Conversation with Luis Ortiz on Family, Intelligence Scores, 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): 2022/07/01

Abstract

Luis Ortiz is a Member of the Glia Society. He discusses: growing up; an extended self;’ the family background; peers and schoolmates; the purpose of intelligence tests; high intelligence discovered; geniuses; the greatest geniuses in history; a genius from a profoundly intelligent person; some work experiences and educational certifications; the idea of the gifted and geniuses; some social and political views; the God concept; science; some of the tests taken and scores earned; the range of the scores; and ethical philosophy.

Keywords: family, Glia Society, intelligence, I.Q., Luis Ortiz, self.

Conversation with Luis Ortiz on Family, Intelligence Scores, 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?

Luis Ortiz[1],[2]*: Nothing interesting. I only remember anecdotes about myself only. For instance, when I was about two years old. It had recently been Christmas and in the living room of the place where I was living at the time there was a Christmas tree with the lights disconnected. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go to the Christmas tree and plug it in. My parents mention that they were scared because at some point in the night they woke up and realized the tree was on and thought maybe someone had broken in. When they checked, it turned out to be me looking at the tree.

I remember this fact myself but somewhat vaguely.

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

Ortiz: No.

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

Ortiz: I come from a Catholic family that was very religious back then when I was a child. Nowadays they are not so religious anymore but they are still very spiritual. Regarding the geographical origins I do not know many details. I only know that part of the family is of Spanish origin. This is quite common in Mexico, actually. I guess it is still remarkable because I can tell that the phenotype of my family, in terms of appearance and personality, tends to differ a lot from the typical one here in Mexico.

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

Ortiz: Bad, I would add. I recall being a somewhat eccentric child but still remarkably normal for the first 5 years of my life. In primary school, around 6 years old, things started to get bad. I recall feeling extremely bored. I never payed attention. The vast majority of time it was me playing with my school utensils. Strangely, this habit lasted until about the age of 9 years, and I recall getting bullied for that. I recall people making fun of me because I was an eccentric child talking alone while playing with whatever was within my reach. I remember this myself. Everything was more or less normal and when I entered to primary school, some months thereafter I began to feel school so boring and decided to distract myself doing other things.

I had to receive attention from a psychologist from that school because I suddenly became from normal to a bad student. The psychologist in question succeeded in helping me improve my performance, but then my mother decided to just move out from the city I was living in back then and I got transferred. From there on, none of the schools I went (yes, there were more transfers) had any psychologist and never went to see any despite the obvious abnormalities. My performance declined so badly that I repeated third grade and almost fourth. But this is irrelevant to the point of the question.

Even though I made some friends I was alone most of the time. And the fact that I transferred many times did not helped.

Basically, during my childhood, my experience consisted of some loneliness in school, being occasionally accompanied by one friend. I tried to play soccer with other kids in order to be more “normal” and incorporate but I was too bad for that. I guess it was my lack of practice, the fact that soccer is a mainstream sport practiced almost daily for years by almost anyone going to school, and some lack of talent from me.

I remember there was a mate in a Christian school I went who liked to feign being possessed by the devil. He boasted so much about being evil itself and being the son of satan. Curiously, this kid was actually a Christian. He was joking, obviously, but the way in which he did so was far unusual. I do not remember any other religious Christian being anywhere close to reassemble that.

Around my teenage years I stabilized more towards normality but still was very abnormal and could not fit as expected. These were terrible years for me. I had problems with my family and had to transfer many times again from one school to another. I lost contact with the few friends I made like 3 times.

In sum, my general experience is characterized by being someone abnormal with a small group of friends and occasionally trying to fit in with normies. Nowadays I am surprised by the fact that it took me years to realise how different I was from normies and the obvious fact that I was never going to fit.

I could go on but I guess this is enough to show that it was a bad experience generally speaking. This left me some deep psychological wounds, because whenever I see references on memes and jokes about usual school situations, or anything related, I tend to feel uncomfortable and furious. I developed a deep hatred towards school, the way in which basic education is taught here and some behaviours displayed by mexican teens.

