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The myth of ‘mad’ genius

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Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#11

Post by themodelplumber »

askl56 wrote: post #8

I've always believed that "genius" is simply mental illness with an audience. People such as Mozart were known for feeling nervous anxious etc, until they wrote music which was cathartic, which nowadays I'm sure would be diagnosed as some sort of mental illness.

This is part of the reason why "mental illness" is a broken term for certain applications. Unevenly-matched skill (coping, etc) vs. circumstance (group psychology, social standards) is one alternate POV that better explains why a "mentally-ill" person could create genius works. They have become conditioned to exploring extremes by dint of circumstance and personal history; their liabilities, struggles, and even periodic victories in these contexts allow them to produce works the likes of which are rarely seen or even contemplated in "non-genius" company. The audience knows intuitively that they are experiencing some fundamental truth, though they cannot in a small number of steps arrive at the sequence that allowed the truth to emerge.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#12

Post by aje403 »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #4

Article and “meta-research” distinctly not related to genius. Genius is a distinctly one-in-a-million phenomenon, this is about people of above average creativity and how they relate to those of below average creativity. And very dubious categorization at that.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, you're right (although the definition of 'genius' is always up for debate). This is just one of a million opinion articles on the same questions which happens to have a regression line behind it.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#13

Post by azhu »

nur0n wrote: post #5
commandlinefan wrote: post #3

I've always wondered if a lot of "eccentric" people aren't just behaving the way everybody would naturally behave if they could get away with it. I say and do a lot of things because I have to if I want to have food to eat and a place to sleep, but I'll never know how different my behavior _might_ have been if I were rich enough or brilliant enough that people would just put up with whatever I happened to feel like d…

Are people brilliant because they don't care or do they not care because they are brilliant? Seems to be a little of both...

Or perhaps brilliant people care a lot and just have the ability to pull it off so well that everyone else thinks they don't care. The real answer to how to be happy is not to not care how you affect others, it is to master your ability to affect them how you intend to. Those who recommend the "not giving a fuck" approach step on their own bootstraps given how large a fuck they give about not giving a fuck.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#14

Post by swayvil »

I used to be nuts. And you know what, I went with it.

I could focus on a project 24-7-365. That's how great projects get done. And people who get great projects done are what we call "geniuses".

I'm better now. Sometimes I think of the great projects that I could do but then I think, "no thanks, life is bigger than that".

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#15

Post by kizer »

swayvil wrote: post #14

I used to be nuts. And you know what, I went with it. I could focus on a project 24-7-365. That's how great projects get done. And people who get great projects done are what we call "geniuses". I'm better now. Sometimes I think of the great projects that I could do but then I think, "no thanks, life is bigger than that".

Good that you're better. Maybe try to work lightly (2 hours a day) on a project someday and see if you can complete it without herculean focus or dedication.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#16

Post by cbanek »

It's interesting that there was no talk of anxiety. In talking about the availability heuristic, which is refereneced a lot in Daniel Kahneman's _Thinking Fast and Slow_, they also talk about how anxiety tends to activate System 2 (which is the one for deep thinking), as opposed to the intuitive and nearly autonomous System 1.

Creativity and intelligence are considered different, but related, and Kahneman talks about how the activation of System 2 allows people to make more well informed (smarter) decisions.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#17

Post by darkmighty »

LifeLiverTransp wrote: post #7

Yes, why should a shizophreniac who wildly connects everyday experiences to form strange conspiracy theories would have a natural advantage when it comes to wildly recombining seemingly unconnected ideas, to leap over boundaries every 100 recombination? Of course, if there is a birth advantage there- all the meritocratic idealism and work wont get you or your kids there. So its very very anti-equalizism. Its okay, th…

Have you ever experienced or met someone with schizophrenia?

It is hell.

Not only for them but often for those who care about them. It's not about a rosy, whacky persons that the society whimsically outcasts. It's often legitimately tortured people that almost always need serious treatment and constant care, otherwise they risk falling into a very dark abyss.

They often wind up hobos or sometimes in prisons/asylums because they don't have treatment and a very supportive family available, falling in disrepair, not because an evil plot of society.

If this condition were the price to pay for breakthroughs, I'd consider the price too high. But indeed it isn't -- there are no examples of seriously ill paranoid schizophrenics that put out meaningful work. It's a massive hindrance, fogging your view of the world and yourself. Often cited cases like John Nash actually stopped being able to conduct any good work once the disease got hold of them. There are countless examples of extremely brilliant people productive through their lives that never showed signs of delusion, and almost no cases of delusional persons doing good work.

This disease largely embodies the obscurantism, mysticism, fear, distrust, that scientific enlightenment was idealized to fight against. I can't wait for its root causes to be found and it completely eradicated (along with MS, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia, please).

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#18

Post by eigenstuff »

Semirhage wrote: post #2

The article focuses exclusively on mood disorders, which frankly isn’t what most people think of or mean by “mad” in any case. Nikola Tesla for example was mad as a hatter, but it appears to have been a delusional disorder. While depression for example can be psychotic, it tends not to be, and I think psychosis or at least delusional beliefs are the hallmark of what is commonly meant when the public talks about “madn…

You're on the money. Tesla, Emily Dickinson, and likely Van Gogh all had schizotypal personality disorder. Which is not so much a personality disorder in the sense most people think of them so much as it's the Aspergers analog of the schizophrenia spectrum. I've seen it suggested that Einstein may have had it, which I find a lot easier to believe than the notion that he had Aspergers given that his son had schizophrenia and these things tend to run in families. (He may well have had nothing, though.) I strongly suspect that Edwin Land, the inventor of Polaroid, was schizotypal.

There IS actually a proven connection between schizotypal traits and creativity where there really isn't with mood disorders (except bipolar to an extent), since you're "mad" but not so much so that you can't function well enough to execute your ideas. It's worth googling about.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#19

Post by uxhack »

This article is trying to rebute David Horrobin idea that if everyone is creative then the world will soon be become crazy. It takes a geniuses to see a stick as a weapon. If Everyone starts becoming creative then the whole society will quickly devenigate.We need slme order. Horrobin arguement goes against the idea that everyone can be a creative genius. What is interesting about his idea is that how universal craziness is amongst a small proportion of the population, which means it is has been around a very long time.

Re: The myth of ‘mad’ genius

#20

Post by papeda »

commandlinefan wrote: post #3

I've always wondered if a lot of "eccentric" people aren't just behaving the way everybody would naturally behave if they could get away with it. I say and do a lot of things because I have to if I want to have food to eat and a place to sleep, but I'll never know how different my behavior _might_ have been if I were rich enough or brilliant enough that people would just put up with whatever I happened to feel like d…

On a related note, I think this idea explains the appeal of smart jerk god characters (Doctor Who, Doctor House, Rick Sanchez, Sherlock Holmes...) to a sizeable portion of nerds (including me). "So smart they can't help but need you" is not a healthy goal, but damn if it isn't seductive.
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