Re:How Geniuses Think
by jonnathanson on Monday April 30, 2012 @08:42AM
(#3908956)
In discussions like these, it's useful to go back to the origin of the word, in the Latin gignere, meaning "to beget or create." Different cultures and different times have applied the concept of "genius" to different settings, but almost all of them involved the creation of something groundbreaking.
In this sense, I like to think of "genius" as the application of enormous potential to extraordinary effect. Someone who qualifies for Mensa membership has been gifted with great potential. But if he sits on his ass and fritters his life away watching television, he can't be called a genius. Conversely, someone like Richard Feynman, with his 122 IQ, would not have qualified for Mensa, but produced magnificent work.
IQ seems somewhat correlated, but hardly sufficient, to qualify someone for the calling (and label) of genius. Genius is the result of action. It is the realization of potential. IMO, we need to get back to using lower-case "genius" to describe people's work, and away from capital-G "Genius" to describe people.
In this sense, I like to think of "genius" as the application of enormous potential to extraordinary effect. Someone who qualifies for Mensa membership has been gifted with great potential. But if he sits on his ass and fritters his life away watching television, he can't be called a genius. Conversely, someone like Richard Feynman, with his 122 IQ, would not have qualified for Mensa, but produced magnificent work.
IQ seems somewhat correlated, but hardly sufficient, to qualify someone for the calling (and label) of genius. Genius is the result of action. It is the realization of potential. IMO, we need to get back to using lower-case "genius" to describe people's work, and away from capital-G "Genius" to describe people.
Real artists ship, after all.