All Levels of Intelligence Explained in 20 Minutes - YouTube
Transcripts:
Level one, subnormal. At the base of the cognitive spectrum lies a state of being often misunderstood and historically mistreated. Subnormal intelligence, clinically defined by an IQ below 70, represents the most fundamentally limited form of human cognition. This isn't a choice or a failing. It's a biological reality often stemming from genetic conditions like Down syndrome, severe brain trauma, or profound developmental complications.
The architecture of the mind here is different. Abstract thinking, the ability to connect cause and effect across time, is severely impaired. Language may be basic or non-existent. Memory, a tool we take for granted, struggles to build a bridge between yesterday and today. The world for a person at this level is immediate, sensory, and unfiltered.
It's a universe of now. They experience reality not through complex logic or layered language, but through the raw data of the senses, the warmth of a hand, the sharpness of a sound, the comfort of a familiar smell. This is why their emotional intelligence can be paradoxically profound. They are masters of the unspoken language.
They can sense kindness in a person's touch, read the subtle energy of a room, and respond to frustration or fear with an unnerving accuracy that bypasses words entirely. They can't be fooled by a smile that doesn't reach the eyes. For most of history, this level of intelligence was either hidden away or cruy exploited. But our understanding has evolved.
Society now recognizes that a life is not measured by its capacity for abstract thought, but by its capacity for experience. With dedicated support structures, love and respect for their inherent dignity, people at this level live rich with emotional connection. They form deep, unbreakable bonds, experience profound joy, and teach us a fundamental truth that the core of the human experience isn't about thinking, it's about feeling.
They remind us that before we were smart, we were simply aware. Level two, below average. Just above the threshold of profound dependency, we find the level of below average intelligence. This is one of the largest and most invisible segments of the population. Here, individuals with IQ scores typically between 70 and 85 are fully capable of independent life, but the world of abstract thought remains a foreign country.
Academic settings are often a source of constant struggle. The symbolic language of algebra, the theoretical frameworks of science, the grammatical rules that govern language. These are hurdles that can feel insurmountable. Learning isn't achieved through abstract instruction, but through repetition, muscle memory, and direct hands-on experience.
This is the intelligence of the practical world. While they may not be able to write a complex essay, they might possess an intuitive understanding of mechanics, a natural gift for agriculture, or an effortless ability to care for the elderly or the very young. They thrive in structured environments with clear, predictable routines, the assembly line, the warehouse, the meticulously organized kitchen.
Their problem solving is concrete and immediate. They fix what is broken in front of them, not what is broken in a system. Socially, this group is often misunderstood, dismissed by an education system that prizes one specific type of intellect. Yet, they often possess a robust social and emotional intelligence that their more academically inclined peers might lack.
They can be fiercely loyal, deeply empathetic, and grounded in a way that feels unshakable. They are the backbone of countless communities. The reliable neighbor, the dedicated caregiver, the steady hand that keeps the machinery of society turning. Their contribution is immense.
Yet, it is a contribution that our culture, obsessed with metrics of abstract genius, consistently fails to properly value. They succeed not by mastering the system, but by finding their indispensable place within it. Level three, average. Welcome to the great filter. the vast, sprawling, comfortable plateau of average intelligence.
IQ scores here range from 85 to 115, encompassing the great majority of humanity. This is the cognitive operating system that runs the modern world. It's the intelligence required to get a driver's license, file taxes, raise a family, and hold a conversation about the weather or last night's game. It's the intelligence of nurses, teachers, managers, and mechanics.
It is balanced, functional, and perfectly adapted for navigating the complexities of everyday life. People at this level understand rules, follow instructions, learn from their mistakes, and can generally solve the problems life throws at them. But there is a profound and dangerous trap lurking here.
Average intelligence is often just enough to create the illusion of complete understanding. This is the level where the Dunning Krueger effect reigns supreme. A person here is smart enough to form an opinion on almost any topic but often lacks the critical thinking skills to recognize the vastness of their own ignorance. They mistake hearing a headline for understanding an issue.
They confuse the ability to repeat an argument with the ability to deconstruct it. This level is sticky. It's a comfortable room and the walls are papered with confirmation bias. The motivation to seek out challenging contradictory information is low because for the most part life works. The bills get paid, the kids get to school, the weekend arrives on time.
There is no pressing existential need to question the fundamental assumptions of one's life. Growth is not impossible, but it is rarely seen as necessary. And so the average mind becomes a fortress. Defending its existing knowledge rather than seeking to expand it. It is the tragic paradox of this level.
