The lecture had ended and a girl closed her loose notes into her folder and shoved it into her backpack as she stood up and began slamming through the knees of the other—sitting—students as she rushed out of her row. She then ran down the stairs, navigating through the speedy students who just made their way out of their aisle seats, and ran for the door she just saw her social psychology professor exit through. She saw him walking left, towards the hall exit, on his way to his office on the other side of campus. She slowed to a brisk walk and caught the exit door he left swinging shut. She held it open until the girl behind her had a hand on it, and then approached the professor on his side. Walking next to him, she stuck her head forward and turned her face towards him, getting him to look at her.
“Hi Professor. My name is Molly.”
“Ha!” the professor smiled with surprise before tilting his head and looking at her with one eye. “I see you were careful to not say that you are Molly. You are right; it is just your name!”
She laughed nervously.
“Actually I just said my name is Molly, but your response is an example of why I wanted to talk with you. You seem to… think, a lot… I wanted to know what your IQ is.”
He closed his eyes, “OHHHHHHH,” and began nodding slowly, furrowing his brow and puckering his lips, “What is my IQ?
“Heh, yeeah.”
He opened his eyes wide, and then squinted them, “What IS my IQ?
She waited, smiling.
“I can’t tell you what my IQ is. What is an IQ score? How many questions you answered correctly. It’s an average of different performances, from different moments. I haven’t just finished an IQ test, so I can’t tell you what my score is now; and even if I did just take a test it wouldn’t be accurate because by the end of the test, now, my mind wouldn’t represent the other moments, because now my mind may be more used to the style of the test—better able to answer the questions, or maybe my mind would be fatigued, in which case my IQ would be lower.
She stared at him with puzzled understanding.
“Do you understand? It’s impossible to say what my IQ is because I understand that the score simply describes several performances from my past, and I know that if I were to perform now, my performance would only reflect my ability to solve that single problem. The present tense, the present moment, and the concept of an IQ are inapplicable.”
She waited a moment to let him continue, and then began “well but”
“—I understand you just want to know if I have an IQ score, which I do, I’ve taken the test—more than once as a matter of fact, which is proof of how it is impossible to answer your question; if one can score differently on two different IQ tests, then one’s IQ is not constant, so nobody can say what their IQ is, ever.”
“So, what were the results of your last IQ test?”
The professor laughed.
“That is a question I can answer: 140."
She widened her eyes and smiled, “Wow!”
“So you understand why I couldn’t answer your question?” he asked, leaning his head forward, “It didn’t make any sense.”
She tilted her head and looked to the side before looking back at him.
“Well…" she replied, "it didn’t make sense because you were responding to the message professor,
she straightened her head.
“You weren’t responding to me.”