Point me to an intellectual community...

[Vance]

Is there anywhere (besides here, no offense meant ) where there is an intellectual society dedicated to discussing rather than debating? History, arts, music, etc. You probably can infer I do not mean Obama vs. Clinton, or any modern music stars, or any modern contreversies at all, rather on more intellectual pursuits... (With, obviously, a community that spells correctly...)

[StephenT]

I would like to go to one also! Great idea.

[ninja9578]

Come to Mensa.

[StephenT]

Come to Mensa. I actually just though of this before I clicked on the thread! I have been planning to join it, but haven't gone out and taken the IQ test thing yet.

[thegnome54]

What are the requirements for joining mensa? How pompous are they?

[psychology student]

Do a test at home, send it off, they mark it. If your IQ is above 113, you sit another test at a Mensa centre, they mark it, if its above 113 youre in.

[ninja9578]

Uh, 113? No, it's 140. There are other tests as well, I think it's 1250 on the old SATs. There are a few other tests too.

[thegnome54]

Uh, 113? No, it's 140. There are other tests as well, I think it's 1250 on the old SATs. There are a few other tests too. I don't think a 1250 on the SATs would match an IQ of 140, that seems a bit low. What does being in mensa entail?

[psychology student]

Uh, 113? No, it's 140. There are other tests as well, I think it's 1250 on the old SATs. There are a few other tests too. really? I was under the impression it was 113.

[thegnome54]

really? I was under the impression it was 113. 113 is barely above average. That's a ten-year-old with the intelligence of the average 11.3-year-old. Whoop-de-do, really. IQ is a bad system to use for this sort of stuff, because it really stops making sense after a certain age. If a 50-year-old has an IQ of 150, does that mean he's as intelligent as the average 75-year-old?

[Spartiate]

I was invited to join mensa after doing some IQ test thing (I think it's for the top 1 percentile), I just refused because I didn't care on the account of being 14 or so, I'd assume I could pass the test again .

[Mes Tarrant]

Why exactly is it that strict (yeah you do have to be in the top 1 or 2 percentile)? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of spreading intellectual ideas or whatever... if it's only reaching such a limited number of people?

[wasup]

113 is barely above average. That's a ten-year-old with the intelligence of the average 11.3-year-old. Whoop-de-do, really. IQ is a bad system to use for this sort of stuff, because it really stops making sense after a certain age. If a 50-year-old has an IQ of 150, does that mean he's as intelligent as the average 75-year-old? Gnome, the concept of the IQ test is that your intelligence never "changes." Intelligence is just the ability to learn, and that is the same when you are 10 as when you are 75.

[Spartiate]

Why exactly is it that strict (yeah you do have to be in the top 1 or 2 percentile)? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of spreading intellectual ideas or whatever... if it's only reaching such a limited number of people? That's not the point really, the idea is to get all the smart people together to talk about the rest.

[1342576]

http://abstractthought.livejournal.com

[thegnome54]

Gnome, the concept of the IQ test is that your intelligence never "changes." Intelligence is just the ability to learn, and that is the same when you are 10 as when you are 75. IQ tests measure relative mental maturity - your IQ is your mental age divided by your physical age multiplied by 100. This is why the 'average' IQ is 100 - the average person has the same mental and physical age. With this in mind, IQ testing seems to be useful for, at most, identifying early development in children. After a point, your mental development levels off drastically (or so it's currently thought), and IQ becomes somewhat meaningless.

[ExoByte]

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

[ThePhobiaViewed]

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/ Haha I love that site, the ideas are crazy enough that you'll never believe them but convincing enough that you almost will.

[R.D.735]

For being an organization of smart people, Mensa is not very organized or influential. In a life-imitating-art sort of way (I'm talking about Dilbert's garbage man, of course), many members of Mensa are quite literally too smart to care about being members of Mensa (it's the IQ problem), and only joined on a whim.

[Vance]

I was more thinking of a forum community, I looked up Mensa and could tell it was flawed, there are just too many people in this world nowadays that do things just to do things. (THAT IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THREAD)

[Kushna Mufeed]

IQ tests measure relative mental maturity - your IQ is your mental age divided by your physical age multiplied by 100. This is why the 'average' IQ is 100 - the average person has the same mental and physical age. With this in mind, IQ testing seems to be useful for, at most, identifying early development in children. After a point, your mental development levels off drastically (or so it's currently thought), and IQ becomes somewhat meaningless. Really? I thought it was the average IQ of wherever you lived was set to 100.

[dragonoverlord]

I like where this thread is going....Bump

[psychology student]

113 is barely above average. That's a ten-year-old with the intelligence of the average 11.3-year-old. Whoop-de-do, really. IQ is a bad system to use for this sort of stuff, because it really stops making sense after a certain age. If a 50-year-old has an IQ of 150, does that mean he's as intelligent as the average 75-year-old? Thats the age quotient system of IQ, that applied only to children. You would be using it if you were alive in the 1920's. Its changed since then now a normal distribution (standard deviation) system is preffered.

[psychology student]

Really? I thought it was the average IQ of wherever you lived was set to 100. Your right

[Universal Mind]

I don't think IQ is a direct enough measure of intelligence, and SAT score is nowhere near it. If you have a bad attention deficit but an IQ of 160, you are fucked on the SAT. Time is too much of a factor. It is mainly a test of knowledge. I think the main point of being in Mensa is to be able to say, "I'm in Mensa."