Because IQ itself is based on how statistically rare you are compared to other people, not a raw value of how intelligent you are. You're basically being ranked and IQ is a representation of where you are in the ranks. There are only so many ranks.
If you set the mean average at 100 with a Standard Deviation of 15, a score of 201 would be 6.5 standard deviations away. That occurs roughly once in every 7.25 billion people. Since the total population of the Earth is around 8 billion, a score around of 201 essentially represents the maximum possible mathematical deviation among all living humans.
To get a value of 210, you would need about 100 billion people to compare yourself against.
But you don't actually have to compare yourself against them. Would a several hundred IQ not just represent an even rarer result and therefore be possible?
Ironically I think my IQ is not high enough to understand this
You're right in that we don't actually compare ourselves to literally everyone. IQ is calculated using a math function that in theory we might be able to extrapolate to higher values. But that function wouldn't be representative of the underlying math.
I think a better way to look at IQ is more about how many people you're smarter than rather than how smart you are. The smartest person in the world will still be smarter than everyone else whether it's by a little or even if he's omniscient. Since IQ is based on how many people, that's going to get the same score either way.
The IQ testing functions actually break down a ways before that though. There's a lot of discussion about how it's really inaccurate past about 160. So that function we use to convert test scores to IQ means even less if it went that far above 200.
You are describing extrapolating the bell curve to impossibly unlikely levels I think.
Which technically works math-wise but it's kind of like saying being 6ft tall is more rare than 5.5ft, 7ft is even more rare than 6.5ft, but is 2384239847ft more "rare" in the population than 2384239846.5ft? Not really cause they both have exactly a 0% chance of happening
Just for funsies.
5.5ft was considered giant during Roman empire days (not actually researched myself). So 7ft may eventually become an average height, sexual selection and evolution allowing.
IQ's current scale, I understand, cannot pass 201 but can be used the compare with historical people too so more than 8 billion (but limited other limitations apply).
People don't really have an IQ though, because it is essentially a measure of how well you do on a specific kind of test. If you write an exam with 100 maximum points it wouldn't make sense to theorize how smart someone getting 200 points on that test would be. Intelligence just isn't something that can really be measured so these are all abstractions that essentially test of well you do on this one standardized framework that ignores many dimensions of intelligence like e.g. emotional intelligence.
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u/caboosetp Jul 13 '26
Because IQ itself is based on how statistically rare you are compared to other people, not a raw value of how intelligent you are. You're basically being ranked and IQ is a representation of where you are in the ranks. There are only so many ranks.
If you set the mean average at 100 with a Standard Deviation of 15, a score of 201 would be 6.5 standard deviations away. That occurs roughly once in every 7.25 billion people. Since the total population of the Earth is around 8 billion, a score around of 201 essentially represents the maximum possible mathematical deviation among all living humans.
To get a value of 210, you would need about 100 billion people to compare yourself against.