<p>i keep hearing people extol academic and achievement and everything. outside of being able to get a higher paying job and work less, I don't see how it's good. are smarter people really happier? personally i couldn't care less about trying to remember how this crazy world works or functions. it's all just too big and confusing for one person like me to grasp. i just wanna live in the wild with some animals.</p>
<p>is that bad?</p>
<p>Ignorance is bliss.</p>
<p>aw that’s a pretty awesome cliche. instead of ignorance though, which has a bad connotation to me, could we call it something else?</p>
<p>'cause it’s more about being content without having all the answers or even any answers to this crazy world. one of the things that makes people want to know things is the frustration of not understanding them i think. but not knowing things doesn’t frustrate me. i can look up at the stars without getting anxiety about not knowing what they are.</p>
<p>it’s more a human personality trait - let’s call it internal peace - that is bliss, i think. it should be something that the people who don’t prefer to seek answers can be proud of.</p>
<p>I envy religious people’s peace of mind.</p>
<p>I find it slightly amusing that you posted this on CC of all places x)</p>
<p>but I definitely agree with you. I still want to got to a great university and I love learning, but I see those as more short-term. I’ld love to just move to the country, get married and have 10 kids x) but I know I’m probably the only one, these days</p>
<p>I agree with stressedouttt - I’m striving to go to a good university, and hopefully go to Law school, because I have always had this fascination as to the functioning of the Legal system and I have a knack for liberal arts in general - but at the end of the day, I know I’ll be content being happy, old, and fat, with 10 children and a roof over my head.</p>
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<p>ah the religious folk are just the same as you scientific folk in the sense that you both can’t live without answers - though i do have to say i have a bit more respect for how the scientific folk go about getting their answers (namely they seem not to make things up but work with the scraps of understanding of this reality our minds can actually comprehend).</p>
<p>if it’s the peace of mind about mortality you mean, well that’s something i have to face up to too even, but at least i don’t have feel the disappointment of being able to answer some things and not other things - that would be confusing. I simply understand nothing :).</p>
<p>I don’t think I would enjoy life as much if I couldn’t analyze the world around me. </p>
<p>But I understand what you’re saying. People are rewarded greatly for their intelligence even though it is based solely on genetics. I am not suggesting that this isn’t right, just stating a fact.</p>
<p>I find it more important to be curious, observant, and deeply reflective. These traits will allow you to get the most out of life, something the ability to get a perfect SAT can’t do on it’s own.</p>
<p>I’m also not quite sure what kind of intelligence you are referring to, because those traits I listed could be described as identifying qualities of an intelligent person, depending on how you look at it. I assumed you meant academically.</p>
<p>by the way, the truth is I identify with many transhumanists/singularitarians and would prefer to live a lot longer than my biological body can support, and visit many galaxies and explore many oceans, and all those kinds of things. </p>
<p>of course, the consensus among the people who study existential risk is that headed towards extinction and there’s nothing we can do about it ( that if you simulated humanity millions of times we would go extinct in every case soon after industrialization).</p>
<p>So I have a rather pessimistic outlook. and short of being involved with human life extension - and looking for a way to know that humanity will turn out better than i expect- i would tend to want to go live with the animals and some other people.</p>
<p>of course, my fear of spiders troubles me, if i’m being fully honest. but i could work around it.</p>
<p>intelligence isn’t based solely on genetics.</p>
<p>there is one thing I just thought of. I don’t think bliss is necessarily contradictory to the need to seek answers you’re referring to. for some people, seeking answers might mean anxiety, but for others it might be a calm, relaxing experience. you can seek answers, but at the same time accept that you can’t know everything. although you still try and learn some new things</p>
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<p>yeah, i believe that. some people are analyzers. </p>
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<p>aw yeah i like those traits too! I think they would help me quite a lot even if I was living in the wild! the people who are curious can explore, it wouldn’t be right to stop them. even if I was curious, knowing that curiosity wouldn’t get me anywhere - wouldn’t answer all my questions no matter how much i looked - might stop me from exploring.</p>
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<p>that sounds like a good way to think about it. maybe it would be nice to engineer our kids so they are they types that find learning calming and soothing and not overwhelming. i think i would like to learn more if I was overwhelmed less. maybe.</p>
<p>Your real question is in the first post.
Are smart people really happier? My answer would be no, but they may have the abilities to create a better or more comfortable life for themselves. Whether they do or not in the long run is a whole 'nother question.</p>
<p>Stressedoutt: While there has been a significant amount of argument concerning the amount a person’s intelligence is affected by genetics versus the environment, you cannot debate the fact that some people are simply born smart, while others are not.</p>
<p>So, yes, intelligence is not based solely on genetics. Maybe I shouldn’t have used that term so loosely. But what I’m trying to point out is that our initial intelligence is something we cannot control. Whether one can actually become smarter in his or her lifetime, I’m not sure. I do know that everyone can build on what intelligence they are born with and become bright people in their own way.</p>
<p>As a very intelligent person, I can tell you that it is sheer awesomeness being smarter than 99.9456 percent of people.</p>
<p>how is it awesome for you?</p>
<p>@michael2 seriously stop obsessing about iq. It does’nt mean anything. Google the guy with a 200 iq. He’s fat and poor with a dead end job. Go read a book or something and get off cc.</p>
<p>last i heard chris langan was enjoying his farm animals.</p>
<p>Chris Langan is a pious ****ing moron who has contributed nothing to the overall collective good. IQ means virtually nothing, especially in today’s society. And I really have to question what OP means by “intelligence,” because depending on the connotation its importance can be anything from practical to self-enlightened.</p>
<p>My guess is that if you’re not intelligent you don’t care too much about being super intelligent, and if you’re very intelligent you can’t imagine life without it.</p>
<p>I consider myself very intelligent, and I can’t imagine life without philosophy and mathematics. Yet I’m also more susceptible to existential depressions and a host of other unfortunate things. If I had never come to know the joy of math and philosophy in the first place, I’d have likely picked up an equally captivating hobby, like piano or killing homeless people. Then I wouldn’t be able to imagine spending my free time with Spivak instead of Bach.</p>