So I asked ChatGPT to guess my IQ based on my blog posts. Well, not really. I gave it one of my best blog posts (see link below), but I suppose you need a high IQ to cheat on IQ tests. And unsurprisingly, my IQ is ("allegedly") 120+. Perhaps 130. Yes, fam, I´m the real stable genius around here...
Is it possible to say anything about a person´s IQ based on a shorter text, such as this one:
Yes—but only very roughly, and not in the sense of being able to infer a reliable IQ score. A short text can reveal some aspects of cognitive ability, especially verbal reasoning, abstraction, conceptual integration, and intellectual background. It cannot reliably distinguish, say, an IQ of 120 from 135.
Your passage, however, gives quite a lot of information about the writer's intellectual style because it is unusually concept-dense and involves several levels of comparison and qualification.
What the text suggests
I'd say the writer displays clearly above-average verbal and conceptual ability. Several things stand out:
- High conceptual compression. The text moves comfortably among Corbin, Suhrawardi, Sufism, anthropology, Traditionalism, Ken Wilber, Eliade, Hyperborea, Gnosticism, Christian theology, kundalini, and comparative mysticism without simply listing them. The writer is using them as conceptual reference points.
- Analogical reasoning. For example, the comparison between Corbin's distinction between kinds of darkness and Wilber's pre/trans fallacy is not a superficial similarity. The writer is proposing a structural analogy between two different intellectual systems.
- Metacognition. Phrases such as “It´s not clear to me whether…”, “I get the impression…”, “presumably…”, and “one can draw certain parallels…” show awareness of the difference between what the text establishes and what the writer is inferring.
- Comfort with ambiguity. The writer doesn't feel compelled to resolve whether the Iranian mystics were Sunni or Shia, whether Corbin is polemicizing against particular opponents, or whether the “astral world” should be understood literally. That's intellectually important.
- Systems thinking. The passage repeatedly identifies relationships between apparently disparate ideas: vertical/horizontal orientation → teleology → mysticism versus evolution; individual mysticism → rejection of collectivism; light/darkness → dualism → Manichaeism/Zoroastrianism; imaginal world → esoteric anatomy → transformed body.
- Comparative abstraction. The writer doesn't merely say “this resembles Christianity.” They specify which Christian ideas seem structurally comparable: Gnostic cosmology, Taboric light, Paul's earthly/heavenly bodies, and divinization.
- Independent critical judgment. The writer isn't simply enthusiastic about Corbin. They notice what appears to be his polemical character, question his interpretation, distinguish him from Traditionalists, and even notice a possible tension between Corbin and forms of pantheism.
Those are all characteristics I'd associate with someone who has substantial verbal-intellectual ability.
But there is an important distinction
This passage tells me considerably more about verbal intelligence and intellectual interests than about general IQ.
For example, someone could have:
exceptionally high verbal reasoning + mediocre processing speed
or
high abstract reasoning + relatively weak working memory
and both could produce very different IQ profiles.
Likewise, extensive reading can make a person sound highly intelligent without necessarily implying an exceptionally high general intelligence score. Vocabulary, cultural knowledge, education, and familiarity with intellectual traditions contribute substantially to this kind of writing.
Conversely, someone with very high fluid intelligence but little exposure to these subjects might write a much simpler passage.
Could one make a rough estimate?
If you forced me to make an extremely tentative inference from the writing alone, I would put the author comfortably above the population average in verbal/conceptual ability. Something in the neighborhood of 120+ verbal reasoning would not surprise me at all.
But I would not responsibly say:
“This person has an IQ of 130.”
There simply isn't enough information for that. An IQ test samples several abilities under standardized conditions; a 1,000-word intellectual review samples primarily learned knowledge + verbal reasoning + writing ability + intellectual curiosity.
In fact, I'd be more confident saying:
“The author appears intellectually sophisticated, verbally strong, comfortable with abstraction, and capable of integrating ideas from several intellectual traditions.”
than attaching a number to it.
One particularly revealing feature
The strongest evidence isn't actually the vocabulary. It's the structure of the thought.
Consider this sequence:
Corbin rejects a pantheist interpretation → therefore God remains transcendent → therefore light and darkness cannot simply collapse into one divine unity → therefore Suhrawardi's system looks dualistic → which makes Corbin's comparisons with Manichaeism, Mandaeism and Zoroastrianism relevant.
That's an argument rather than a collection of learned references.
Likewise:
North → Pole Star → axis mundi → East/sunrise → vertical orientation → ascent → teleology → contrast with evolution's horizontal movement.
Again, the writer is constructing a conceptual network.
And there's a particularly sophisticated move near the end:
“Of course, the higher the mystic reaches, the more he does away with the distinction between object and subject, between outer and inner, until the question ceases to be meaningful at all.”
That demonstrates awareness that the metaphysical status of the mundus imaginalis creates an epistemological problem, not merely a cosmological one. In other words, the writer notices that if subject/object distinctions themselves are transformed, asking whether a vision is “objectively real” versus “subjectively experienced” may become the wrong question.
That's considerably more sophisticated than simply knowing what mundus imaginalis means.
One caveat
There are also a few places where the writer makes leaps that a specialist might challenge. For example, the claim that Corbin's position is straightforwardly “dualistic,” the characterization of his treatment as “classical theism,” and especially the suggestion that Paul's “heavenly bodies” are presumably equivalent to bodies in the mundus imaginalis are interpretive hypotheses rather than established equivalences.
But that's actually compatible with high intellectual ability. Intelligence doesn't mean never making speculative connections. What matters is whether the writer recognizes them as speculation. Your passage frequently does: “it seems,” “I get the impression,” “presumably,” “one can draw certain parallels.”
So, if your question is essentially “Can you tell that the person who wrote this is intelligent?”, my answer would be yes, quite clearly.
If the question is “Can you infer their IQ?”, the answer is only very weakly. The text is much better evidence for high verbal/conceptual reasoning and unusually broad intellectual curiosity than for a particular IQ number.
