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As a psychology enthusiast (and soon to be student), I'm quite annoyed with our fascination with "geniuses". It seems obvious that people who are very famous i

As a psychology enthusiast (and soon to be student), I'm quite annoyed with our fascination with "geniuses". It seems obvious that people who are very famous in their field became "very intelligent" because of a combination of hard work and genetics. But it's as if these books capitalize on the faint hope of being a repressed genius of some sort. I highly doubt Einstein or Shannon (as the article implies) ever saw themselves as more than passionate. And the ego required to want to find your inner genius goes contrary to the enormous humility they seemed to display. That aside, these books and articles all make the same mistake of studying a single person after the fact. It's similar to mimicking Steve Jobs: That's not how he became Steve Jobs. We literally cannot know how much luck was involved in his (or Einstein's) success. Might as well study the lives of lottery winners. So if not that, how can we maximize our potential and generally better ourselves intellectually? Simply by referring to the very vast fields of learning, motivation and general cognitive science. But "learn the science" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "how to be Einstein", now does it?

pmarreck 9y ago
Disclaimer: Was a Psych student. Now a programmer. :) I have to agree that the word "genius" is just too loaded and misleading. There are many ways an individual can excel and many ways they fail to; most people are a mixed bag. Shannon was gifted with a powerful curiosity and love of discovery, something not shared by all (and I'm not making a value judgment here at all; simply stating a fact). He never chose to have those motivations, so he should not be overly credited with the consequence of having them.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
I highly doubt Einstein or Shannon (as the article implies) ever saw themselves as more than passionate. They may have kept it to themselves, but they were certainly aware of their status. Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? (And they are geniuses, if it's possible to compare one person to another at all.) You've made some good points about how someone becomes a genius: it's mostly luck, especially in genetics and upbringing. But there's no reason that studying this is inherently useless.
- gboudrias 9y ago
  Fair enough regarding the status. > Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? The authors can do whatever they want with their time. But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. They mostly have all the same advice without the fluff of big names. Also they are actually empirical science, which can't always be said about studies on "famous" people (which to me seem more akin to profiling). That's not to say you can't enjoy a good biography. But titles like these and what they imply just rub me the wrong way. We're not Einsteins, we'll never be geniuses, and that's fine.
  - indlebe 9y ago
    I concur. As a teacher and mentor to students, I find that assigning the label of "genius" to anyone famous for their accomplishments can have a negative affect on young learner's goals. They often think "oh, they're just a genius, that's how they've accomplished X". I try and dispel this, giving them examples of how most "geniuses" just worked really hard on one thing, and that if they focus and work hard on the one thing they are passionate about they will find that someday they may be referred to as a "genius".
    - msla 9y ago
      Yes. They worked to get to the limits of their abilities, and that's how they accomplished so much. Without that work, their potential would have been wasted. Everyone's limits are at a different location for different tasks, and they can be pushed to some extent, but not indefinitely. (If nothing else, people eventually die.) Finding how far your limits in a useful or fun area can be pushed is a worthwhile task as well, and progress is measured by change relative to your past, not someone else's. So we sit between two tragedies: On the one hand, we have people who believe genius is magic, and unapproachable, who never work to find what their level is, and never work to push it out. On the other, we have people who think any level can be attained through hard work, who work themselves into burnout or worse trying to reach goals their lives aren't long enough to attain, and who never appreciate the progress they have made.
QAPereo 9y ago
People never really do accept the notion that success, genius, wealth, etc are not so easy to replicate. Meanwhile people selling these books have actually figured out a way to replicate the wealth aspect, hence the existence of a self help industry. It's not much different from people here goggling at Thiel or Musk. Hindsight is a bitch, and our heuristics tend to fail in the face of it.
stared 9y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/896/ https://xkcd.com/896/ (on becoming the next Marie Curie): "But you don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process."
stephengillie 9y ago
To be blunt, most "genius worship" is just another way for someone to feel like they're better than you. Genius lay in the eye of the beholder - one person's unsung genius toiling in obscurity is another person's fool following their folly. Geniuses may have additional creative, productive, or other cognitive capacities, but they are still humans. Indeed, having greater capacity means geniuses can waste far more time than an average person can access.
- lwerdna 9y ago
  I like your comment about the eye of beholder. It captures the obstacle I find when trying to form a complete argument why, say, studying chess is a pursuit inferior to studying information theory. Adjusting it closer to your comment, can we say that a chess genius is better than an information theory genius? Counter arguments would question the way I'm using "better".
icantdrive55 9y ago
