What Makes A Genius ?

[wildcat]

There's a Horizon documentary on this question in an hour on bbc1. How would you guys define genius and how do you think they nurture such unique thought processes ?

Society.

 

[Betty Blue]

As usual, they failed to answer the question they set, although I liked Mark Lythgoe's model: there are these excitatory and inhibitory neural processes and it is 'breaking' the inhibitory process that "unleashes" creativity. Which fits with what we know about the relationship between genius and "madness".

Yes i also noticed that they failed to answer their own question in the documentary, just came up with some conflicting possibilities.
Personally i would never have included the mice-awful.
I did find parts of the program very interesting; the chess mind, the blind seer, and the artist at the end.
But the program was entirely inconclusive.

 

[Provoker]

Just genetic, people with a neural speed higher than 99.99999 percent of people are geniuses.

It's not always a question of speed even though the system, including timed IQ tests that are designed to measure only a few moves deep, condition this kind of thinking. On that note, I would say genius is effortless, but effortlessness is not sufficient.

More importantly, genius consists in the ability to string together thousands of arguments without getting oneself in contradictions.

 

[durentu]

genius is a subjective evaluation upon which the person believes that it is beyond normal ability.

einstein is a genius because he thought things through further than anyone else. he doesn't see himself as a genius.

 

[KDude]

raw brain power, imagination...both thinking outside the box and at the same time knowing what's needed/necessary for others (i.e. some lvl of practicality).. and then tenacity/hard work. doesn't matter what you think if you don't produce anything.

 

[miss fortune]

sex... but to be fair sex makes idiots and average people too... it's really the only way you get anyone

 

[RogueBlue]

The Media! We only seem to regard people as genius, if they are in the media, or if enough has been written about them in history. We all meet a genius everyday and just don't realise it.
The best genius you will ever know is yourself! You are the genius of your own life! Take inspiration from other genius, but you’re the genius who makes it happen!

 

[Mole]

A Genius and a Celebrity

A genius is the epitome of the literate individual, while the celebrity is the epitome of the global village.

The genius is now passé, and the celebrity is now, well, celebrated.

For the celebrity killed the genius. And the genius is of only forensic interest.

But like any new species, the celebrity is received with some suspicion. Indeed the very word celebrity is pejorative, while the word genius is hallowed by time.

Paris Hilton is our celebrity but no one can figure out why. But it's simply - in the Attention Economy Paris has more attention than anyone else, so we worship her and seek to emulate her. Why, some of us have 500 friends and counting.

But the secret to attention is simply presence. And Paris is present everywhere in the electronic media. Paris is now the dream of every little girl, and even us little boys.

But how we love to put her down because we envy her so much. We love to hate Paris because she has effortlessly what have strived so hard to attain - simply attention - for attention is a sign of love.

We pay attention and we lend an ear to someone we love. And we love Paris. We love Paris in the Springtime.

 

[AOA]

There's a Horizon documentary on this question in an hour on bbc1. How would you guys define genius and how do you think they nurture such unique thought processes ?

Pure coincidence.

 

[Danikov]

I'd say genius refers to one of a small number of people of outstanding accomplishment, which in no way necessitates the recognition of their accomplishments.

Intelligence is one of the recognised factors in being a genius and IQ is an attempt to measure intelligence. A high IQ reflects the potential to be a genius, but doesn't equate to accomplishment.

 

[Evguenia]

The notion of a genius is relative. In order for someone to be labelled as "genius", they have to possess incredible talent in something that is widely recognized as being significant. Say, in the prehistoric age, someone who could hunt meat better than anybody else would be considered to be a genius. However, the expected skillset has changed. Because the societal expectations have become academic, someone with an amazing ability to link concepts to create something new would be considered to be a genius. Someone who is amazing at mental math could be considered to be a genius. Someone who could flap their ears or could whistle well, however, would not be considered a genius, because even though these skills can entertain people for a while, they are generally useless for the society. And as Danikov said, we use IQ tests to figure out where along the intelligence spectrum a person falls, because we do not have a more adequate measurement of intelligence. And there would never be a fully accurate measurement of intelligence, since we can only test specific skills and such an intelligence test would require an infinite amount of skills to be measured and added up.

 

[You]

IQ seems to be the only legitimate way to describe a genius.

 

[InsatiableCuriosity]

Apple's Think Different Ad sums it up for me:

Think Different

Here's to the crazy ones,
the misfits,
the rebels,
the troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules
and they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them,
disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do
is ignore them,
because they change things.
They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to
think they can change the world
are the ones who do.

 

[INTP]

first of all you cant be a genius unless you understand that there can be many types of geniuses and that they all can be geniuses for totally different reasons

 

[mrcockburn]

Nothing...you're born with it, you either have it or you don't. Genius ancestors make one a genius. That's it.

 

[BlueScreen]

I tend to see genius as going beyond what people perceived was possible, even stepping intelligence up to a new level. It has a wow factor, which high intelligence alone doesn't. Da Vinci, Einstein, Tesla, Shakespeare, Monet, etc. Not just smart guys but ones who had crazy visions which changed history more than anyone at the time, or even later, could imagine.

 

[Hypatia]

According to the philosophy I read: disinterested contemplation. Or, as Schopenhauer put it, when the intellect supersedes the will.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

To me, a genius is someone who:

(1) ...accomplishes something that has not been done before, and was thought to be impossible.

(2) ...makes something happen when it was needed most despite a significant lack of resources, such as time, money, labor, materials, etc.

(3) ...stops very bad things from happening, especially if they do so in a way that is undetectable, and that causes no tension, or other "ripples in the pond."

good list.

 

[Mole]

Too easy!

A genius is a literate individual.

And now the genius is dead, long with the book, the God of the Book, privacy, and the counter-intuitive thinking of the genius.

Today we are part of electronic tribes, like Typology Central.

 

[Mole]

Apple's Think Different Ad sums it up for me:

When a company starts selling genius, we know genius is over.