.

 

[Mirrory Me]

I guess it's useful to live with the mindset that you want to think and act smart. It's good to recognize your own natural strengths and be proud of them. Don't beat yourself up for not being able to please or convince everyone. Everyone's life is equally important, whether intelligent or not (as artificial intelligence developer Elon Musk used to say, "love is the answer".).