Being smart enough to get by is often what prevents a person from ever becoming something more. Level four, above average. Here, the engine of the mind begins to run noticeably faster. Above average intelligence, typically in the 115 to 130 IQ range, is not just a quantitative leap. It's a qualitative shift in perception.
People at this level don't just learn information. They inhale it. They don't just see dots. They see the faint lines of connection forming between them long before anyone else. School may have felt painfully slow, a tedious exercise in repeating things they understood the first time. Social conversations can feel like a performance, a constant game of slowing down their own thoughts to match the rhythm of the room.
These are the minds that gravitate towards complexity. They find comfort in the elegant logic of computer code, the intricate systems of engineering, the abstract frameworks of philosophy. They are the natural problem solvers, the ones who can troubleshoot a failing system or devise a more efficient workflow with an almost intuitive ease.
They see the flaws in an argument, the unspoken assumptions in a plan, the long-term consequences of a short-term decision. But this speed comes with a shadow. It can breed a deep and frustrating sense of alienation. The world seems to be moving in slow motion and the people in it seem willfully blind to the patterns that are so blindingly obvious.
This can lead to impatience, arrogance, and a cynical detachment. You see the punchline before the joke is even told, and you have to pretend to laugh along with everyone else. Many at this level learn to fake normal, to consciously dim their own intellectual light to avoid intimidating others or disrupting the social harmony.
The danger here is not in the intelligence itself, but in the isolation it can create. You can become a spectator to the human drama rather than a participant. Floating above the noise, but forgetting what it feels like to be a part of it. Level five, high. Entering the territory of high intelligence, typically defined as an IQ between 130 and 145, is like upgrading from a 2D to a 3D view of the world.
It's the top 2% of the population. And the cognitive experience is fundamentally different. It's not just about speed anymore. It's about depth and dimensionality. People at this level don't just see the patterns. They see the patterns that connect the patterns. They can hold multiple contradictory ideas in their mind at once.
And instead of feeling conflict, they feel curiosity. They are the architects of complex systems, the masters of abstract thought. For them, learning is not an act of accumulation, but an act of integration. They can absorb a new field of knowledge and almost instantly see how it connects to everything else they already know.
This is why they excel in fields like theoretical physics, strategic planning, or highle software architecture. They think in models, in frameworks, in systems of systems. Their minds are constantly building and testing mental simulations of the world. However, this cognitive power often comes at an emotional cost, especially in youth.
A mind that outpaces its peers can be a lonely place. The nuanced, complex, and often dark implications they see in the world are not shared by those around them, leading to a profound sense of being misunderstood. They can be prone to existential anxiety, not as a philosophical exercise, but as a direct logical consequence of seeing the world with such clarity.
When this intellectual power is paired with emotional maturity, however, it becomes a formidable force. They are the innovators, the strategists, and the problem solvers who tackle the most complex challenges society faces, not just with intelligence, but with a deep understanding of the intricate web of causality. Level six, gifted.
Here, intelligence ignites into a fire of creative originality. Giftedness marked by IQ scores typically above 145 is more than just exceptional analytical ability. It is the point where raw processing power merges with a relentless almost desperate drive to create, to express, and to understand. A gifted individual doesn't just consume knowledge.
Their mind is a factory that is constitutionally incapable of not producing new ideas. From a very early age, their abilities can seem almost supernatural. They might exhibit photographic memories, a laser-like focus that can last for hours, and an insatiable curiosity that drives them to deconstruct everything they encounter. This is the child who teaches themselves to play piano by ear, who builds complex machines out of household junk, or who writes a full-length novel before they can legally drive.
They don't just solve problems. They reframe them in ways no one has ever considered. Their thinking is not just fast, it is divergent, leaping across disciplines and making connections that seem bizarre to others until they are proven brilliant. But this torrent of mental energy can be a double-edged sword.
The gifted mind is a high-performance engine that is always running, which can lead to sensory hypers sensitivity, intense emotional highs and lows, and a crushing perfectionism. The mundane world with its slow pace and arbitrary rules can feel like a prison. Frustration with the educational system is almost a given. The greatest challenge for the gifted is not intellectual, but existential.
learning how to manage an internal world that is vastly more complex, vibrant, and chaotic than the external world around them. When they learn to harness this fire, they become the true artists, inventors, and visionaries who don't just contribute to human culture, but fundamentally expand its boundaries. Level seven, genius.
Genius is not the next step on the ladder. It is a different ladder entirely. This level of intelligence found in perhaps one in a million people doesn't just operate within existing systems of thought, it creates new ones. A genius doesn't just play the game better than anyone else. They change the rules of the game for everyone.
