Agree. One of my friends is pretty smart (at least, above above-average) and works in the tech industry. When he was young he had to "simulate" his emotions to "look like a normal person." He had to think what normal people would feel under his situation and tried to feel that way (or tried to make himself looked feeling that way in front of people). For example, he thinks that crying on funerals is illogical, because the dead are dead already, nothing can bring them back and the dead would surely rather see people they love live happily instead of in sorrow. But no. Until he escaped from the environment he was born he had to live like a normal person, and tried to cry on funerals.
Most dumb and normal people also don't cry at funerals.
Smarter people than your friends have feelings, fall in love and cry for their dead pets.
Nothing to do with how smart you are. Cynicism isn't being smart. Cynicism is just being cynic.
He could be smarter and not cry and just say "I'll miss him/her" in smalltalk rather than rationalising the whole thing (because that's actually the dumb thing to do).
Not to diagnose your friend, but more as a general note: that kind of perspective sounds (from my admittedly unqualified perspective) much more typical of people on the autism spectrum or certain other non-neurotypicals than it does of "smart people" in general. It might be worth noting that there's some (mostly-anecdotal) indications that tech, particularly programming itself, may have higher incidence of people on the spectrum than other fields.
His friend might not be on the autism spectrum, and it would be blatantly irresponsible to claim he was based on such limited evidence with no qualifications - which is why I didn't.
Rather, I stated that that kind of mindset is usually more common in individuals on the spectrum. It is, in fact, one of its most common and defining features - even if, on its own, it's not sufficient for a diagnosis. It's relevant to the discussion, even if it's not relevant to his friend in particular.
What further qualification could I have added to make myself clearer? I definitely don't want to be encouraging lazy net-diagnoses, as they're harmful to the people who have such disorders, so I'm genuinely curious how you would rather I have phrased this.
You could not have qualified that statement more. It's just hard to communicate ideas because the response prediction engine we build in our minds operates with a high degree of uncertainty.
Inability to understand emotions is not the same thing as being smart. It is possible to be smart and not to understand them, but plenty of smart people do get why people cry at funeral.
Also, majority of people who attend funerals don't cry and even more don't cry publicly. It is highly inappropriate to laugh or look happy, but if he was trying to simulate cry, then his idea of funerals was not based on reality nor observation.
I agree. Feynman was incredibly intelligent, musically inclined, and charmingly social. Anyone who feels out of touch with (perceived inferior) normal people due to being too smart is creating a hierarchy of people which places them just one step off the bottom. At the same time they present as if their position is the top step on the ladder.
People pigeonhole themselves into categories based on RPG mechanics. In their head, they're at Intelligence 10 so that must mean that they had to sacrifice Charisma. The real world doesn't have game balance. People will turn out to be smart and funny and kind and good looking. To make it worse, these will correlate.
And besides, the idea of intelligence resulting in damaged social skills is odd. Being able to generalise and make inductive conclusions is an important skill that is substantially helped by being intelligent. Making social decisions the long way (thinking through them) is inefficient. An intelligent person who's doing that is just poorly using their time.
Not saying you're wrong at all (in fact I agree), but I think that an important thing to remember is that smart people still have limited time like everyone else, hence they will probably be less enthusiastic to fritter it away on "meaningless" social interaction and small-talk when they could be doing something they consider useful, challenging or stimulating.
This tendency IMO tends to make some smart people less adept at social interaction, just because they do less of it. Not all smart people, but definitely some of them. Probably everyone knows an intelligent person who is socially awkward.
So that's another influence. But it's all generalizations.
> For example, he thinks that crying on funerals is illogical, because the dead are dead already, nothing can bring them back and the dead would surely rather see people they love live happily instead of in sorrow. But no. Until he escaped from the environment he was born he had to live like a normal person, and tried to cry on funerals.
No, the more I think about it, the more I think your friend is really missing something. Funerals aren't about crying because the dead could be in pain or suffering. It's crying about the absence and the hole they leave in our life. (that and emotional contagion, which is a regular psychological effect in such gatherings)
The fact he concluded he had to cry on funerals just goes to show his line of reasoning clearly lacks logic and experience to fuel it (teenage angst ?).
Now of course it depends on the culture you are raised in (see old italy black dressed old women at funerals for instance) and the violence attached to behaving outside the norm.
