A document discusses various perspectives on what constitutes genius. It begins by providing definitions of genius from sources like Wikipedia and explores the etymology of the word. It then examines 5 common myths about genius, such as the ideas that genius is mostly genetic, that geniuses are smarter than others, or that they are loners. The document also analyzes how genius has been viewed from philosophical and psychological perspectives. Overall, the document aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the concept of genius by addressing its history, definitions, and common misconceptions.

1. GENIUS!!!
Aladesuru Adewale W. E
www.aladesuru-walter-adewale.strikingly.com
… an outsize degree of tolerance and
“openness to experience,” the trait that
psychologists have identified as the single most
important for creativity.

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WHO IS A GENIUS???
“A genius is a person who
displays exceptional intellectual
ability, creative productivity,
and universality in genres or
originality, typically to a degree
that is associated with the
achievement of new advances in
a domain of knowledge.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius

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Etymology
In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was
the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens), or
place (genius loci). The noun is related to the Latin verb genui,
genitus, "to bring into being, create, produce", as well as to the
Greek word for birth.
Because the achievements of exceptional individuals
seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful
genius, by the time of Augustus, the word began to acquire its
secondary meaning of "inspiration, talent".
The term genius acquired its modern sense in the
eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms:
genius, as above, and ingenium, a related noun referring to our
innate dispositions, talents, and inborn nature.
Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the
talented, the Encyclopédie article on genius (génie) describes
such a person as:
"He whose soul is more expansive and struck by the
feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to
receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him
and on which nothing is lost."

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Despite the presence of scholars in many
subjects throughout history, many geniuses have
shown high achievements only in a single kind of
activity.
There is no scientifically precise definition
of genius, and the question of whether the notion
itself has any real meaning has long been a subject
of debate, although psychologists are converging on
a definition that emphasizes creativity and eminent
achievement.
Usually genius is associated with talent, but
many authors (for example Cesare Lombroso)
systematically distinguish these terms.

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Five myths about genius
It’s not always easy to know when we’re in the presence of
“genius.” In part, that’s because we barely agree on what it means.
In Roman times, genius was not something you achieved but
rather an animating spirit that adhered itself to people and places.
In the 18th century, Romantics gave genius its modern meaning:
“Someone with special, almost divine abilities.”
Today, we’re quick to anoint a “marketing genius” or a “political
genius,” oblivious to the fact that true genius requires no such
modification.
In truth, real geniuses transcend the confines of their particular
domains. They inspire and awe.
This is precisely why we should use the word sparingly; lest it lose
some of its magic. That’s not the only misconception.

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Here are some others:
Myth No. 1
Genius is mostly about Genetics.
In 1869, a British polymath named Francis Galton published a
popular book called “Hereditary Genius.”
As the title suggests, Galton argued that genius is determined by
genetics, or what he called “inheritance.” That idea stuck. “Genes
appear to have a big role in our intelligence and talents,” one website
declares.
Others breathlessly report that scientists have uncovered a gene
that makes some people brilliant.
The truth, though, is that genius is not transmitted genetically like
blue eyes or baldness. Genius parents don’t beget genius babies, and
there’s no “genius gene.”
Genetics is part of the mix, but only part.
“Much of the literature concludes that hereditary factors play a
minor role at best in the determination of creativity,”
University of Minnesota psychologist Niels Waller wrote in
Psychological Inquiry.

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There are other factors, too.
One is hard work — the “drudge theory” of genius. Others suggest
that attitude matters as well.
A study of young musicians found that it was not the number of
practice hours students racked up that determined their success but
rather their “long-term commitment.”
In other words, genius requires a certain mind-set, an unflappable
persistence.

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Myth No. 2
Geniuses are smarter than the rest of us.
This myth is baked right into the Merriam-Webster entry, which
defines a genius as “a very smart or talented person: a person who has
a level of talent or intelligence that is very rare or remarkable.”
But many of history’s most eminent figures possessed only modest
IQs. William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor and a Nobel
laureate, had an IQ of about 125 — respectable but hardly spectacular.
The great physicist Richard Feynman also scored 125 — hardly
what you’d expect from the subject of a biography titled “Genius.”
Genius, particularly creative genius, is less about raw intelligence
and more about elevated vision. A creative genius, says artificial-
intelligence expert Margaret Boden, is someone with “the ability to
come up with ideas that are new, surprising and valuable.”
Yes, some intelligence is required to do that, but beyond a certain
point — an IQ of, say, 120 — greater intelligence yields fewer
measurable gains in creativity, many psychologists believe.
Nor is genius necessarily about encyclopedic knowledge or
impressive education.
The share of Americans who completed at least four years of
college jumped from about 6 percent in 1950 to 32 percent in 2014, yet
we have not seen a commensurate increase in creative output.

