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The Link Between Genius and Insanity
An anonymous reader writes in a story about the link between certain mental illnesses and high intelligence. "Genius and insanity may actually go together, according to scientists who found that mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often found in highly creative and intelligent people. The link is being investigated by a group of scientists who had all suffered some form of mental disorder. Bipolar sufferer Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies confirms the idea of the 'tortured genius' or 'mad scientist.'"
Emotionally unstable researchers find flattering results!
Maybe there is just a tippingpoint where the genius part of the brain has expanded that far that gets often out of bounds. Where the actual creativity is actually not a random set of neurons, but neurons primed for another task maintaining our common accepted singular personality.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
Linux games that try to make use of advanced features of OpenGL often suffer from driver bugs.
Compared to 1960 test results for IQ, slightly-above-average intelligences from today would be considered genius. IQ shifted almost a full standard deviation upward between 1960 and 1990.
From TA "Many prodigies like painter Van Gogh, author Jack Kerouac and mathematician John Nash had displayed self-destructive behaviors, and it is unclear as to why humans have evolved this trait. " Many people who *aren't* prodigies display self-destructive behaviors *all the time*.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
the work ethic, the subversion of conventional wisdom and norms, and the increasingly esoteric and complex lexicon of the specialist being incompatible with social life, ultimately leading to isolation, stilted interaction, and resultant mental illness (some of it a matter of social construction, some of it legitimate disability).
At least, that's my experience—it's not that bright people are "inherently" socially awkward so much as that their practices, habits, and knowledge are incompatible with the lives, thoughts, and communicative practices of virtually everyone else, leaving them to be lonely, without much of a reliable support system, and feeling tremendously misunderstood, perhaps even hated, as well as having to deal with the knowledge (which can be quite persuasive) that everyone *else* thinks they're crazy, and the total lack of cooperation and support that can come with this.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Think of it like rope. The longer the length of rope you have, the more you can do with it, but it's also much easer for it to get tangled up in knots.
If genius came free, without HUGE DOWNSIDES then selection would ensure that we'd all be geniuses. Think about it for a second, virtually every renowned genius had huge emotional or operational baggage. Dyslexia, autism, bipolar, monopolar, synesthesia... the list of common problems suffered by the exceptionally intelligent is legion. It's guessed that significantly more than half of all the great works of art and science were accomplished by Bipolar people in their manic phase. Personally, I think the hardest part for someone of profound genius, is being torn between the clear vision of what it possible and the sad reality of what is allowed by people to persist. There are some interesting conversations about ways of coping with genius. The Greeks had a very healthy concept, externalizing genius, such that it was a resource to be tapped and that some were simply better at getting to it. That took the onus of brilliance off the person, freeing them up, to simply pursue whatever it was they were pursuing. Here's a great TED Talk about that.
This is the Flynn Effect. But it is much more obvious and less controversial on a longer timescale - we are all geniuses compared to our single-celled ancestors.
You caught yourself on using a technically incorrect definition of IQ - Thanks! You're halfway to understanding what you are wondering about, because you are at least trying to phrase your questions accurately.
A few points:
1. Intelligence does seem to be rising with each generation, if you use some of the standard tests and factor out a few questions for obvious logical reasons, (Such as one, for one example, that shows a picture of an old style rotary phone.). I.Q. remains at 100, but how many questions you get right to score that 100 goes up a smidge, in general, with each generation.
2. Intelligence is greatly affected by more than one gene. It's quite likely there are genes that together create a higher than average intelligence, mentally stabile person if they are all there together with a gene we'll call (as a convenient fictitious example) I.Q.Factor3A, but create a person with a higher than average intelligence, and a dehabilitating mental illness, if they are in the same organism as the gene I.Q.Factor3B version. It's also fairly likely there are cases where the I.Q.Factor3 gene doesn't, by itself, cause any problems in a person of average intelligence, whether it's version A or B.