Think of Einstein who didn't just solve equations about space and time, but fundamentally redefined what space and time are. Think of Rammanujan who saw mathematical theorems in his dreams that professional mathematicians took decades to prove. The architecture of a genius mind is different. It doesn't just run faster. It runs sideways. It runs in reverse.
It makes connections that defy all known logic. It is a mind that asks questions no one else has even thought to formulate. Why does this rule exist? What if the foundational assumption everyone accepts is wrong? This is the source of true paradigm shifts in science, art, and philosophy. The world is permanently altered in their wake.
But to the person who possesses it, genius is rarely a gift. It is an experience of profound, almost absolute isolation. The speed of their thought is so immense that communication becomes a constant act of translation of simplifying revolutionary ideas into a language that ordinary minds can even begin to grasp. And history shows us that geniuses are almost always punished before they are praised.
Their ideas are too radical, their questions too threatening, their vision too far ahead of its time. They live their lives in a future that no one else can see. and they often die there alone long before the rest of the world catches up. Level eight, polymath. If a genius represents the ultimate depth in a single field, a polymath represents the ultimate breath across many.
This level of intelligence isn't just about mastering different subjects. It's about seeing the universal principles that unite them. A polymath doesn't just learn art, science, and philosophy as separate disciplines. Their mind is a grand synthesizer, constantly weaving together disperate threads of knowledge into a single unified tapestry of understanding.
Historical examples are legendary. Leonardo da Vinci's studies of anatomy informed his painting and his observations of fluid dynamics influenced his designs for flying machines. Benjamin Franklin was a statesman, a scientist, a writer, an inventor, and his work in each field was enriched by his knowledge of the others. The defining characteristic of the polymath is not just a high IQ but an insatiable boundary dissolving curiosity.
They are driven by questions so large that no single field can possibly contain the answer. They see the mathematical patterns in music, the biological principles in social structures, the philosophical questions embedded in physics. In a world that increasingly demands hypers specialization, the polymath is an intellectual rebel.
Their process requires immense time, unwavering discipline, and a profound love of learning for its own sake. They are not building a career. They are building a worldview. They remind us that all knowledge is interconnected and that the most profound breakthroughs often occur not by digging deeper in one hole, but by seeing the entire landscape from above. Level nine, visionary.
Here, intelligence transcends understanding and becomes an act of creation. A visionary doesn't just see the world as it is. They see the world as it could be. And they possess the irrational courage to try and build it. This is a rare hybrid of genius level intellect, profound foresight, and an almost terrifying force of will.
While a genius might discover a new law of physics and a polymoth might understand its implications across multiple fields, a visionary is the one who sees how that law could be used to build a city on Mars. Visionaries are the great disruptors of history. They introduce ideas that seem utterly impossible, even insane, right up until the moment they become the new reality.
They are the ones who connect the dots between emerging technology, latent societal needs, and the deepest currents of the human spirit. They see the future not as a destination to be arrived at, but as a territory to be colonized. This level of intelligence is inherently risky. Visionaries are by definition heretics. They challenge the most deeply entrenched norms.
They threaten established power structures and they must endure relentless rejection, ridicule and doubt. But they are powered by an unshakable inner conviction. They are not merely smart. They are possessed by an idea. They are the architects of industries, the catalysts of social movements, the figures who don't just predict the future, but who use their brilliance to grab the present and bend it into the shape of their vision.
Level 10, transcendent. This is the final frontier, the point at which the pursuit of intelligence turns back on itself. At the transcendent level, the mind stops trying to accumulate more answers and starts questioning the nature of the questioner. It is a state of profound awareness where intelligence is no longer a tool for navigating the world, but a lens for seeing through the illusion of the self that created the tool in the first place.
This is the intelligence of the great sages, mystics, and philosophers. Think of the Buddha who didn't offer a new theory of reality, but a method for seeing through the mind's addiction to theories. Think of Socrates, whose ultimate wisdom was the profound recognition that he knew nothing.
These are minds that have moved beyond connecting the dots. They are questioning the very existence of the dots, the paper they're drawn on, and the hand that is drawing them. Transcendent intelligence is not flashy or impressive. It is quiet, still, and often misunderstood for simplicity or even madness. It doesn't seek to win arguments.
It seeks to dissolve the ego that needs to win. It doesn't build complex systems. It reveals the simple underlying truths upon which all systems are built. At the ultimate level, intelligence finally stops serving the individual self. It becomes an instrument of pure awareness. A silent luminous understanding that doesn't just know things about the world but comprehends the very nature of knowing itself. It is the ultimate odd why.
The intelligence that finally understands the futility of intelligence.
