Conversation with David Miller on the Background, Life, and Views: Member, Glia Society (1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/03/22

Abstract

David Miller is a Member of the Glia Society. He discusses: growing up; a sense of an extended self; the family background; the experience with peers and schoolmates; some professional certifications; the purpose of intelligence tests; high intelligence discovered; the extreme reactions to and treatment of geniuses; the greatest geniuses in history; a genius from a profoundly intelligent person; profound intelligence necessary for genius; work experiences and jobs; particular job path; the gifted and geniuses; God; science; the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations); the range of the scores; ethical philosophy; social philosophy; economic philosophy; political philosophy; metaphysics; philosophical system; meaning in life; meaning externally derived, or internally generated; an afterlife; the mystery and transience of life; and love.

Keywords: Catholicism, David Miller, German, God, Italian, Glia Society, I.Q., intelligence, mathematics, Newton, non-religion, United States.

Conversation with David Miller on the Background, Life, and Views: Member, Glia Society (1)

*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were growing up, what were some of the prominent family stories being told over time?

David Miller[1],[2]*: Both of my parents are immigrants so there were some stories about their lives before immigration. No story was very prominent though; just memories from childhood regarding different foods they would eat and playing in the woods and such.

Jacobsen: Have these stories helped provide a sense of an extended self or a sense of the family legacy?

Miller: No; that has never been important in my family.

Jacobsen: What was the family background, e.g., geography, culture, language, and religion or lack thereof?

Miller: My mother is German and Italian and my father is Scottish but we are all Americanized and grew up without our parents bringing their home cultures into our childhood. My two brothers and I all grew up on the East coast of the United States and learned only English. As for religion, we were all raised Catholic but only one brother remained Catholic into adulthood.

Jacobsen: How was the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and an adolescent?

Miller: The overall experience was good I would say. In grade school, ages 6 through 11, there was some bullying but nothing too serious. I mostly stuck to my books and had one good friend who I spent much of my time with. We would play almost every day after school and talk about different books we were reading. In junior high and high school, ages 12 through 18, I had a small group of friends whom I could trust entirely. We would talk about normal teenage boy things such as school, girls, our families, and hobbies.Outside of my friends group I was mostly invisible to the other students at school, which I preferred.

Jacobsen: What have been some professional certifications, qualifications, and trainings earned by you?

Miller: I have a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering as well as a Microsoft Excel certification. Excel is fantastic, by the way. Too few people see all the potential it has. I have it open at this very moment!

Jacobsen: What is the purpose of intelligence tests to you?

Miller: I think intelligence tests are hugely important and that intelligence is an interesting field of study. The purpose for serious psychometricians is of course to accurately measure intelligence in whatever range is interesting to them. Most mainstream psychologists apparently design I.Q. tests with the low-mid range in mind to detect mental retardation and assist in diagnosing various psychiatric disorders. There are many non-mainstream high-range I.Q. test constructors too but almost none of them should be taken seriously. It’s obvious many of them don’t know the first thing about statistics, they are lacking in what they are attempting to measure, and they are too emotional and subjective when grading test answers.

That is not to say that all high-range I.Q. tests shouldn’t be taken seriously though. Paul Cooijmans, the world leader in high-range I.Q. testing, has the most accurate I.Q. tests ever designed for the range he is attempting to measure. To be clear, that is not an opinion but an objective fact based on his test’s statistics. As for my personal motivation in taking these tests — it is just for the satisfaction of solving very hard problems. If that helps with studying intelligence then that is a great bonus.

Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?

Miller: There were hints at that starting from when I was a toddler but it wasn’t until I was 7 that my teacher sat my parents down and told them I was “gifted”. Earlier that week in class the teacher was showing us basic arithmetic and I was doing it in my head faster than the teacher could do it with her calculator. To clarify, these were easy problems such as 14*5 or 28:4. When we learned fractions and percentages I would do those in my head too and my teacher and classmates thought it was amazing, not realizing that it was no harder than any other kind of basic multiplication.

So that you can amaze your friends and colleagues too: If you’re ever asked a problem like “what is 15% of 74?” just move the decimal point, get the product, then move the decimal point back afterward to get your answer. In this case 0.15 * 74 becomes 15 * 74 which can be done in your head to get 1110. After moving the decimal point back two places we get the answer: 11.10.

As for discovering very high intelligence, I took an I.Q. test in high school and got a “beyond ceiling” score but did not know what that meant at the time. Later for work an employer had every applicant take an I.Q. test and again I had every answer right. Decades later in late 2021 my son discovered Paul Cooijmans’ website on a forum called Reddit which resulted in me trying my first high-range I.Q. test the following month.

Jacobsen: When you think of the ways in which the geniuses of the past have either been mocked, vilified, and condemned if not killed, or praised, flattered, platformed, and revered, what seems like the reason for the extreme reactions to and treatment of geniuses? Many alive today seem camera shy – many, not all.

Miller: Ha, the reason for this is actually so sad it’s almost funny. The average person has no ability to grasp, understand, appreciate the work of a genius. Even in art or music they cannot possibly see the meaning behind any of it. The reason a few geniuses are praised is because some “experts” who are barely able to understand their work praise them, and the masses believe whatever experts say. If consensus among experts was that Albert Einstein was retarded then most people would believe that too.