3. One example of this is Aspergers syndrome. People (including many researchers) have tended to assume that a person with Aspergers has a lot of good genes for general intelligence and a bad gene that causes Aspergers, and that the same bad gene causes more 'typical' Autism in people without the bunch of good genes. But, that doesn't have to be the case. It could be, just for example, that a certain combination of otherwise good genes causes Aspergers if you have all five of them, but if you have any three, you get better than average intelligence without the problem side, and if you have any four, you get the smarts, plus only a few mildly limiting side effects that in general don't cause enough problems to be diagnosed. Factor in environment on top of this, and you see what a puzzle researchers are trying to unravel.
Who is John Cabal?
This is the Flynn Effect. But it is much more obvious and less controversial on a longer timescale - we are all geniuses compared to our single-celled ancestors.
I guess you've never been to Walmart.
I saw a documentary not too long ago, about autism (and similar afflictions) and superior ability in some special field. One example was a patient suffering from dementia. His hobby was painting and his doctor noticed that his painting got better as his dementia increased. There were other examples but the theory, which some people were getting ready to test, was that a 'healthy' brain filters out a lot of sensory input. In the case of this patient suffering from dementia, some of that filtering failed and he was seeing the world 'bare' so to speak. The filtering has a survival value in that it keeps us from being overwhelmed. To have the brain processing power to handle a greater input we'd need bigger brains, consuming more resources; birth would be more difficult, etc.
Another thing to consider with people who lack social skills, is that it could be the lack of social skills that leads them to focus on, say, science, as a compensation or a way to pass the time, rather, than their concentration on science leading to underdeveloped social skills. I'm not saying that's the way it is, just that when seeing a correlation, to be careful about which is the cart and which is the horse.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Other examples:
* Nikola Tesla (OCD and more)
* Glenn Gould (one of the greatest 20th century classical pianists; maybe autistic, definitely eccentric)
* Paul Erdos (20th century mathematician, also eccentric, referred to children as "epsilons", which is hilarious)
* Alexander Grothendieck (20th century mathematician; he's probably a hermit in the Pyrenees right now; Grothendieck is basically the definition of the reclusive genius)
* Grisha Perelman (mathematician of Poincare conjecture fame; also withdrawn)
The partition that separates genius from madness is painted in shades of gray, and possessed of enormous mountains and valleys populated by winged marsupials who reproduce by completely consuming their mates in a process that is neither quick, nor painless.
I am by no means special as there are likely hundreds of thousands like me. I started out young, labeled as "gifted", and put through special school programs. I have a very high IQ, and have the ability to create extremely intricate CAD-like images of any thing I can dream up, transpose and create into real working hardware. I learn new languages and programming languages with virtually no effort, and I am amazed at my own abilities sometimes. Other times ashamed. The price has been trips to the mental hospital with a severe bi-polar diagnoses and extreme depression, where I cannot even function as a normal human being some days. I love who I am and wouldn't want to be anyone else, but I understand that my brain is all on or all off, and that is the gift and the curse.
Good point. I remember hearing of a study done on a Jewish community in Europe that suffered much higher than normal rates of some severe neurological problem, I forget what exactly. They also scored an average of 6-10 IQ points higher than the larger community. The conclusion of the researchers was that this community had been genetically isolated for many generations by antisemitic sentiment in an environment where intelligence presented a significant procreative advantage (the financial industry, which the surrounding Christians were religiously prohibited from entering)
As a result a gene mutation that caused increased brain activity (and intelligence) in those possessing a single copy spread throughout the community. Unfortunately, inheriting two copies of the gene apparently over-revved the brain beyond what it could reliably handle and caused... whatever the problem was. Frequent seizures maybe.
A similar phenomena surrounds sickle-cell anemia. Inherit two copies of the gene and you get a death sentence, probably long before you reach adulthood, at least before modern medicine. But, if you have only one copy of the gene then not only are you unharmed, you're immune to malaria. In the African population in which the mutation emerged, where malaria ran rampant, this gene represented a good deal: even if both parents carried it they would only lose 1 in 4 children to anemia, while two would be immune to malaria. If only one parent carried the gene then it's an even better deal - half their children would be immune and the other half would be normal. (Incidentally if you're reading this as a KKK member with SSA, I hate to break it to you but there's only one way you could possibly carry the gene. Best get to burning crosses on your own lawn)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
When my father witnessed what kinds of questions I'm dealing with in number theory, he quipped that all it takes to provide the world with a sufficient number of genius mathematicians is to open the front door of an asylum. I replied - and Dirichlet agreed with me - that mathematics is a particular kind of insanity but that the reverse theorem does not always hold.
