How Geniuses Think
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How Geniuses Think
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Re: How Geniuses Think
#2I don't know what a "genius" really is, unless it just means someone who's a) prolific in an intellectual field, b) releases high quality work and c) maybe contributed to a fairly "revolutionary" understanding of their field.
But it's unlikely that Feynman is "the last great American genius". Maybe the most well-known example is Chomsky (but there are no doubt many others), and he answers his emails quickly. So, it's not like we necessarily have to pore through notebooks and quips of dead people, guessing at their mental states.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#3This article lists a few characteristics that intelligent and successful (for some definition thereof) people have. The characteristics seem to be neither necessary nor sufficient and the examples are clearly cherry-picked. If there's any scientific or research basis for asserting them, the author hasn't shared.
It's like the author looked a some intelligent people and superficially extracted their secret. It's like looking at a successful company and concluding that the reason for their success is that almost everyone is titled an Associate rather than their flat hierarchy.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#4This article is quite interesting.
I thought it was good that the author restricted himself to a description of genius traits, instead of implying that applying these traits would make one a genius. At least, until the summary, where he threw that out the window.
It's important to not engage in some kind of magic thinking here: altering your behavior patterns to match "genius" behavior is self-defeating. When one is dealing with the kind of outlier that a genius represents, wholesale emulation is an insufficient strategy to duplicate their success.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#5A more in-depth exploration of the topic is in Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I...
Re: How Geniuses Think
#6I don't know what a "genius" really is, unless it just means someone who's a) prolific in an intellectual field, b) releases high quality work and c) maybe contributed to a fairly "revolutionary" understanding of their field. But it's unlikely that Feynman is "the last great American genius". Maybe the most well-known example is Chomsky (but there are no doubt many others), and he answers his emails quickly. So, it's…
I think not having fear of being "wrong" must be a part of it also.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#7> Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122).
I've always wanted a quick, one-line, anecdote as to why IQ is bullshit. I think I just found it.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#8The "making lots of stuff whether it's good or not" is my biggest issue - frankly, being prolific results in faster iteration on ideas, which contributes to genius.
I find that I tend to self-edit before I've even started on something, which prevents me from doing what I want. I chalk this up to over-ambitious perfectionism, which is a negative trait in this case.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#9This article is quite interesting. I thought it was good that the author restricted himself to a description of genius traits, instead of implying that applying these traits would make one a genius. At least, until the summary, where he threw that out the window. It's important to not engage in some kind of magic thinking here: altering your behavior patterns to match "genius" behavior is self-defeating. When one is…
Well, in the summary he cites some evidence that "geniusness" can be learned, at least if your teacher himself is a genius. "J. J. Thompson and Ernest Rutherford between them trained seventeen Nobel laureates" - quite a coincidence.
Re: How Geniuses Think
#10This article is quite interesting. I thought it was good that the author restricted himself to a description of genius traits, instead of implying that applying these traits would make one a genius. At least, until the summary, where he threw that out the window. It's important to not engage in some kind of magic thinking here: altering your behavior patterns to match "genius" behavior is self-defeating. When one is…
i wonder though -- if geniuses think a certain way, will training yourself to think along those lines increase your brainpower by teaching you to think more critically? I've read a lot of stuff recently on the ability humans have to actually increase their intelligence (though it's still a pretty controversial subject).
No emulation doesnt make you a genius; but maybe it can help to bring you just that tiny step closer?