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In fact, many geniuses either dropped out of college or, like the
renowned British scientist Michael Faraday, never attended. Albert
Einstein was a famously mediocre student.
During his annus mirabilis, in 1905, when he published four papers
that rocked the foundation of physics, his overall knowledge of physics
was eclipsed by that of others working in the field.
Einstein’s genius rested not with amassed knowledge but, rather,
with his ability to make leaps of understanding that others couldn’t.
Einstein wasn’t a know-it-all.
He was a see-it-all.

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Myth No. 3
Geniuses can pop up anywhere and at any time.
We tend to think of geniuses as the intellectual equivalent of
shooting stars, beautiful to behold but essentially random. The Atlantic’s
City Lab analyzed the birthplaces of MacArthur “genius” grantees and
found that “winners were born all over the map.”
In fact, if you plot the appearance of genius over time and across
the globe, you notice an interesting pattern. Geniuses do not appear
randomly — one in Bolivia, another in Brooklyn — but, rather, in
groupings. Genius clusters.
Certain places, at certain times, produce a mother lode of brilliant
minds and good ideas. Think of ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence
or Paris in the 1920s — or, arguably, Silicon Valley today. These places
were, in some ways, quite different, but they also shared certain
characteristics.
For starters, almost all were cities. The density and intimacy of an
urban setting nurture creativity. All of these places, too, possessed an
outsize degree of tolerance and “openness to experience,” the trait that
psychologists have identified as the single most important for creativity.
As Plato said, “What is honored in a country will be cultivated
there.”
Geniuses are less like shooting stars and more like flowers, a
natural outcome of a creative ecology.

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Myth No. 4
Geniuses are grumpy loners.
Pop culture is full of brilliant characters that fit this description. In
“Searching for Bobby Fischer,” the main character is taught to play
chess by genius misanthrope Bruce Pandolfini.
The brainy William Forrester lives like a recluse for much of
“Finding Forrester.” The Christian Science Monitor writes that “our
culture loves the myth of the tortured, solitary genius — the man
scribbling or painting or composing in a threadbare European garret.”
It is true that geniuses (especially writers and artists) are more
likely to suffer from mental illness, particularly depression, compared
with the population at large. But they are rarely loners. They seek out
kindred spirits who can, at the very least, reassure them that they are not
going crazy.
Thus, the advent of the genius support group. Freud had his
Wednesday Circle, Einstein the Olympia Academy.
The French Impressionists held weekly meetings, outdoor painting
sessions and other informal gatherings, all aimed at bolstering their
spirits in the face of the regular rejection they received at the hands of
the old guard.
One study, by psychologist Dean Simonton of the University of
California at Davis, examined the interpersonal relations of some 2,000
scientists. The more eminent the scientist, Simonton found, the more
interactions he or she had with other eminent scientists.

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Geniuses do cherish times of solitude, and they often toggle
between those moments and more sociable ones.
David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, would spend weeks holed
up in his study, reading and pondering, but then he would emerge and
head straight to the local pub, “absolutely and necessarily determined to
live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life.”
Conversely, Beethoven would regularly escape bustling Vienna for
long, solitary walks in the verdant Wienerwald, where he found musical
inspiration.

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Myth No. 5
We’re smarter now than ever.
College attendance rates and IQ scores are higher than ever,
leading many to conclude that we’re living in the golden age of genius.
Despite grumbling from “geezers,” a Berkeley sociologist writes,
“Americans have been getting more ‘intelligent’ over the generations.”
And the Telegraph reports that “humans have been getting steadily
more intelligent for at least 100 years.” This misconception is so popular
that it even has its own name, the “Flynn effect.”
Don’t bet on it. Admittedly, comparing creative output across the
centuries is tricky. We need the perspective of time.
People of every era believe that theirs is golden. We are no
exception. Sure, we’ve seen tremendous advances in digital technology
and the emergence of possible geniuses such as Steve Jobs and Elon
Musk.
But the jury is out on our goldenness.
In the sciences, momentous leaps, such as Darwin’s theory of
evolution or Einstein’s general theory of relativity, have been replaced
by impressive but incremental advances — important, yes, but nothing
that alters our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
Over the past 70 years, the scientific community has published
exponentially more research papers, “yet the rate at which truly creative
work emerges has remained relatively constant,” historian J. Rogers
Hollingsworth writes in the journal Nature.