Ezekiel 23:20
Seriously, a lot of patients with mental problems are actually very very smart !!
They might be "mentally troubled", but, the manner of their thought process, - the way their brain managing information flow - if can be adapted and applied to research projects, could yield surprising results !!
The phrase "Think outside the box" is so common these days. For the mental patients, thinking "inside the box" turns out to be an almost impossible task
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
am I both crazy AND stupid. That seems like a raw deal to me.
Even at 140, which is not that spectacular, you are already one in a thousand.
In a city of a million, that's only 1000 souls. And you probably won't get along with some of them.
How do you even find someone? Let alone form a peer group?
How socialized can a man be, when he lives alone on a planet of chimps?
Is 'insanity' a thinly veiled slur hurled at elite minds by a slow witted reporter from the bully pulpit?
What is normal behavior? What is insanity?
Is 'Normal Behavior' defined as what is accepted as normal by the majority in the 90 to 110 group?
What is insanity? Cutting your ear off?
Or merely being incomprehensible to the normals?
Is 'Smart People are Insane' a meme to make people feel better?
Is 'Smart People are Insane' part of what Ayn Rand talked about when she said "the PTB are out to say that thinking was 'hard, dangerous and pointless?'"
Don't go out there Billy! Thar be dragons!
Here's a Rifle and a credit score!
No need to think. We'll tell you what you need to know. We'll define you and your paradigm.
The average (the "norms") seem to make quick judgements and associations regarding the mentally ill, whether this means mild depression, or OCD, or full blown mania. First and formost, it is seen as insult. "Crazy" used to be cool... now its somehow on the same level as "homeless." Then it is somehow inexplicably associated with violence. Next, crime, then sexual devience, and finally, pedophelia. It matters not that evidence shows that, on one point listed, the violent are almost never mentally ill, and the mentally ill are almost never violent. About 1% of any population is inherently violent, and this is true among the mentally ill as well, 1%. Yet when an average person learns that another is mentally ill, they immediate begin to fear them and treat them with mistrust, only serving to exacerbate the condition of the individual suffering mental illness by ostracizing them.
People in general place far too much significance on what they believe is going on in another individual's mind, forgetting that there is no way to know, and also forgetting that mental illness is not crime nor indiciative of a criminal mind. The criminal, by the vast majority, are all sane. We, as a society, need to move back towards responsibility of action, not continue to gravitate towards the notion of thought-crimes. Judge a person by what they do, not by wild, unprovably notions of what or how they think.
The Admin and the Engineer
You'd be insane too if you were a genius that had to put up with the common man. Nothing in this world is more frustrating than people who insist on standing in your way because they think they know better, all the while lacking the mental capacity to understand why they need to sit down and shut up.
I'm bipolar and have an IQ of 145. This is the internet and I'm an AC so you'll just have to trust me.
This article resonated so strongly with me. My creativity has always been tied directly to my mania. Innovative problem solving, writing, music, artistic endeavors (for one unmedicated period of three years I became a traditional glassblower). It's not the mania itself, it's the period of transition from "baseline" to full-blown manic. As the brakes come off and my mind begins to work in a more random, expansive fashion I find new insights that don't really have a linear explanation. They just bubble up, seemingly from nowhere.
Of course, there's the rest of the time. The crushing, suicidal depression that follows the bouts of rabid, incoherent mania; the self harm and risky behavior; and the impossibility of maintaining a normal life and relationships. The 2% of my time that I was genuinely brilliant wasn't worth the rest of the symptoms.
I'm heavily medicated now, which has alleviated the extremes of my disorder. I must say that I miss my crazy. I can play the songs I wrote before, but when I pick up my guitar now nothing new ever comes out of it. I wrote whole stage plays in an evening, but haven't written a scene in a year. Whatever my "spark" was, it was the product of whatever malformation I'm now treating.
After suicide attempts and running down the street being chased by things that weren't there, I'm still not sure that I've made the right decision