Just give it to me straight, Veeky Forums, can I improve my intelligence?

Just give it to me straight, Veeky Forums, can I improve my intelligence?

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practice

This

its a matter of time and effort user

Time and effort put into what, though? I've always been told intelligence is mostly genetic but I'm having a hard time accepting it considering how it basically kills all my dreams.

didn't you say you wanted a straight answer?

look, even if it is 100% genetic and there is nothing you can do about your innate intelligence, why bother stopping doing what you love? you don't have to be top of your field to make discoveries, and you definitely don't have to be the top of your field to be happy

it isn't 100% genetic though, a lot of it comes from practicing. if you like math or physics or something, read related textbooks and do practice problems, or go to college for it if applicable.

you're killing your own dreams, stop thinking everything is predetermined based on whatever measure of "intelligence" you base yourself off of. there are many many ways to measure intelligence, and there are many many variables to it, so it makes no real sense to say "i'm not intelligent"

not sure where i was going with that last part but it might mean something to you

Crystal but not fluid

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see

There are no currently known ways to improve fluid intelligence. However, it is straightforward to improve your crystallized intelligence: learn a bunch of shit.

I would say it is possible. Be curious, observe everything you can, try to predict what'll happen, read.

Source: My ass.

But you can try it and prove my hypothesis right or wrong.

shut the fuck up you insecure retard. study what you are interested in. success is not determined by innate brilliance but by perseverance. those kids who are always told how smart they are and believe it burn out the hottest - suddenly, after sleepwalking through school, they are challenged with something. they don't do as well as they're used to, shattering their perception of themselves. some kill themselves, lol. you're better off thinking of yourself as studious idiot, or at least be humble of what you don't know and be willing to adapt and learn.

Check out "A Mind for Numbers" by Barbara Oakley. It's pretty easy to find in PDF or EPUB. It has some good explanations of how learning works and strategies you can use to retool your brain into a better learning machine. Intelligence isn't predetermined and the brain is a plastic system. You can optimize it.

If you want something bad enough "intelligence" is irrelevant. Usually, people measure intelligence as the speed in which you can learn. Using that definition the worst case scenario is that you learn slower but that doesn't mean you aren't capable of understanding complex material and making discoveries yourself.

oh great, the constantly recurring thread of the depressed and insecure chan bitch who self sabotages so they never actually have to try or do anything outside of their comfort zone. you're killing your own dreams by being a sack of shit.

besides chunking, diffused/focused thinking, practice, that book didn't offer much.

It's a starting point. Getting OP moving is step 1 since he's immobilized at the moment. The book is pretty easy to digest and if he starts seeing that he /can/ change his thought patterns he might be encouraged to go farther.

I'll help out op.

OP if it's math/sci literary just focus on solving problems and understanding. This has been the most beneficial thing for me. A lot of people approach STEM as a humanities course with copious notes and memorization, it doesn't work like that. What are you studying? Is it stem? Start trying out problems, learn to problem solve, don't stop until it has become part of your intuition.

THINK about what you're learning. Be active, ask yourself questions. Do research and try to answer those questions try to think about it as much as you can in your head, make connections this reminds me of x. Make analogies, x reminds me of y becase abcsadas... you get the point

TEST yourself. Don't just read or take notes you have to be challenging yourself. Attempt problems sets, struggle with them, if you don't solve them after 1 hr take a small break, come back to it(you will probably figure out the solution while you're taking this break), congrats you're closer to understanding the material.

Don't think people don't struggle, the struggle is part of the learning process nobody just looks at a math book and understands it all. Those math geniuses 9 out of 10 times have been exposed to math at a really early age have formed an intuition for it over the years. It's not too late for you to form that intuition.

it's difficult to convince someone of anything when they've already come to a conclusion ahead of time. likely the op will ignore the helpful posts in this thread and continue doing nothing.

do you read this board with sincerity, op? the dickwaving over smarts here is a sort of autistic banter that you should in no way internalize.