I confess I would love to have a regular school experience or something better, like the stuff you see on movies, TV shows and anime series, but I guess I was too abnormal for that. Not to mention the problems with my parents and the fact that mexicans really need something like 15 additional I.Q. points.

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

Ortiz: They are useful tools for assessing people’s intellectual potential. Although imperfect, they are still informative and useful for detecting high I.Q.’s. If someone is intelligent enough to deserve special education, it should be mandatory to receive it. Forcing highly intelligent people to pass through the regular curriculum could bring severe problems. I suspect that was a strong reason behind my failure at school, besides my deviant personality.

As for high range I.Q. tests, I think they are entertaining and challenging. I enjoy the feeling that comes when a solution to a hard and tough problem comes. They also help people in gaining insight into their aptitude profile.

Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?

Ortiz: Around 11 years old. I never suspected that I was intelligent before that. Actually it was the opposite. I had the idea that I was a little bit mentally retarded. This was because I never fitted in in school and spent most of my free time playing videogames, watching t.v., playing alone, surfing the web and so on. It never occurred to me that I could be an intelligent individual mainly because I never gave myself the opportunity to manifest my potential, and neither school nor my family did so, I was a problematic child and never fitted in well in school. Because of this, my self-esteem got a little bit undermined. Actually, at some point I recall feeling totally useless. So I thought I was simply not suited for anything related using the brain.

I recall surfing through Youtube until finding, by accident, a video which showed a comparison between the sizes of different planets and stars. For some reason I liked that video and watched it many times. After that I found a documentary about the sun and found it interesting. I watched many documentaries eventually. At some point I watched so many documentaries that I became very well articulated and informed about many arcane subjects which no one cared, then changed my mind about my capacity. Something bizarre about this is the fact that my high intelligence was so obvious that everyone was very well aware of it, but no one did absolutely anything. This is when my psychological wounds emerge again, whenever I see those prodigy children on the media sometimes I can not avoid feeling bad for never receiving any proper education and attention (prodigy children are recognized because they often receive proper attention early in their lives). Rather, I got forced to pass through regular school with its obvious shortcomings.

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.

Ortiz: A genius, in my view, is a highly creative person, a person who makes outstanding contributions to a given field. Someone who brings up new brilliant ideas and fundamental changes in a discipline, someone who makes actual advances. It is hard for me to define what constitutes actual advances but at least they are not hard to recognise, specially in the case of exact sciences. Creativity, by its very nature of bringing something new, often breaks down the usual beliefs, old ideas and dogmas, that people hold. Therefore it tends to offend vested interests and people who like to believe in lies, the irrational and often unprincipled; at the same time, tends to gain respect from those more predisposed towards accepting and appreciating real advance. Hence, a genius, being a supreme manifestation of creativity, will tend raise extreme reactions.

Paul Cooijmans mentioned that creativity is the expression of awareness. This does make sense to me. Being creative requires both inner drive and novel insights. Only an aware brain would arrive at novel ideas and have the self-drive required to develop these ideas. Edward Dutton and Bruce G. Charlton in their book “The Genius Famine” mention that genius is an Endogenous personality, a combination of innate high ability, inner motivation and intuitive thinking. They put some emphasis on the fact that Endogenous personality is an inner oriented, self driven kind of person. I receive the impression that this is the result of something special happening inside the head of a person with creative potential. It could be that extreme reactions are the result of people perceiving something unusual regarding the individual in question.

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

Ortiz: I would mention anyone who is considered a scientific genius and who has achieved extraordinary feats in advancing science, philosophy and arts. Beyond that, it is hard to identify who would undoubtedly qualify as genius as already defined here. To name some examples include Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens and Galileo Galilei.

