Differences between geniuses are hard for non-geniuses to measure. You can understand everything that’s going through the head of someone dumber than you. When someone is smarter than you, you cannot tell if they’re one level above you or fifty because you literally cannot comprehend their reasoning.
Whether or not you can understanding everything going through the mind of someone dumber then you depends on whether you have access to the mental models that they use. If a person has professional expertise in a subject for which you have no expertise there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to follow all their thoughts even if you are smarter. The same goes for cultural differences.
Quite practically, I do have an example where someone who professes to have a much lower IQ then me (had it tested 40 years ago in childhood as significantly under 100) is able to say things that take me three months to understand.
On the flipside plenty of thinking that comes easy to people with a high IQ just takes more effort to follow for people of a lower IQ but isn’t impossible. On person in our local rationality group from time to time says that they their intelligence limits them to follow arguments. That mostly based on their ability of have complex arguments in their head. It doesn’t make it impossible for them to think through individual parts of the argument in pieces and then come to the same conclusion. It just makes things more difficult.
The smartest people tend to be ambitious.
There are plenty of smart people who are ambitious but if you look at Mensa there are plenty of people in Mensa that aren’t ambitious.
Whether or not you can understanding everything going through the mind of someone dumber then you depends on whether you have access to the mental models that they use. If a person has professional expertise in a subject for which you have no expertise there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to follow all their thoughts even if you are smarter. The same goes for cultural differences.
Quite practically, I do have an example where someone who professes to have a much lower IQ then me (had it tested 40 years ago in childhood as significantly under 100) is able to say things that take me three months to understand.
On the flipside plenty of thinking that comes easy to people with a high IQ just takes more effort to follow for people of a lower IQ but isn’t impossible. On person in our local rationality group from time to time says that they their intelligence limits them to follow arguments. That mostly based on their ability of have complex arguments in their head. It doesn’t make it impossible for them to think through individual parts of the argument in pieces and then come to the same conclusion. It just makes things more difficult.
There are plenty of smart people who are ambitious but if you look at Mensa there are plenty of people in Mensa that aren’t ambitious.