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We are producing a greater number of competent scientists,
talented ones even, but not necessarily more geniuses.
We are also producing an unprecedented amount of data, but that is
not to be confused with creative genius. After all, if genius were simply
a function of the amount of data at your fingertips, then every
smartphone owner would be another Einstein.
In fact, there’s some evidence that the flood of gigabytes that
washes over us every day may be hindering genuine breakthroughs.
At least one study found that it’s more difficult for us to detect
patterns when bombarded with an excess of data.
This is troubling, for if there is anything that distinguishes genius,
it is the ability to look at what everyone else is looking at — and see
something different.

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Philosophy
Various philosophers have proposed a definition of what
genius is and what that implies in the context of their philosophical
theories.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, prodigy and music genius
In the philosophy of David Hume, the way society perceives
genius is similar to the way society perceives the ignorant.

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Hume states that a person with the characteristics of a genius
is looked at as a person disconnected from society, as well as a person
who works remotely, at a distance, away from the rest of the world.
On the other hand, the mere ignorant is not still more
despised; nor is anything deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an
age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute
of all relish for those noble entertainments.
The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those
extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and
business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy
which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and
accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy.
In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, genius is the ability to
independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally
have to be taught by another person.
For Kant, originality was the essential character of genius.
This genius is a talent for producing ideas which can be
described as non-imitative. Kant's discussion of the characteristics of
genius is largely contained within the Critique of Judgment and was well
received by the Romantics of the early 19th century.

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In addition, much of Schopenhauer's theory of genius,
particularly regarding talent and freedom from constraint, is directly
derived from paragraphs of Part I of Kant's Critique of Judgment.
“Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate
rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something
that can be learned by following some rule or other.”
— Immanuel Kant

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In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, a genius is
someone in whom intellect predominates over "will" much more than
within the average person.
In Schopenhauer's aesthetics, this predominance of the
intellect over the will allows the genius to create artistic or academic
works that are objects of pure, disinterested contemplation, the chief
criterion of the aesthetic experience for Schopenhauer.
Their remoteness from mundane concerns means that
Schopenhauer's geniuses often display maladaptive traits in more
mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer's words, they fall into the mire
while gazing at the stars, an allusion to Plato's dialogue Theætetus, in
which Socrates tells of Thales (the first philosopher) being ridiculed for
falling in such circumstances.
As he says in Volume 2 of The World as Will and
Representation:
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else
can see.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer
In the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, genius entails that an
individual possesses unique qualities and talents that make the genius
especially valuable to the society in which he or she operates, once given
the chance to contribute to society.

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Russell's philosophy further maintains, however, that it is
possible for such geniuses to be crushed in their youth and lost forever
when the environment around them is unsympathetic to their potential
maladaptive traits.
Russell rejected the notion he believed was popular during
his lifetime that, "genius will out."
Psychology
Genius is expressed in a variety of forms (e.g., mathematical,
literary, musical performance).
Persons with genius tend to have strong intuitions about their
domains, and they build on these insights with tremendous energy.
Carl Rogers, a founder of the Humanistic Approach to
Psychology, expands on the idea of a genius trusting his or her intuition
in a given field, writing: "El Greco, for example, must have realized as
he looked at some of his early work, that 'good artists do not paint like
that.'
But somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the
process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own
unique perceptions.
It was as though he could say, 'Good artists don't paint like
this, but I paint like this.'

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Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely
aware that "good writers do not write like this." But fortunately he
moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward
someone else's conception of a good writer.
A number of people commonly regarded as geniuses have
been diagnosed with mental disorders, for example Vincent van Gogh,
Virginia Woolf, John Forbes Nash Jr., and Ernest Hemingway.
It has been suggested that there exists a connection between
mental illness, in particular schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and
genius.
Individuals with bipolar disorder and schizotypal personality
disorder, the latter of which being more common amongst relatives of
schizophrenics, tend to show elevated creativity.
See also: Creativity and mental illness

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References
Cox, Catherine M. (1926). The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses. Genetic
Studies of Genius Volume 2. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-
8047-0010-9. LCCN 25008797. OCLC 248811346. Lay summary (2 June 2013).
genius. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved May 17, 2008, from
Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genius
Braswell, Sean (25 June 2016). "Late Bloomers Prove the Wait Is Worth It". OZY.
Retrieved 2016-06-26.
Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), entries
on genius, p. 759, and gigno, p. 764.
Shaw, Tamsin (2014). "Wonder Boys?". The New York Review of Books. 61 (15).
Retrieved 5 October 2014.
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