Recently a South Korean scientist YoungHoon Kim, who claims he has an IQ of 276, the highest IQ ever recorded, posted on X: “As the world’s highest IQ record holder, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the way and the truth and the life.”
We certainly agree with that. We certainly consider that viewpoint smart. (By the way, Einstein’s IQ estimated as between 160 and 180. The average person: about 100.)
IQ tests present patterns to test your “reasoning” abilities. They can involve shapes, colors, numbers, letters, or symbols. They can be linear, circular, or irregular.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a score for intelligence, there are only tests—IQ, SAT, ACT—that seek to measure aspects of intelligence.
Many of thiose with high IQs have embraced unreasonable ideas such as natural selection in evolution and the Big Bang (the universe erupting out of nothing).
This is not rational.
The same with “artificial intelligence.” One of the major players in AI, Sam Altman, loudly proclaimed last week that we’d reached “singularity,” whereby some AI systems are now “smarter” than humans.
Rest assured, Mr. Altman: AI will never duplicate nor surpass the human mind.
It may do many functions far faster than neural links. It certainly has a vastly better eidetic memory. It can scan information at the speed of light (which is the speed of electricity).
But let’s remember this (to quote J.D.S. Haldane): “All of the brain is in the mind but not all of the mind is in the brain.” A mathematical “genius”—a high-IQer—doesn’t necessarily have untestable and often more important aspects of intelligence such as intuition and imagination, which are untestable. And “emotional intelligence”?
Spiritual intelligence?
That too can be lacking in those who do well on standard tests but can’t think beyond the box.
These attributes of perception and cogitation are of a higher order.
Indeed, how many who have scored high enough on standard tests to gain entry into Princeton or Harvard go down the blind alley of believing the physical world is the only world that exists, when in fact it’s just a fraction of reality?