IQ and deep meditation

[Jhanananda]

Kai Ryu, while IQ tests are often timed, I doubt if it matters what your language of origin is, because most IQ tests are about problem-solving, and are often more visual than written.

Cal, It appears it is the free-thinking, or the ability to transcend conditioning, that seems to be comon among those with a higher IQs, and those who realize that the contemplative life has value, and take it far enough to develop depth in meditation.  However, most geniuses probably never get to the contemplative life, so we cannot say this relationship is reflexive.

[Kai Ryu]

I went to the link but it seemed you had to pay so I tried to find a free Menza test on Google and it seemed free except I now need to pay 20$ to know my results. I'll have to decline, I don't need to know my IQ that bad. The test was very language heavy anyways (around 50%) with statements such as "x is to y as z is to..." and things like this. There was even one question about US coins. I have literally no idea how they are called so I just chose randomly ("quarter", as it was the only one that kind of sounded American). It doesn't matter as I will never know the result :-D. Kind of frustrating because I "wasted" 35min doing it. I should have meditated instead.

[Kai Ryu]

I've tried to do it on another website but in French. Not sure if it is reliable. It was way more difficult than the previous one. I scored 123. I could have done better but not without expecting at all the type of question. Some questions took me by surprise.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, Kai Ryu, for your diligence.  It would be useful to know what the range is for your score, which gives meaning to your score.

[Kai Ryu]

I'm not sure, I didn't know about this and I don't know if they gave any. There was a bell-shaped curve and it placed me in the lower portion of the downward bell, with the statement "you are very intelligent". It looked like most people are typically at 100 and very few people in the 160s or higher.

[Jhanananda]

I agree with "you are very intelligent," because you reveal that in your comments here.

[Jhanananda]

Research Confirms a Link between Intelligence and Life Expectancy, The reasons are unclear, but higher IQ is correlated with longer life span

On the other hand, my grand father was a polimath with a whopping big IQ and died at 63.  Leonardo da Vinci was a polimath with a whopping big IQ and died at 67.  So, we have at least 2 exceptions to the premise of the above article. 

[Kai Ryu]

Ah well if it turns out to be true, this means well have more time to practice ;-)

[Jhanananda]

How Does a Mathematician's Brain Differ from That of a Mere Mortal?

An interesting speculative article with some data to back it up. The problem that I see with the article is it is only focused upon math abilities, and not the broader picture of superior genius.

Both myself and my grand father was/are superior geniuses; however, neither of us acquired any recognition for our work. Speaking from his life, and mine, I am inclined to believe that more often than not superior genius is ignored. So, the world is not going to understand superior genius, when it ignores them.

A characteristic of superior genius is they are commonly talented in more than one area. For instance both my grand father and I were/are artists, as well as engineers/scientists/inventors. We can often times do significant work with almost nothing, no funding, and no recognition.

[Jhanananda]

A recent article in the Washington Post, Why smart people are better off with fewer friends, explains why intelligent people tend to be contemplatives.

The article explains a lot to me.  However, once I realized that my IQ is in the top .1% I have have had to wonder why it is that no university offered me a scholarship with such a high IQ and a good GPA?

It has recently come to my attention that Richard Nixon developed the drug war specifically to marginalize minorities, intellectuals, and liberals.  He found that a significant percentage of them also smoke marijuana, so by elevating that drug to a class 1 narcotic, and intensifying the drug war he could marginalize everyone who he felt was against him, and what he stood for.  A decade later Ronnie Regan escalated that war.

This explains to me much the reason why someone with my massive IQ was never offered any kind of advancement in the sciences or industry, and why I have found that people with exceptional IQs are about 10% of the homeless population.

[Jhanananda]

Regarding science careers, while I recognize that there is a sense of democracy represented in the pursuit of the sciences; nonetheless, that was not at all my experience.  Instead I found, with an IQ in the top .1%, and a very high GPA, there was no support for my research goals in academia.  Instead I found scientists who were peasants, like me, were kept around like indentured servants for decades in the research lab, while students who came from personal wealth got their degrees in the shortest time possible, and got tenure track professorships right out of their degree program. 

Also, while doing some research on homelessness, I found that the Drug War is recognized as the primary cause of homeless in the USA; and it was Richard Nixon who started it specifically to disenfranchise the liberals, who he believed were a danger to this country, and were known to be well educated people with high IQs, but who happened to smoke marijuana, so by classifying marijuana as a class 1 narcotic, and prosecuting possession of marijuana as a felony, he was able to disempower a whole generation of people with high IQs.  It just so happens that my experience of homelessness has shown that I have met more geniuses at homeless shelters and food banks than I ever met in academia. 

The consequence of this action of the Republican party is the dumming down of the USA.  So, I am not at all impressed by any program that claims to document geniuses, scientists and engineers, if it does not expose the disenfranchising the intellectual elite of this culture.

[rougeleader115]

Agreed.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, rougeleader115.


Chile is producing so much solar power, it's giving it away for free

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but almost 50 years ago was the first Earth day, and I attended it, and I decided then that I wanted to make a career out of research and development of alternative energy forms. However, I found no interest in academia in these subjects, or in my interest. If; however, the USA was actually engaged in research and development of alternative energy forms, then by now fossil fuels would most probably have been completely replaced.

This suggests that the fossil fuel industry has actively suppressed that development. Any nation that is not a fossil fuel producer is thus dependent upon imported fuel sources today, which is always going to lead to national debt. Thus, it is to the advantage of all nations that are not fossil fuel producers to develop alternative energy forms. I can think of 3 nations that are actively engaged in such research and development. That would be: Iceland, Sweden, Chile, and New Zealand.

[Jhanananda]

I am beginning to acquire a record of evidence in support of marginalizing geniuses, and elder geniuses.  Today I received a message from such a person on my YouTube channel.  Here is what he had to say:

Jose Francisco Medeiros 10:17 AM
It's common in Silicon Valley were we live people 50 and over are pushed out, I worked for technology companies for 20 years, they probably want my friend which a bachelors in chemistry to get his masters, their was an opening for a chemist at the San Jose water pollution control plant, starting pay was 50,000, but he didn't want that kind of job, and has been volunteering at Sacred Heart services for the poor and homeless for the past 5 years.

[Jhanananda]

 I have been in isolation from technical people for a long time, so I was not aware that the older we get, the more marginalized that we become.  Here is a more recent response from Jose Francisco Medeiros.

Jose Francisco Medeiros, Yesterday 8:28 PM+
Thank you for your empathy, most people think I just wasn't good enough or lazy, I worked 60 hours a week on Salary at most companies, most IT jobs can now be done in other countries, the Internet is fast enough that everything but hardware failure can be done remotely. When I was in the server engineering team at Symantec, all my servers were located in Tuscon, Arizona at the main datacenter, everything I did to build them, r manage them was done remotely from my desktop computer in Mountain View, Calif, which was much more frustrating, and difficult then just walking into a local datacenter to see why some thing was not working, or cabled incorrectly on the network.

I had much the same experience as he did, both in a social response to why I was no longer hot in the job market; and the frustrations with having to manage a computer network remotely.  I just wish it did not take me 40 years to realize that the system was rigged for me to have to retire at 40.