Genius

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've met a lot of awfully smart people in my life, but I've only ever met one genius.  A common misperception is that geniuses are more intelligent than other people, but that's not really the case.  Genius isn't someone thinking better, it's someone thinking differently, in a manner that other people cannot mimic.

Maria Popova once differentiated genius into two catagories:  Ordinary and non-ordinary.

An ordinary genius is one who accomplishes something that you or I could do, given sufficient time and observation.  Example:  Albert Einstien's "happy thought", that a falling body feels no weight.

A non-ordinary genius is one who accomplishe something that you or I could never do, no matter how much time and observation were involved.  Example:  Richard Feynman's work on liquid helium and/or electron flow.

Geniuses also don't seem to have any real difficulty with social interactions, contrary to popular myth.  They tend to startle people they speak with (Feynman), but they don't have actual trouble dealing with people (as opposed to savants, that do, and also have problems thinking outside of their specialty).  In fact, Geniuses tend to be happier than people around them (with the notable exceptions of those recognized early on).  Geniuses also tend to be multi-disciplinary.

Thus, I think we can classify genius as a mental abberation, rather than a mental illness.

This, of course, flies in the face of American "hyperdemocracy", as described by Jerry Pournelle, in which it is expected that all people must somehow average out.  Stephen Hawking is an acceptable genius, because he is also horribly crippled.  Feynman is not, because he was good at everything.  In the last 20 years, there have been all manner of bullshit stories about Einstien's treatment of his wife, etc, because he is unacceptable if he has no negative traits to offset his genius.

Lastly, genius isn't restricted to math and science.  Genius can be found in the arts (Picasso, Mozart), politics (Bismark), and the military (Clauswitz).  It can appear anywhere, but it can't be created.  Interestingly enough, they seem to appear in clusters.

What I find very interesting is how little is known about how genius functions, and how little work is (to my knowledge) being done on the subject.

[LMNO]

How would you go about studying this?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

How would you go about studying this?

There's the fun part.  How do you scientifically describe a genius, so that you can sort them out from the general population?  It's obvious that they exist, but quantifying it is a bitch...How can you tell the difference between someone who is merely "very competent" vs "a genius"?

Sometimes it's obvious (Feynman, Einstien), but usually it isn't...Or isn't until years after the fact, when the person may already be dead.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That hadn't occurred to me until you asked, and is probably exactly why we haven't studied it much.

On top of the hyperdemocracy thing.  Nobody - especially trained scientists - wants to admit that their subject is superior to them.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

On the other hand, the garden-variety dumbass is everywhere.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50670351/ns/technology_and_science-science/

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
\

[Ben Shapiro]

This should be the new measuring stick.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pTRCv5ZN8og/TUIDXJX107I/AAAAAAAACgA/AP6-HueYDzY/s1600/hamburger-earmuffs.jpg

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Geniuses are probably also pretty hard to study because any decent study would have to be a long-range prospective observational study, and that's expensive. Plus, designing the study would be difficult (what, exactly, would you try to measure?), and it would be difficult to get funding for it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

On the other hand, the garden-variety dumbass is everywhere.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50670351/ns/technology_and_science-science/

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
\

Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California, Davis, says that just like the ill-fated dodo, scientific geniuses like these men have gone extinct.

"Future advances are likely to build on what is already known rather than alter the foundations of knowledge," Simonton writes in a commentary published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

That's one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said, and will continue to be every time someone says it. ALL advances, ever, have built on what's already known. They don't "alter" the foundations of knowledge, they add to them. Bet money that this is one of those "I would have been a great scientist, if only such a thing was still possible" people.

[Ben Shapiro]

A shot in the dark would be motivation be used as a measuring stick?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

On the other hand, the garden-variety dumbass is everywhere.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50670351/ns/technology_and_science-science/

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
\

Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California, Davis, says that just like the ill-fated dodo, scientific geniuses like these men have gone extinct.

"Future advances are likely to build on what is already known rather than alter the foundations of knowledge," Simonton writes in a commentary published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

That's one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said, and will continue to be every time someone says it. ALL advances, ever, have built on what's already known. They don't "alter" the foundations of knowledge, they add to them. Bet money that this is one of those "I would have been a great scientist, if only such a thing was still possible" people.

He's writing from The Crack.   

[AFK]

Well, it would be hard to study it without defining it in some objective, quantifiable way.  To me, it feels like a somewhat squishy thing.  I tend to think of a Genius as someone who is particularily adept at melding book smarts and intellectual capacity with the everyday, social reality. 


There are people who have a lot of book smarts, but are fairly useless outside of the university.  There are people who have "street smarts", who are very talented at dealing with humans and human society, but don't have the intellectual muscle.


I think the genius is the one who can bring those together, effortlessly.  A Genius does, without breaking a sweat. 


But I think eventhis can be fairly subjective and hard to measure to the point you can absolutely say whether any particular individual is a Genius.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

On the other hand, the garden-variety dumbass is everywhere.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50670351/ns/technology_and_science-science/

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
\

Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California, Davis, says that just like the ill-fated dodo, scientific geniuses like these men have gone extinct.

"Future advances are likely to build on what is already known rather than alter the foundations of knowledge," Simonton writes in a commentary published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

That's one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said, and will continue to be every time someone says it. ALL advances, ever, have built on what's already known. They don't "alter" the foundations of knowledge, they add to them. Bet money that this is one of those "I would have been a great scientist, if only such a thing was still possible" people.

He's writing from The Crack.   

NAILED IT. 

[Richter]

I like Rogers comment thatbgenius will cook up ideas no one else woild.  This occurs at a certain statistical frequency though,  a genius idea within 10000 has likely already been utilized jn a populationmof billions.

Einsteins type of genius is irregular too, thanks to the physiological differences in his brain.  Facinating, but hardnto utilize without tens of thousands of mri scans of other genii.

Gladmno one has brought up IQ, it is a difficult measure fo apply.  Its wide useage gives some comparitive vslue, but the actual areas it tests are outdated and questionably valid.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The consensus in psychology seems to be that genius is correlated with high IQ, and that there is a creativity factor which cannot at this point be measured.

IQ and intelligence are touchy subjects, because most people don't really like to believe in IQ... it's uncomfortable...  and will latch onto all kinds of reasons to dismiss IQ altogether. However problematic, IQ tests are, especially as they've evolved to reduce cultural frame of reference factors, a reasonable general measure of reasoning ability, and formally speaking, they are how "genius" is measured. Informally speaking, there are other types of abilities, like creative thinking and human interaction aptitude, that IQ doesn't measure at all.

And of course, being logically brilliant in no way precludes someone from being emotionally and creatively brilliant, as Roger points out. It also doesn't preclude someone from being good-looking. All of those are independent factors. Reasonably empathetic, creative, attractive geniuses might be more typical than the nerdy Spock-type that our envious imaginations like to latch on to, simply because that's how the odds fall.

[Trivial]

Einsteins type of genius is irregular too, thanks to the physiological differences in his brain.  Facinating, but hardnto utilize without tens of thousands of mri scans of other genii.

Here's the fun part, your brain is somewhat similar to a muscle in that if you use parts more it wires it more.  So did he start out with a physically different brain, or did he thinks so damn much more than everyone else?

(I think it'd be somewhat A that led to B)