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Philosophy at Work is a 30-minute Socratic Community of Inquiry every third week, where we investigate concepts related to our work-life, such as Freedom, Authenticity, Courage, Logical Fallacies, Respect or Leadership.

How does Philosophy at Work work?

The idea is to practice strategic reflection for improved communication, collaboration, leadership (personal and interpersonal), and Problem Management, by using logic and discernment, and thinking out loud together. This means that you don’t have to mean what you say, or stand for it – what we are doing is trying out ideas, and daring to go where the thought leads us.

Practicing our thinking skills helps us get better at determining which actions can benefit a problematic process, relationship, or mindset. Research from universities (data from 600k students) shows that those who practice philosophy “outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness*”. 

Participating in a Community of Inquiry creates a sense of belonging, and what Koestenbaum** calls ‘a culture of chosen accountability’. As we listen to everyone speak their mind, we allow ourselves the time and space to take ourselves seriously and find our strengths while building psychological safety – one of the most important components of successful teams. It can also be, like many claim, “lovely”, with an almost therapeutic effect.

*Article: Studying philosophy makes people better thinkers
**Book: Confronting our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging

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Today, we’re talking about…

IQ

Haha. Because … I happened to find this little place called The Debate House (Debatthuset), not far from where I live, where they have debate evenings dedicated to various themes, and it’s run by a friend of mine.

(They also do things like Speaker’s Corner type stuff – super cool, I think – really happy that they exist.)

So, anyway, Monday night the topic was IQ, and we were 13 people divided into 2 groups, so I sat with 5 guys on odd arm chairs in various shapes and sizes, around a large coffee table, in a room full of bookshelves and big plants. And then, the dialogue leader said, “OK, now we’ll spend 2 hours talking about IQ. Everyone can speak as much or little as they want to, and at the end, hopefully we’ve gained some wisdom.

“But now, we’ll do a small round where we just introduce ourselves and say *something* about the subject; 1 minute each, or so. I’ll start.” And then, he said that he “identifies as smart”, is part of Mensa but basically just paying the annual membership fee, and that he’s interested in seeing what we can make of the topic.

What would you say, if you were to just introduce yourself and say something about IQ for a minute?

What is it?

What interests you about it?

What does the term …*spark* in you?
What would you say during your minute?
What sort of questions should we ask about it?

One guy said that he’d read that there was a claim in the 90s that you either have IQ or EQ – the supersmart guy who doesn’t care about feelings, or whatever. But, he said, apparently if you’re good at one of them, you’re mostly good at the other one too. If you have high IQ, you’re also more ethical, and have higher verbal ability.

Does that … make sense? To you? Thinking about yourself, and people you know?
Is it …unfair? 😊
(How?)

What other questions do we need to ask here?

… During that group dialogue, I said that IQ, or giftedness – the broader concept – is a measure of potential. Not accomplishment. Because: babies can be more gifted than any of us, we just don’t know until they’re older and can talk and point at things, you know? So, it’s a measure of how much you are *able* to grow, change, develop.

It’s a measure of potential…

And I said that it’s unusual – per definition. You know that bell curve where the bulk is within a certain range and then, the higher the IQ, the more unusual the person.

It’s unusual per definition

That must show somehow. So, what they often say for example at school, is that it’s the kids who *constantly surprise you*. When you’re like, “how did you…? How can you …?”

….

One way of describing giftedness is with these three words:

“Intensity, complexity, drive”

Intense people. Intensely happy, or upset, or interested in something, talking intensely. 😊

Complexity in seeing many aspects of things, or being able to connect ideas – intensity and complexity points to a richness of your inner life, kind of thing.

“Drive” means the drive to understand, or develop, etc. (I suppose that it *could* mean drive to win or to climb the career ladder, but from what I’ve understood it’s more sort of personal development or wanting to grasp something, sort of thing.)

…..

Another way to talk about it is to talk about “hyperexcitabilities”.

“Hyperexcitabilities”

Like a “hyperexcitable intellect”, where you ask Why? What if …? But … It’s like your intellect is easily ‘poked’ by interesting things in the world, like, “how does that work …?” “How can that be true …?”

Or “hyperexcitable imagination”, where you instantly imagine 100 different ways something could go wrong, or whatever. Or “hyperexcitable emotional life”, where you are deeply moved by, say, a painting, or your empathy is through the roof.  

I’ve thought about IQ and giftedness quite a bit, and researched it too.

They say there’s a thin line between madness and genius – have you heard that? And if you look into it, you can tell that things can go really bad if in particular children with high IQ don’t get any guidance. They’ll end up with a lot of anxiety, thinking that there’s something wrong with them, or that they’re crazy, or they’ll develop OCD type behaviors just trying to keep the world at bay, so to speak.

But then – and I’ll stop talking soon – just before I had to leave to put my daughter to bed, one very important question came up.  

What are you going to with it?

And, *how* are you going to do it? Because just IQ isn’t enough. I mean, you’ve got to want to do something good with it, right? Like, create something that helps people and makes the world a better place.

They say that Hitler was really smart, but it’s not very good to want to kill lots of people. People that you haven’t even met and you don’t know – how could you even know that you dislike them so much …

Joking 😊

But, really. I heard someone say talk about what he called “high IQ/low wisdom people”.

“High-IQ-low-wisdom people”

I thought that was, sort of, hitting the nail on the head about what’s needed. Wisdom. Everyone needs it.

Still, what … And now, we’ll do our round – what would be the best use of IQ? Like, if we could identify children with high IQ, what should we teach them?

What do you think about IQ?

…

Philosophy is what we need.

Photo by Nikola Knezevic