What Really Makes a Genius?

[NB79]

Maybe not all geniuses are about intelligence, maybe an artisan musician or athlete etc.
In the bible it says there were people with gifts in metal working.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

THis is the one guy I know who has a 200 IQ. Strange when I had stroke woke up with message what you seek is information. bought DVD from great courses on Information theory then years later found out Ed was working on this also. Stunned me.

 

[Shevek]

I estimate roughly that a list of geniuses compiled by average people would include 50% non-genius folk with one or two rare talents, and exclude 90% of geniuses because they don't happen to also have social skills. One brain can only do so much.

 

[vergil96]

THis is the one guy I know who has a 200 IQ. Strange when I had stroke woke up with message what you seek is information. bought DVD from great courses on Information theory then years later found out Ed was working on this also. Stunned me.

I know several people who are frightening just because of their IQ, how fast they process information and know exactly what you're going to do and say and play around with all the possible scenarios.

Although I don't understand what is unusual about producing paper after paper after paper. That's pretty much expected if you want to have an academic career in more than just teaching. I wouldn't light up so much about something that isn't that abnormal. I'm already writing the second and third paper in one year and starting fourth. You can't contemplate too much on one paper, because it's going to be peer reviewed anyway and rebuilt and if you struggle with writing and take ages to write a few pages, you're no fit for academia. It's the nature of the job. There is also the question about the quality of these papers and how repetitive they are.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I have read many stories about Ed Witten, he single handedly turned string theory into a thing years ago How he won the fields medal, is stunning I remember it.

 

[vergil96]

I'm not a fan of string theory personally

I'm more of a hypergraphs guy

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

We are in agreement on that. I like leonard Susskind's stuff plus Neil Turok. Even Leonard is walking away from string theory. I left when I could not visualize it., then hooked up on loop quantum gravity until it few apart, with one observation. Noticed a long time ago if I can visualize it it is usually correct.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

The genius thar most resembled, my older brother. What I see in my minds eye fits perfectly see my physics thread. emergent time concurrently moving forward and backward matter and antimatter same stuff, just time different. separated by a fourth spatial dimension.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Starting to think two types of genius The extraordinary bright, and out of the box thinkers many of who are autistic. So two independent bell curves. I put the bell curve together for the extraordinary bright years ago.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

So bright he scares everyone.

 

[Paridas]

We often hear “high IQ” and “genius” mentioned together, but I’ve often wondered — how many people who’ve topped IQ tests have actually originated an idea? Not copied, not optimised, but truly created something new.

In my view, genius isn’t confined to the Einsteins or the Da Vincis of history. Any idea — big or small — that breaks new ground or solves a problem in a way no one else has before carries the spark of genius. It could be a world-changing scientific breakthrough… or a clever fix in daily life that makes you stop and say, “Why didn’t anyone think of that before?”

The interesting thing is, genius isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always come from those with academic honours or perfect scores. Sometimes it comes from the person who sees a connection others miss, who creates a bridge between unrelated ideas, or who solves a problem from a completely unexpected angle.

To me, genius is the ability to originate — not just to remember, calculate, or follow rules. And in that sense, it’s something we might overlook if we focus too much on formal measures like IQ tests.

What’s your definition of genius? And have you seen it appear in places people least expect?

Genius shows up in creativity more than in IQ scores. It’s in people who connect ideas no one else links together or who see simple fixes others overlook. I’ve seen it in mechanics, teachers, even farmers who invent their own tools.