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

Ortiz: A profoundly intelligent person is someone with a very high I.Q., say, something like being three standard deviations above the mean (145 points; the top 0.135% of the population). While having a high I.Q. is a necessary condition for the outstanding creative achievements that characterizes a genius, it is not sufficient. Therefore, the main difference lies in personality and the way in which genius is predisposed to see and perceive the world. A profoundly intelligent person may be very well creative or just normal, whereas a genius is a very rare kind of individual whose personality comprises some traits which are very rare to find strongly expressed in the very same individual. I refer the reader to Cooijmans’ articles about genius, Edward Dutton’s book “The Genius Famine”, Hans Eysenck’s “Genius. The natural history of creativity”, and Arthur Jensen’s (this appears in the book Intellectual Talent: Psychometric and Social Issues) “Giftedness and Genius: Important Differences”.

The latter provides a good illustration of what is a genius and what is a profoundly intelligent person. It draws a distinction by describing the case of Ramanujan and Hardy.

Jacobsen: What have been some work experiences and educational certifications for you?

Ortiz: Menial and uninteresting jobs only. No remarkable credentials for the moment. I only finished what is the equivalent of high school here.

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?

Ortiz: One important aspect is the distinction already made here between intellectual capacity and potential for creative achievement.

“Genius” is used in a lightly way often. People showing talent, prodigy childs and profoundly intelligent people in general are sometimes labeled as geniuses. I would not put in doubt the value of these kinds of people, but I think “genius” should be reserved for something more elevated. Supremely creative people, of course.

As for using the word gifted, I refer the reader to Cooijmans’ article “Reasons to avoid the term “gifted””. It is helpful in providing an understanding of the importance of an accurate employment of words, not just in regards to high intelligence.

Jacobsen: What are some social and political views for you? Why hold them?

Ortiz: I am not decided yet on this matter. But, for the moment, I would mention that classical liberalism seems attractive to me. Classical marxism, in contrast, and anything deriving from it, seems terribly loathsome.

But leaving that aside. I strongly support some specific measures. For instance, Cooijmans’ idea of vote weighting based on intelligence; Wim Rietdijk’s idea of interviewing with lie detectors relevant politicians, journalists, business people, etc. Interviews with very specific and straightforward questions: “what is your actual interest? Are you working for someone else? Do you have an interest in destroying our current democratic society?”. A reason to support this is to make it hard for bad and incompetent people to ascend and occupy any position of power and significance in society, and easier for naturally competent, good, intelligent people with a genuine interest in advancing society.

Also I think eugenics is vastly important. Intelligence and good character are among the pillars of civilization. Without these things a successful society in perpetual advance is not possible. Since these things are mostly genetic, some measures should be taken to make them abound. There should exist policies encouraging intelligent and good natured people to procreate more, and procreation from criminals should be banned completely. Unfortunately, it has become heresy to talk about eugenics in this way. This is so sad. Without it, societies are condemned to rise and fall endlessly with the constant risk of losing everything with every decay. Not to mention the constant threat of natural disasters with the potential to end life as we know it. Without a powerful civilization able to survive or counter these disasters, humanity is at risk of disappearing forever leaving little or no trace. For these reasons, and more, I think eugenics is among humanity’s most powerful weapons against life’s cruelties.

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

Ortiz: I think this matter is very complicated. First, on the concept of god: I am skeptical about the existence of any god or “superior intelligence”. I suppose god must have a mind or a kind of awareness not dissimilar from the kind of awareness we have. Otherwise probably there would not exist the need to call it god. I do not see any “mind” acting out there. I see structure in the universe of course, and minds are complicated structures themselves, but it must be reminded that not all structures are minds!

It could be said that god is acting from some kind of unconditioned reality, but how the heck am I supposed to believe that? I wonder. I care about the real world and its natural causes among things and phenomena, not about supernatural unverifiable things. The rejection of only existing natural causes and events introduces supernatural causes to the world. That is to say that there are things for which there cannot exist any logical explanation working in terms of our world. Any observed potential supernatural phenomenon should be seen as natural because it is acting in our world of natural causes and effects, and as such, constitutes a cause or an effect itself that comes from somewhere. Seeing potential supernatural causes in the world and not giving them any proper explanation, or not seeking one if there is not any available, is a matter of faith, of reasoning errors. You are renouncing, partly at least, to rationality as a medium to derive explanations about the empirical datum and make sense of the world.

