My understanding is that you're mainly looking for a place that has a consciously, and socially intellectual student body with perhaps an idealistic perspective on what they're doing. Hopkins is incredibly academically-focused. People here spend the majority of their time actually digging into projects / research / assignments / and learning material than getting involved in long discussions (like the ones you mentioned) on what they're doing and why they're doing it. Students here are very technical and result oriented and that makes them very good at what they do. However, I am not sure whether that fits your definition or "intellectual".
Although the "posing" that you mentioned is inevitable wherever you go,at tough times, I feel like students here go for the "we're suffering together" idea rather than the "I'm suffering more than you".
"Less parties and more awkward nerds." - The fact that you see yourself as an awkward nerd is going to change if you were join the club. And unless you want to, or get involved in Greek Life, you're not going to feel the presence of parties here.
As for the lectures: As a ChemBE major, all of my STEM classes (which makes up 95%) have been lectures with the discussion element being relevant to either TA sections or office hours. On the other side, I hear from a lot of my International Studies major friends that they haven't even had a lecture after freshman fall. So to generalize: STEM -> lectures and sections. Humanities -> Discussion based classes with <20 people.
People at Hopkins are definitely intellectually strong. I don't think they are too concerned, however, with showing this to everyone else.
Please keep in mind that all of this is just my own opinion / experience :)