The path, or quirks, of being a genius is getting kinda tedious. People have been fascinated with true geniuses for awhile now. As a kid, I always remembered Einstein's wardrobe story. That said, Einstein and Jobs shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. Steve Jobs edge was knowing just how the average person thinks. Don't give them more than three ideas, or balls to keep track of. Make it simple, so the masses can understand it. I sometimes think Jobs might have slowed down the some of the really neat aspects of computing. What would have happened I Wos was in charge? We will never know? I recently needed to buy a Rasbery pi to control my heating boiler. If I had an Apple II, with all those extra pins to send data through, I could have programed my condensing boiler to work with my boiler--maybe? In all reality, I wouldn't leave a multi-purpose, expensive computer in the garage. It would be nice to have the option though. He put a computer in every home. A computer most poeople use as a typewriter. People act as if he invented the Internet. Windows did the same thing Apple did in the bigger picture. And even today, the cutting edge stuff is first done on a PC, or the stuff I'm into. I just don't think he's a genius. If making money is genius, then he's a genius. Trump is a genius, along with those two boys, and his two girls? The First Lady is a genius. All wealthy people are geniuses? The Kardashians are geniuses? I like Jobs, and his products. One of the saddest days of my life is when I heard he had pancreatic cancer. I just don't like equating making money with true genius.
JimboOmega 9y ago
This is speaking about a life a lot of us wish we had. That we are special, that people will see us as special, that money and awards pile up so much we can't be bothered to accept them, while feeling free to do whatever we find intellectually interesting. I find no value in the hero worship myself. I find the notion of getting all excited because (name of person) said something kind of offensive. Hard work and genetics aren't nearly enough. Saying "luck" doesn't even describe it either. We often ignore the social element - the people that helped along the way, the parents that supported them dropping out of college, the professor or teacher that took a particular interest in them. When we do talk about it, it seems the usual message is "they were kind of an asshole"(e.g. Jobs). We ignore the emotional element even more. I don't mean "they failed 3 times but their 4th startup was amazing, keep trying!". I mean the headspace that lets them do that. The little thing that lets Woz show his computer to Jobs and not just say "oh, it's a stupid little toy, meh". There are tons of setbacks in life for everyone, and it's not fair to say "well, they kept trying!" Things made that possible. As you said, motivation is supremely important. If you get rewarded and acknowledged for playing with things, then you will. If you're struggling to find your identity and your parents want you to get a "real job", well...
joe_the_user 9y ago
I think there are two parts to the general idea of genius. One part is the claim that some people are fundamentally more intelligent than others. I agree that this is good to discard. But another part is that some people can make quantum advances in a given field. I think that is worth considering. It seems reasonable to think that some advances in a field are incremental and require simple effort and that other advances involves a jump - either digging very deeply into a still unsolved problem or taking insights from entirely different fields. Here, the term "genius" is good. Not implying an average person can't achieve a "genius insight" but that such insight may require reflection, a willingness to go down possibly blind allies, a willingness to take a different point of view from a different field, a willingness to challenge consensus views within one's own field and so-forth. And this is also to say that "following your genius" may indeed be a great gamble. Combining a variety of seeming deep relations may result in something great or it may just result in a large project that falls apart on close inspection. And here, one might say taste and temperament enter into what could be a genius approach (or oppositely, could be a disaster).
goldfeld 9y ago
Maybe the genius is just that curious personality who never fit it and refuses to give in to society? That person would certainly have a sense of both their intelligence and creativity (and contrast it to most people's) and of how society treats them like complete blabbering fools on a hill.
- debaserab2 9y ago
  This is the same underdog story every geek romanticizes for that never quite seems to match the biography of most known geniuses. Known geniuses seem to figure out how to fit into society and make it work for them.
  - rak00n 9y ago
    I remember reading in Nikolai Tesla's biography how he didn't fit in the "way of Americans" feeling alienated and how his "correspondence" with women in USA felt odd. It's not always about fitting into broader society. Tesla fit into a small niche of people who were into the same things. That's very similar to Shannon's story.
  - mickronome 9y ago
    It could easily be argued that known geniuses are known because they, for some reason, managed to fit in well enough, and not that they managed to fit in because they were geniuses. There are known and measurable negative social effects that is strongly affecting people with high intelligence as measured by standard tests. Some fraction of highly intelligent people will certainly also be highly socially skilled - as skills really don't appear to be exclusive, a few will have an exceptionally strong drive to succeed, and some fraction will be in the right place at the right time. It is likely that those we know of have some measure of either, of those characteristics, and that the others simply never rose from obscurity however talanted they might have been. There are exceptions, as there is to all generalisations.
ruraljuror 9y ago
You might be interested in Walter Isaacson's The Innovators because it tries to show how collaboration rather than individual genius is at the heart of innovation. Isaacson writes about these ideas rather explicitly.
waivek 9y ago
Could you recommend some research papers on learning, motivation and general cognitive science?

