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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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I think people can raise their intelligence or IQ score during childhood and adolescence, through studying widely and identifying with intellectuals - IQs can vary quite a bit between early childhood and teenage years. I've known kids to lose or gain intellectually over the years, in surprising ways.
I think it's different for adults, that neuroplasticity has decreased, people can't really change their "g" very much even if they can improve a bit in very specific areas.
Intelligence is not knowledge. A person's intelligence remains constant no matter how much knowledge he adds. Intelligence is a measure of the both capacity for knowledge and the dexterity at using knowledge, and one can acquire only as much knowledge as his intelligence will hold.
One can, however, with practice and training, learn how to perform better when sitting down to take an IQ test. This raises the IQ (which is only a number) by raising the knowledge of how to excel on these kinds of tests.
You are forgetting some of us, me included have ADHD, and while we are smart we test poor because of racing mind/lack of attention span. So we may test 100 because of ADHD but if you ask us to solve a business problem I can do it. So Luminosity isn't going to help me.
My g is 154. That was with severe ADHD, so in reality it is probably at least 180. I have a girlfriend with a g of 215, so I have expirience with the intellectual circle.
I agree with what others have said in this thread over the years, that emotional intelligence / wisdom is far more important than the raw processing power represented by IQ tests. I have known people with near off-the-charts IQ who regularly make fools of themselves socially and who are hard, cold, unforgiving, judgmental and unkind. I have known people with below average IQ who are a joy to be with and have an intuitive grasp of life that far exceeds my own. I am no slouch in the IQ department (130-ish) but have never been impressed by it and don't think anyone else should be.
As another poster pointed out, very high IQ people often have Asperger's or lean toward it. I lean a little that way myself. It's been my observation that if you have extra wiring in one area (intelligence, empathy, or resilience, say) then that wiring is borrowed from someplace else where you are then under-endowed. Many high IQ people in my experience for instance are emotionally fragile and/or anxious, or on the other hand they might have sociopathic leanings. High IQ people can embrace empiricism yet have remarkable, compartmentalized blind spots -- perhaps the need for god beliefs causes an otherwise accomplished scientist to embrace young earth creationism, for instance.
Bottom line ... I would not get too hung up on IQ as a goal to achieve in isolation, it is just one of many factors in what helps constitute a well rounded human being.
....As another poster pointed out, very high IQ people often have Asperger's or lean toward it....
I've wondered about this. There appears to be Asperger-like traits amongst many of those with high IQ. (Think Sheldon on Big Bang Theory). I'll bet those without Asperger-like traits don't get as much attention, and therefore our conclusions are skewed.
I agree with what others have said in this thread over the years, that emotional intelligence / wisdom is far more important than the raw processing power represented by IQ tests. I have known people with near off-the-charts IQ who regularly make fools of themselves socially and who are hard, cold, unforgiving, judgmental and unkind. I have known people with below average IQ who are a joy to be with and have an intuitive grasp of life that far exceeds my own.
That's not what IQ test measure, so it is not surprising there is no correlation between that and IQ.
I have also known fat people who are mean and skinny people who are nice. That is not what the bathroom scale measures, either.
If your child ever needs brain surgery to save his life, do you want the operation done by someone with a high IQ, or who is a joy to be with?
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