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The difference between true genius and your regular old smart person is that it takes about all the brainpower the smart person has to understand something that
by mariodiana 6y ago
The difference between true genius and your regular old smart person is that it takes about all the brainpower the smart person has to understand something that's pretty complicated, and their thinking then becomes locked in. The effort not only cements their conceptual understanding; it cements their emotional attachment to their understanding. By contrast, the genius has the brainpower to understand a thing, understand alternative explanations just as well, and then innovate beyond all that.
- sfink 6y agoI think this is true in less extreme cases too. People have a tendency to do more of what works for them. People with more raw intelligence have lower cost (effort) in considering multiple possibilities and keeping them all alive in their heads at once. (I'll assume just for this paragraph that "raw intelligence" is a thing, and means what I want it to mean.) If other, less capable people attempted to do the same thing, they would get hopelessly confused and be unable to decide or act. So for them, it is smarter to stick to conventional wisdom; they'll be more likely to get a positive outcome. Combine that with the fact that different people have different interests, inclinations, and abilities in different areas, and the result is that the whole dichotomy of "conventional vs unconventional" quickly falls apart. Do what's right for you, not what's right for pg.