pmarreck 9y ago

Disclaimer: Was a Psych student. Now a programmer. :) I have to agree that the word "genius" is just too loaded and misleading. There are many ways an individual can excel and many ways they fail to; most people are a mixed bag. Shannon was gifted with a powerful curiosity and love of discovery, something not shared by all (and I'm not making a value judgment here at all; simply stating a fact). He never chose to have those motivations, so he should not be overly credited with the consequence of having them.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

I highly doubt Einstein or Shannon (as the article implies) ever saw themselves as more than passionate. They may have kept it to themselves, but they were certainly aware of their status. Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? (And they are geniuses, if it's possible to compare one person to another at all.) You've made some good points about how someone becomes a genius: it's mostly luck, especially in genetics and upbringing. But there's no reason that studying this is inherently useless.

gboudrias 9y ago
Fair enough regarding the status. > Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? The authors can do whatever they want with their time. But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. They mostly have all the same advice without the fluff of big names. Also they are actually empirical science, which can't always be said about studies on "famous" people (which to me seem more akin to profiling). That's not to say you can't enjoy a good biography. But titles like these and what they imply just rub me the wrong way. We're not Einsteins, we'll never be geniuses, and that's fine.
- indlebe 9y ago
  I concur. As a teacher and mentor to students, I find that assigning the label of "genius" to anyone famous for their accomplishments can have a negative affect on young learner's goals. They often think "oh, they're just a genius, that's how they've accomplished X". I try and dispel this, giving them examples of how most "geniuses" just worked really hard on one thing, and that if they focus and work hard on the one thing they are passionate about they will find that someday they may be referred to as a "genius".
  - msla 9y ago
    Yes. They worked to get to the limits of their abilities, and that's how they accomplished so much. Without that work, their potential would have been wasted. Everyone's limits are at a different location for different tasks, and they can be pushed to some extent, but not indefinitely. (If nothing else, people eventually die.) Finding how far your limits in a useful or fun area can be pushed is a worthwhile task as well, and progress is measured by change relative to your past, not someone else's. So we sit between two tragedies: On the one hand, we have people who believe genius is magic, and unapproachable, who never work to find what their level is, and never work to push it out. On the other, we have people who think any level can be attained through hard work, who work themselves into burnout or worse trying to reach goals their lives aren't long enough to attain, and who never appreciate the progress they have made.

QAPereo 9y ago

People never really do accept the notion that success, genius, wealth, etc are not so easy to replicate. Meanwhile people selling these books have actually figured out a way to replicate the wealth aspect, hence the existence of a self help industry. It's not much different from people here goggling at Thiel or Musk. Hindsight is a bitch, and our heuristics tend to fail in the face of it.

stared 9y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/896/ https://xkcd.com/896/ (on becoming the next Marie Curie): "But you don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process."

stephengillie 9y ago

To be blunt, most "genius worship" is just another way for someone to feel like they're better than you. Genius lay in the eye of the beholder - one person's unsung genius toiling in obscurity is another person's fool following their folly. Geniuses may have additional creative, productive, or other cognitive capacities, but they are still humans. Indeed, having greater capacity means geniuses can waste far more time than an average person can access.

lwerdna 9y ago
I like your comment about the eye of beholder. It captures the obstacle I find when trying to form a complete argument why, say, studying chess is a pursuit inferior to studying information theory. Adjusting it closer to your comment, can we say that a chess genius is better than an information theory genius? Counter arguments would question the way I'm using "better".