As for religion, I am not the kind of atheist who despises religion. I believe people should be left free to choose their religion, as far as it concerns something not dangerous, or choose whether they should be spiritual or not. I do not think it is necessarily bad. Religion often provides people an ethical framework, a meaning of life and the satisfaction of accomplishing an elevated end, of existing for something greater. Provides a sense of leading a meaningful life.

Most humans are unable to make sense of the world logically. They employ supernatural causes in their vision of the world as a consequence. They also need a meaning of life. Religion is what provides these things, a meaning for life and a (crude) model of the world, to them. It is what naturally follows given their limitations, both intellectual and in regards to life’s cruelty.

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

Ortiz: It is fundamentally important as it helps to grow knowledge about real world. It helps to provide some understanding about the real physical world and myself. I am not competent enough to evaluate scientific theories and models at a technical level yet but I am working on that. I strive to be a polymath proficient in many areas.

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

Ortiz: Below are some scores expressed on a scale with the standard deviation being equal to 15, next to the name of the test:

PIGS 2, 155;

Numina4D, 154;

INRC 2018, 146;

Cogitatus Logicae 30, 156;

These are some performances on tests which I consider good. Also, I consider them strongly representative of at least my non-verbal ability. I am planning to take verbal tests on the future to get a better picture.

Jacobsen: What is the range of the scores for you? The scores earned on alternative intelligence tests tend to produce a wide smattering of data points rather than clusters, typically.

Ortiz: About 80 points. My lowest score ever is about 80, if I recall correctly. It was on a test which I decided to finish prematurely. My highest is 164.

Yes, such enormous difference between the lowest and highest score is possible, and perhaps common. The tests are not perfect and always capture something else besides general ability. And even if they could capture the whole of general ability only, people vary in their mental ability across lifetime. You will not perform equally well on a test when old and decaying than when younger and at your peak of general ability. Sometimes I.Q.’s, as is often the case in mainstream psychology, express people’s performance relative to other people of the same age and sex. Even then, people develop and decay at different rates, so again there are no reasons to expect scoring the same even on a hypothetical test measuring general intelligence only, unless abandoning such comparisons and using some absolute scale of intelligence.

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

Ortiz: I am not decided about this, too. I work intuitively, as I am aware that both strong reasoning ability and interest in being a good person provide almost instantly and naturally what is needed in order to act ethically. Being ethical is easy when you actually care about it and have high intelligence. I think it is possible to develop universal and objective ethics, and have some access to them. But that requires high intelligence. And as far as I know, I have both an interest on being a good person and a high intelligence.

I normally try to think if what I will do will cause any harm or if there will be any negative consequences. Of course, “negativity” is judged based upon the specific situation and its context. One important thing to keep in mind is the existence of awareness and suffering. A distinction between good and evil makes sense because of these things. Good people act in such a way that perpetuates awareness’ existence and avoids adding as much as possible to the total suffering in the universe.

Something I noticed many people do is putting too much emphasis on protecting others’ feelings. I do not like this. Life is full of uncomfortable situations. Life is essentially, and in part, uncomfortable. Sometimes it is necessary to tell people the most uncomfortable things. Indeed, it is quite usual to get involved in uncomfortable situations with people whom you appreciate.

Actually, I hate this kind of approach. Why should I be forced to consider others’ feelings constantly? It is annoying and to some extent constraining. If people lack any maturity to take whatever I am saying, that is not my problem. It could be argued that my logic could be used to intentionally seek any harm to others’ feelings and then excusing oneself with not doing anything bad. But I am merely arguing that putting too much emphasis on others’ feelings is annoying, unnecessary, something I would not do. Obviously, I would not try to freely annoy people unless they deserve it.

Footnotes

[1] Member, Glia Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: July 1, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/ortiz-1; Full Issue Publication Date: September 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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