Why take a personality test? It gives you insight into your own strengths and weaknesses. It can help you relate to other people. IQ is like that.
The real test result isn’t a single number. IQ is a composite score of subtests. If you have an unusually high ability or a deficit relative to your composite score, that could be a good thing to understand about yourself. You’d know what weaknesses to compensate for, and you’d better understand your comparative advantage relative to the average human (and this would still be true if your IQ turned out to be low, which seems unlikely if you like LessWrong).
A baseline may help your doctor diagnose dementia early, which may help with treatment.
Mensa requires you to prove that you have an IQ score in the 98th percentile to join. They have perks exclusive to members. There are other similar high-IQ societies. There are dating sites that cater to high-IQ people and require your score. Intelligent people get benefits from hanging out with people at or just above their level. Your friends rub off on you. (But IQ is not the only way to find intelligent people. LessWrong also has meetups.)
There are two kinds of intelligence: fluid and crystallized. It takes a surprising amount of compute to match expert knowledge. Early AI researchers thought beating humans at chess would be easy. It wasn’t. Deep Blue was a supercomputer at the time. Later, better algorithms could reliably beat Deep Blue even when run on inferior hardware. Most of the time, it’s the crystallized intelligence that counts.
Those with high IQ tend to acquire more knowledge than average over time; fluid IQ is a major factor in how quickly you learn. It’s not the only factor.
A low score may inspire you to dedicate the extra time and effort required to grow your knowledge. Most of the time, crystallized is what counts. If you’re dedicated, driven, and/or disciplined, you can out-study a more intelligent person who isn’t. It can be a great relief to understand that you’re not under-performing your peers due to laziness or some moral failing. It’s not your fault. Or you may take it the wrong way and suppose that a low IQ means you must have low self-worth. Don’t think like that. You can have compassion for all imperfect human beings (all human beings are imperfect beings), starting with yourself.
A high score may inspire you to try to live up to your potential. It may give you the confidence to acquire useful skills beyond the reach of the average person (higher math, for example). Or you may take it the wrong way and recoil from the specter of expectations you’re not motivated to meet. You will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential.
Do you want to hide your head in the sand, or do you want an accurate map? (Ignorance is bliss!) The truth is not something to be afraid of! Get tested.
IQ is not the same thing as rationality. Keith Stanovich discusses this at length in What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. Intelligence can be used to defeat itself. More brainpower means more excuses and more and cleverer ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Learn to stop doing that.
Why take a personality test? It gives you insight into your own strengths and weaknesses. It can help you relate to other people. IQ is like that.
The real test result isn’t a single number. IQ is a composite score of subtests. If you have an unusually high ability or a deficit relative to your composite score, that could be a good thing to understand about yourself. You’d know what weaknesses to compensate for, and you’d better understand your comparative advantage relative to the average human (and this would still be true if your IQ turned out to be low, which seems unlikely if you like LessWrong).
A baseline may help your doctor diagnose dementia early, which may help with treatment.
Mensa requires you to prove that you have an IQ score in the 98th percentile to join. They have perks exclusive to members. There are other similar high-IQ societies. There are dating sites that cater to high-IQ people and require your score. Intelligent people get benefits from hanging out with people at or just above their level. Your friends rub off on you. (But IQ is not the only way to find intelligent people. LessWrong also has meetups.)
There are two kinds of intelligence: fluid and crystallized. It takes a surprising amount of compute to match expert knowledge. Early AI researchers thought beating humans at chess would be easy. It wasn’t. Deep Blue was a supercomputer at the time. Later, better algorithms could reliably beat Deep Blue even when run on inferior hardware. Most of the time, it’s the crystallized intelligence that counts.
Those with high IQ tend to acquire more knowledge than average over time; fluid IQ is a major factor in how quickly you learn. It’s not the only factor.
A low score may inspire you to dedicate the extra time and effort required to grow your knowledge. Most of the time, crystallized is what counts. If you’re dedicated, driven, and/or disciplined, you can out-study a more intelligent person who isn’t. It can be a great relief to understand that you’re not under-performing your peers due to laziness or some moral failing. It’s not your fault. Or you may take it the wrong way and suppose that a low IQ means you must have low self-worth. Don’t think like that. You can have compassion for all imperfect human beings (all human beings are imperfect beings), starting with yourself.
A high score may inspire you to try to live up to your potential. It may give you the confidence to acquire useful skills beyond the reach of the average person (higher math, for example). Or you may take it the wrong way and recoil from the specter of expectations you’re not motivated to meet. You will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential.
Do you want to hide your head in the sand, or do you want an accurate map? (Ignorance is bliss!) The truth is not something to be afraid of! Get tested.
IQ is not the same thing as rationality. Keith Stanovich discusses this at length in What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. Intelligence can be used to defeat itself. More brainpower means more excuses and more and cleverer ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Learn to stop doing that.