icantdrive55 9y ago

The path, or quirks, of being a genius is getting kinda tedious. People have been fascinated with true geniuses for awhile now. As a kid, I always remembered Einstein's wardrobe story. That said, Einstein and Jobs shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. Steve Jobs edge was knowing just how the average person thinks. Don't give them more than three ideas, or balls to keep track of. Make it simple, so the masses can understand it. I sometimes think Jobs might have slowed down the some of the really neat aspects of computing. What would have happened I Wos was in charge? We will never know? I recently needed to buy a Rasbery pi to control my heating boiler. If I had an Apple II, with all those extra pins to send data through, I could have programed my condensing boiler to work with my boiler--maybe? In all reality, I wouldn't leave a multi-purpose, expensive computer in the garage. It would be nice to have the option though. He put a computer in every home. A computer most poeople use as a typewriter. People act as if he invented the Internet. Windows did the same thing Apple did in the bigger picture. And even today, the cutting edge stuff is first done on a PC, or the stuff I'm into. I just don't think he's a genius. If making money is genius, then he's a genius. Trump is a genius, along with those two boys, and his two girls? The First Lady is a genius. All wealthy people are geniuses? The Kardashians are geniuses? I like Jobs, and his products. One of the saddest days of my life is when I heard he had pancreatic cancer. I just don't like equating making money with true genius.

JimboOmega 9y ago

This is speaking about a life a lot of us wish we had. That we are special, that people will see us as special, that money and awards pile up so much we can't be bothered to accept them, while feeling free to do whatever we find intellectually interesting. I find no value in the hero worship myself. I find the notion of getting all excited because (name of person) said something kind of offensive. Hard work and genetics aren't nearly enough. Saying "luck" doesn't even describe it either. We often ignore the social element - the people that helped along the way, the parents that supported them dropping out of college, the professor or teacher that took a particular interest in them. When we do talk about it, it seems the usual message is "they were kind of an asshole"(e.g. Jobs). We ignore the emotional element even more. I don't mean "they failed 3 times but their 4th startup was amazing, keep trying!". I mean the headspace that lets them do that. The little thing that lets Woz show his computer to Jobs and not just say "oh, it's a stupid little toy, meh". There are tons of setbacks in life for everyone, and it's not fair to say "well, they kept trying!" Things made that possible. As you said, motivation is supremely important. If you get rewarded and acknowledged for playing with things, then you will. If you're struggling to find your identity and your parents want you to get a "real job", well...

joe_the_user 9y ago

I think there are two parts to the general idea of genius. One part is the claim that some people are fundamentally more intelligent than others. I agree that this is good to discard. But another part is that some people can make quantum advances in a given field. I think that is worth considering. It seems reasonable to think that some advances in a field are incremental and require simple effort and that other advances involves a jump - either digging very deeply into a still unsolved problem or taking insights from entirely different fields. Here, the term "genius" is good. Not implying an average person can't achieve a "genius insight" but that such insight may require reflection, a willingness to go down possibly blind allies, a willingness to take a different point of view from a different field, a willingness to challenge consensus views within one's own field and so-forth. And this is also to say that "following your genius" may indeed be a great gamble. Combining a variety of seeming deep relations may result in something great or it may just result in a large project that falls apart on close inspection. And here, one might say taste and temperament enter into what could be a genius approach (or oppositely, could be a disaster).

goldfeld 9y ago

Maybe the genius is just that curious personality who never fit it and refuses to give in to society? That person would certainly have a sense of both their intelligence and creativity (and contrast it to most people's) and of how society treats them like complete blabbering fools on a hill.

debaserab2 9y ago
This is the same underdog story every geek romanticizes for that never quite seems to match the biography of most known geniuses. Known geniuses seem to figure out how to fit into society and make it work for them.
- rak00n 9y ago
  I remember reading in Nikolai Tesla's biography how he didn't fit in the "way of Americans" feeling alienated and how his "correspondence" with women in USA felt odd. It's not always about fitting into broader society. Tesla fit into a small niche of people who were into the same things. That's very similar to Shannon's story.
- mickronome 9y ago
  It could easily be argued that known geniuses are known because they, for some reason, managed to fit in well enough, and not that they managed to fit in because they were geniuses. There are known and measurable negative social effects that is strongly affecting people with high intelligence as measured by standard tests. Some fraction of highly intelligent people will certainly also be highly socially skilled - as skills really don't appear to be exclusive, a few will have an exceptionally strong drive to succeed, and some fraction will be in the right place at the right time. It is likely that those we know of have some measure of either, of those characteristics, and that the others simply never rose from obscurity however talanted they might have been. There are exceptions, as there is to all generalisations.

ruraljuror 9y ago

You might be interested in Walter Isaacson's The Innovators because it tries to show how collaboration rather than individual genius is at the heart of innovation. Isaacson writes about these ideas rather explicitly.

waivek 9y ago

Could you recommend some research papers on learning, motivation and general cognitive science?