But dude, that is literally how the geniuses work though. Spaced retrieval practice. That's how the people who do medicine (a really tough course to get into) study and revise. Spaced retrieval practice. It's really the only book anyone needs to learn exactly how to study.

>that's how geniuses work though
Sure, but I don't think most geniuses do it in a structured or conscious manner. They're just always thinking about the things they're studying because it deeply interests them. They get the effects of spaced repetition implicitly. I don't know much about the schedules of the Einsteins and von Neumanns and Feynmans of the world, but I doubt they meticulously scheduled specific times to practice recall. I could be wrong, though.

Speed is important, though. Anyone who's studied computer algorithms knows that. Speed can mean the difference between something being possible and impossible (or at least impractical) due to time constraints. Maybe it is impossible for some people to learn a particular complex topic because they are too slow to comprehend it within a lifetime.

Playing devil's advocate aside, I don't think this is an excuse to not try to learn whatever interests you, unless your IQ is below 80 or something.

Spaced retrieval is for learning though. Einstein and geniuses alike we're at the stage of creating/advancing their field which requires a complete in-depth understanding of what they're doing. What made them create these profound theories or make these discoveries? Who knows, that's what makes a 'genius' though. If I had to guess they dealt with the information so much more than other people in their field it led to their contributions.

That's true. I don't really dispute that. For a lot of these geniuses, these things come natural to them. But there are geniuses out there that get top marks in a range of subjects, whether it's Philosophy or Science or Art etc... These geniuses can't be interesting in EVERYTHING, so there is usually a structure they follow in studying that allows them to BTFO the whole class in subjects that don't interest them.

The point is that OP has a weak internal locus of control. He believes that he is powerless to change because his environment has dictated that to him. The most successful people in the world have a very strong internal locus of control. EG: Take this scenario: A person who fails to close off a deal. The person with a strong internal locus of control will blame himself for not working hard enough. A person with a weak internal locus of control will say he was unlucky, shrug his shoulders and move on. That's the difference between a successful person and a person who fails. The failures blame their surroundings. The successful people take control of their lives, they believe they alone are in charge and that if they succeed, it is because of their hard work and if they fail, it is because they didn't work hard enough. These people don't believe in luck, they believe in free will (fuck you Sam Harris) and self-determination.

My advice to OP is to read, learn, study and work hard. Develop a strong internal locus of control. Take control of your life and make it a life goal to continue to seek self improvement. I am a very strong believer that those who succeed do so because they have the correct mindset. And that we can manipulate our mindset tremendously by many things like reading, planning, studying etc... If you change how you think and your attitudes, you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, chase your dreams etc.. It's all up to you. How much do you want it and how hard are you willing to work to get there?

> those kids who are always told how smart they are and believe it burn out the hottest

There is a brilliant study on this that compared 2 groups of kids. They did puzzles and one group was told "Wow, you're so smart." The other group was told "Wow, you worked so hard." They then gave each group harder puzzles. Guess who preserved with the harder puzzles longer? The group who were told they worked harder (IE: The group that hard their success framed by a strong internal locus of control (in working hard) compared to the group that had their success framed by a strong external locus of control (Smartness is genetic, some people are just naturally smart)).

Change your mindset.

Mindset and confidence, believing you're a brainlet won't get you anywhere, even if it's true.

Are there techniques to develop a stronger internal locus of control? When something doesn't come naturally I tend to just drop it and find something else.

If you have a goal, obsessively pursue it until it sticks. If you're struggling with depression or something, you should talk with a therapist

Generally speaking, no.
Even though IQ is about 10-40% environmental factors those are usually things specific to individuals or other things such avoiding starvation as a kid.

Its probably more important to train the intelligence that you have to be good at worthwhile skill.
Aslo since you're asking this, what is your IQ anyways?

posts like this don't belong on Veeky Forums

redditors don't belong on Veeky Forums either yet there are tons of elon musk sycophants here

Not related to science or math.