11–20 of 101 posts
This 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…
I know several drastically unsuccessful people who exhibit the traits in this article. None of them have stumbled upon an idea or work that would cause society to label them a genius.
I don't think a genius is very different from any other person. It's just that a genius gets lucky with their novel ideas. Society calls them geniuses really just because people know their names.
I guess my gripe is simply that genius is a social phenomenon, not a trait of an individual, and that it's really quite embarrassing that everyone goes around licking the metaphorical feet of everyone they can think of who did something interesting, or "genius".
That said, I do think this is an interesting article, and knowing how to think like a "genius" is probably worth quite a lot.
I 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.
Upon talking to those folks, while the never stated it, I came to the conclusion that they were afraid of being wrong, or failing. I do my best to lead by example and fail spectacularly on tasks, only to learn and come up with a good solution when I can, but I am not sure how to communicate that failure on an iteration of 3 can be a huge positive. Even communicating that fact explicitly doesn't seem to mitigate that fear.
I suspect it comes from schooling, where incorrect answers are punished (with bad grades, peer judgement, teacher judgement, parent comments, etc).
You get people who are bright, but have virtually no curiousity and who stay within their specialism of knowledge, often due to setting a high value on others views, so not wanting to look stupid.
Conversely you also get creative and determined slow people. And they will thrash the merely bright in almost any problem that contains significant depths.
Second, everyone can be a "genius" as long as they put a lot of work into anything. It doesn't take much to become better than the average person - you just have to be slightly better.
Once you start working on something for a long time and thinking about it more than 50% (arbitrary, but about right) of all your waking time, your brain will dedicate a big part of its new neurons and synapses towards that, leading to new thought that would've otherwise never occurred.
Genius also directly relates to discipline - if you don't have the self-control (whether through willpower or some sort of OCD-like disorder) to learn and create something, anything, you'll be just average.
First of all, IQ tests are bullshit. Second, everyone can be a "genius" as long as they put a lot of work into anything. It doesn't take much to become better than the average person - you just have to be slightly better. Once you start working on something for a long time and thinking about it more than 50% (arbitrary, but about right) of all your waking time, your brain will dedicate a big part of its new neurons a…
I don't mean Leonardo Da Vinci and others who created new processes for painting - I mean specifically the squares, buckets of paint on canvas and Picasso-like LSD-induced paintings, which are just works of art, not genius. Any decent artist with Photoshop can do better nowadays.
I 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…
This 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 clos…
If you're lazy, though, you can always just tail a genius, then steal his thunder :-D
> 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.