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The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

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Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#21

Post by internetslave »

deviation wrote: post #8

It staggers me that in an age of incredible innovation and technology- we still have no idea what biologically separates a man like this from the rest of us. I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age.. But when I read articles like this I feel the compulsive need to sit back in my chair and ponder just how…

The well known secret is that the large majority of men like this are Jewish. Einstein was similar. You aren’t really suppose to discuss it openly, but genius level intelligence almost never arises randomly, it comes from specific genetic pools with specific mutations

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#22

Post by geenew »

deviation wrote: post #8

It staggers me that in an age of incredible innovation and technology- we still have no idea what biologically separates a man like this from the rest of us. I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age.. But when I read articles like this I feel the compulsive need to sit back in my chair and ponder just how…

To repeat a quote that probably appears in every Von Neumann post,

"Teller also said "von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us."

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#23

Post by internetslave »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #20
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we actually have no idea what the biological/genetic differences between geniuses and average people are? That's interesting. > I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age So you believe that genius is environmental and not genetic? Or maybe we are thinking about different definitions of genius.

From a genetic standpoint, all humans are 99.9% identical beasts. There is of course some genetic components in potential abilities. But I strongly believe that most of the differences we are seeing are built on compounded interest of environmental factors, starting from a very young age.

Zero chance it’s environmental

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#24

Post by aeontech »

wslh wrote: post #17
aeontech wrote: post #6

And he was only -51-, correction, 53 when he passed… One has to wonder what more he would have accomplished had he lived another 30 years or more. As an aside, are there many pure research institutes left? It seems like academic life is now mostly spent chasing grants and managing teaching load, and very very few people get to do pure research.

53 years old when he died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann?wprov=sfla1

Oops, I must have misread, thanks, updated

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#25

Post by [deleted] »

internetslave wrote: post #21
deviation wrote: post #8

It staggers me that in an age of incredible innovation and technology- we still have no idea what biologically separates a man like this from the rest of us. I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age.. But when I read articles like this I feel the compulsive need to sit back in my chair and ponder just how…

The well known secret is that the large majority of men like this are Jewish. Einstein was similar. You aren’t really suppose to discuss it openly, but genius level intelligence almost never arises randomly, it comes from specific genetic pools with specific mutations

[deleted]

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#26

Post by Guthur »

I think John von Neumann was a genius but I also think that at the time there was also confluence of great minds across mathematics and science in general which likely feed into and accelerated the advancements.

Maybe it's still happening but we no longer hear the names, though potentially it was also just one of those alignments of possibilities.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#27

Post by hintymad »

pointedset wrote: post #10
hintymad wrote: post #3

I often use von Neumann's quote, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.", to console myself when I have to read a math book multiple times to really understand something. The quote also has truth in it. I had no problem accepting that 0! = 1 only because I learnt that fact early in school. However, I struggled quite a bit to accept that span({}) = {0}, even though it is not…

Yes, those two facts about zero/empty cases (and so many more) are definitely related, and this class of facts is one of my favourites! Usually, if you're dealing with something algebraic in flavour (which is a very vague concept, sorry), there will be a sensible way to define the zero/empty case. This is often a good test of whether you have a uniform concept that works for all n without corner cases. It almost irri…

I was also puzzled by det(0x0) being 1, because I had built an intuition that determinant of a matrix was the volume of the parallelepiped represented by the matrix. I made my peace by accepting that my intuition on volume implies that volume is defined in a space that has positive dimensions, and by treating zero space as an algebraic construct.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#28

Post by jhgb »

pointedset wrote: post #10
hintymad wrote: post #3

I often use von Neumann's quote, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.", to console myself when I have to read a math book multiple times to really understand something. The quote also has truth in it. I had no problem accepting that 0! = 1 only because I learnt that fact early in school. However, I struggled quite a bit to accept that span({}) = {0}, even though it is not…

Yes, those two facts about zero/empty cases (and so many more) are definitely related, and this class of facts is one of my favourites! Usually, if you're dealing with something algebraic in flavour (which is a very vague concept, sorry), there will be a sensible way to define the zero/empty case. This is often a good test of whether you have a uniform concept that works for all n without corner cases. It almost irri…

> there will be a sensible way to define the zero/empty case. This is often a good test of whether you have a uniform concept that works for all n without corner cases.

And so, begun the array indexing war has.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#29

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #11
deviation wrote: post #8

It staggers me that in an age of incredible innovation and technology- we still have no idea what biologically separates a man like this from the rest of us. I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age.. But when I read articles like this I feel the compulsive need to sit back in my chair and ponder just how…

Do we actually have no idea what the biological/genetic differences between geniuses and average people are? That's interesting. > I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age So you believe that genius is environmental and not genetic? Or maybe we are thinking about different definitions of genius.

My personal experience is that it's a bit of both.

I am not a genius, but I can tell that I'm likely above average. I was raised in an environment that did not value intellect or education, and I always felt out of place. It definitely felt innate, and there are lots of stories from people in similar circumstances.

On the other hand, I never did well in school, especially math. One of my teachers literally called me stupid. So I had this self-perception of just not being very good at STEM. Had I not fallen into programming by accident, I would never have changed that perception of myself. I imagine there are very many people who had similar experiences, but were not so lucky as to learn their actual potential.

So, it's almost certainly a combination of factors.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#30

Post by ZephyrBlu »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #20
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we actually have no idea what the biological/genetic differences between geniuses and average people are? That's interesting. > I'd like to take the idyllic position of (somewhat irresponsibly) hoping that some level of genius can be fostered and created in anyone from a young age So you believe that genius is environmental and not genetic? Or maybe we are thinking about different definitions of genius.

From a genetic standpoint, all humans are 99.9% identical beasts. There is of course some genetic components in potential abilities. But I strongly believe that most of the differences we are seeing are built on compounded interest of environmental factors, starting from a very young age.

I'm not sure this is a viable argument considering that we also share much of our DNA with apes/monkeys.

It seems like minor genetic differences can create large disparities.

I definitely think environmental factors can compound on a genetic baseline though, and of course the earlier you start compounding the greater the returns.

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