Unfortunately, experts often don’t understand the genius and when that happens the genius is mocked or ignored until someone with authority finally does understand them. This usually happens decades or centuries after their death so they are basically screwed and at the mercy of people who are too stupid to understand them.

Jacobsen: Who seems like the greatest geniuses in history to you?

Miller: Newton, Tesla, Imhotep, and Archimedes come to mind. There is also someone I recently learned about that is very well-known for his work in psychometrics but my crystal ball says his contributions to music theory will be what make him a household name initially.

Jacobsen: What differentiates a genius from a profoundly intelligent person?

Miller: A genius must be intelligent /and/ have a high degree of persistence and obsessiveness combined with resistance to mainstream thinking. More on that last point; when someone accepts everything they are told by authority figures they are doomed to always have many false beliefs and are unable to produce original work.

Jacobsen: Is profound intelligence necessary for genius?

Miller: Yes, if by profound you mean about three standard deviations above the mean. Actually, most geniuses probably aren’t much smarter than that either. I’d guess the average genius, even Newton, had an I.Q. between three and four standard deviations above the mean.

Jacobsen: What have been some work experiences and jobs held by you?

Miller: I worked briefly as a civil engineer but thought it was very unrewarding so found work as a data analyst and have done that ever since.

Jacobsen: Why pursue this particular job path?

Miller: I’m good at math and prefer to do things which I’m good at. = )

Jacobsen: What are some of the more important aspects of the idea of the gifted and geniuses? Those myths that pervade the cultures of the world. What are those myths? What truths dispel them?

Miller: Something very important regarding gifted people and geniuses is that we need more resources put into discovering them and finding ways to help them achieve their potential. It makes no sense for the very brilliant children to study in the same classroom as the normal children. We put a lot of resources into helping intellectually disabled children and I think those efforts are catastrophically misplaced. Maybe that seems unempathetic but imagine how much worse it is for the brilliant child to be left behind compared to the retarded child? It makes me shudder.

Also, almost every mainstream belief about intelligence and genius seems wrong. Some truths are that intelligence is about 80-90% genetic, cannot be trained (but can be lowered), and is highly correlated with success and happiness.

Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the God concept or gods idea and philosophy, theology, and religion?

Miller: Yes; I do not believe in God and am not religious.

Jacobsen: How much does science play into the worldview for you?

Miller: Science is very important to me. When it’s good science; that is, not warped for political or personal reasons by the researcher, I will incorporate that information into my worldview.

Jacobsen: What have been some of the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations) for you?

Miller: In high school I took an I.Q. test and scored 150+ (16 S.D.) but do not know which one. Later, for a job application I took what I think was a shortened form of Raven’s Matrices and got everything right. From January 2022 onward I’ve been taking high-range I.Q. tests by Paul Cooijmans and have most of my scores around 167 +/- 10 (15 S.D.). My highest scores are on Narcissus’ Last Stand with I.Q. 180 (44 raw) and Divine Psychometry with I.Q. 177 (30 raw). My first high-range test was The Sargasso Test where I scored 161 (42 raw).

Jacobsen: What ethical philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Miller: I think ethics are absolute, universal, objective, and black-and-white. When someone says that ethics are relative, subjective, or that “everybody is right in their own way” please slap them (legal disclaimer: I’m kidding).

As for philosophers, I like Kant.

Jacobsen: What social philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Miller: The golden rule: “do unto others what you’d have them do unto you.” Many people misunderstand the golden rule and don’t realize it is most applicable when talking about social behavior in general. If you want others to help you when you are unwell then you should help them when possible. That is outside of ethics, by the way. There’s nothing unethical about not helping others; it’s only unethical to be the one intentionally hurting them.

Also, a general remark on socializing is that people should strive to be more introverted. I find people who have many friends and talk a lot tend to have nothing of substance to say and that those with few friends who rarely talk tend to have the most interesting things on their mind.

Jacobsen: What political philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Miller: My advice for people who want to know the answer to this question is to study world history and pay very careful attention to Greece, China, Egypt, and Rome. I can say no more than that.

Jacobsen: What metaphysics makes some sense to you, even the most workable sense to you?

Miller: I cannot say for reasons I cannot say.

Jacobsen: What worldview-encompassing philosophical system makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Miller: To achieve mastery in whatever one is naturally good at and to not waste time with things like hedonism. One only has this life, why waste it never reaching one’s potential? If one is not talented at anything then they would probably make a good school teacher I think.

Jacobsen: What provides meaning in life for you?

Miller: My wife and son; they are the most meaningful things in my life.

Jacobsen: Is meaning externally derived, internally generated, both, or something else?

Miller: Everything has a function and in nearly all cases they have no control over it. For humans we can derive some personal meaning in our lives but there is also an inescapable function we each serve in addition to that.

Jacobsen: Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, why, and what form? If not, why not?

Miller: Nope; nothing after death. It’s sad that everybody around me will eventually die and then no longer exist. I cannot die myself though.

Jacobsen: What do you make of the mystery and transience of life?

Miller: The ultimate function of all life is to achieve the highest level of awareness possible.

Jacobsen: What is love to you?

Miller: My feeling is that romantic love is when one cares for another so deeply that they put their own happiness second to their lover’s and their lover does the same. Platonic love is less intense and doesn’t require reciprocity.

Footnotes

[1] Member, Glia Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: March 22, 2022: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/miller-1; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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