What are the common character traits of geniuses?
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OVERVIEW:
James Gleick, who wrote a biography of Isaac Newton, describes the reclusive scientist as "antisocial, unpleasant and bitter." Newton fought with his friends "as much as with his enemies," Gleick says. In contrast, Richard Feynman, the subject of another Gleick biography, was "gregarious, funny, a great dancer." The superficial differences between the men go on and on. "Isaac Newton, I believe, never had sex," Gleick says. "Richard Feynman, I believe, had plenty."
So what could these two men possibly have in common? According to Gleick, when it came to making the great discoveries of science, both men were alone in their heads. This also applies to great geniuses like Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and Ada Byron. "They all had the ability to concentrate with a sort of intensity that is hard for mortals like me to grasp," Gleick says, "a kind of passion for abstraction that doesn't lend itself to easy communication."
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JAMES GLEICK:
James Gleick was born in New York City in 1954. He graduated from Harvard College in 1976 and helped found Metropolis, an alternative weekly newspaper in Minneapolis. Then he worked for ten years as an editor and reporter for The New York Times.
His first book, Chaos, was a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist and a national bestseller. He collaborated with the photographer Eliot Porter on Nature's Chaos and with developers at Autodesk on Chaos: The Software. His next books include the best-selling biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton, both shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, as well as Faster and What Just Happened. They have been translated into twenty-five languages.
In 1989-90 he was the McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University. For some years he wrote the Fast Forward column in the New York Times Magazine.
With Uday Ivatury, he founded The Pipeline, a pioneering New York City-based Internet service in 1993, and was its chairman and chief executive officer until 1995. He was the first editor of the Best American Science Writing series. He is active on the boards of the Authors Guild and the Key West Literary Seminar.
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TRANSCRIPT:
James Gleick: I’m tempted to say smart, creative people have no particularly different set of character traits than the rest of us except for being smart and creative, and those being character traits...
Read the full transcript at https://bigthink.com/videos/james-gleick-the-common-character-traits-of-geniuses
I'm tempted to say smart, creative people
have no particularly different set of character traits than the rest of us except for being
smart and creative, and those being character traits. Then, on the other hand, I wrote a biography
of Richard Feynman and a biography of Isaac Newton. Now, there are two great scientific geniuses
whose characters were in some superficial ways completely different. Isaac Newton was solitary, antisocial, I think
unpleasant, bitter, fought with his friends as much as
with his enemies. Richard Feynman was gregarious, funny, a great
dancer, loved women. Isaac Newton, I believe, never had sex. Richard Feynman, I believe, had plenty. So you can't generalize there. On the other hand, they were both, as I tried
to get in their heads, understand their minds, the nature of their genius, I sort of felt
I was seeing things that they had in common, and they were things that had to do with aloneness. Newton was much more obviously alone than
Feynman, but Feynman didn't
particularly work well with others. He was known as a great teacher, but he wasn't
a great teacher, I don't think, one on one. I think he was a great lecturer. I think he was a great communicator. But when it came time to make the great discoveries
of science, he was alone in his head. Now, when I say he, I mean both Feynman and
Newton, and this applies, also, I think, to the geniuses that I write about in The Information,
Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Ada Byron. They all had the ability to con
centrate with
a sort of intensity that is hard for mortals like me to grasp, a kind of passion for abstraction
that doesn't lend itself to easy communication, I don't think.
Comments
The most common trait of a genius is that they're usually more intelligent than everyone else.
He forgot the most important : an abnormal level of critical thinking and patience. There is a quote attributed to Einstein (not sure if he actually said it but it would make sense) "I am not more clever I just sit longer with a problem".
My grandpa grew up very poor in Mexico with very little education. However, when he worked at a mine for some time, some Americans were so impressed by the inventions he made to streamline his work, that they wanted to bring him to the US to have him study engineering and work for them. I feel that he was a genius that didn't receive the nurturing necessary to bloom properly.
Geniuses don't want to be alone. They aren't default introverts. It just happens because nobody really understands them. Imagine you are the only human on earth surrounded by dogs. Dogs make good company but the conversations will be wanting. They aren't going to understand half the things you do and half the things you say. It's that kind of loneliness.
the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.
A passion for abstraction. Wow, that pretty much sums it up. There's a quote, "small minds discuss people, mediocre minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas".
"A kind of passion for abstraction that doesn't lend itself to easy communication" - Beautifully put!
I think this was the simplest and truest commonality between geniuses. That loneliness that comes with the fact that you can’t communicate your abstract thoughts as well you intend to to others, I think that’s what drives geniuses to try and express these abstract thoughts in equations—Einstein; paintings—da Vinci; tunes—Mozart, even words— Shakespeare. They don’t work well with others or go to others with their thoughts because they won’t understand, their expressions convey their abstract thoughts and can lead them into better understanding of those thoughts in a way no other person could, not even a fellow genius (subject to his own abstract thoughts and biases)
He forgot the most glaring commonality between Newton and Feynman. That being the fact that neither of them even lifted.
"Don't geniuses live in lamps?" -Patrick Star
I feel inteligent people are more prone to depression. They just naturally known more and cannot accept a false reality. They need the truth and the truth is almost always bitter.
Just remember you don't need to be a genius to be a great person. or even to go down in the history books.
The more complex the thoughts, the more intricate the picture, the harder to communicate and display to people
Three things make a genius 1) Independent Thinker (isn't afraid to break the mold) 2) An Unbroken Concentration Toward Something 3) Excels in Abstract and Creative thinking
I'm surprised to not see curiosity as the main subject here. Aside from being smart, what I've observed about these characters is simply a love of learning about a particular subject. Curiosity. It's what allows you to create that unbroken concentration. If you don't have it then concentration is a battle you constantly are fatigued by. If you do have it, you are energized by everything you discover about your subject. They follow their bliss as Joseph Campbell would say.
I felt like I was once a genius. But then I got depressed and lost sleep. Now i feel brain dead.
I are a genius. I can retaliate to this.
"The ability to concentrate with a sort of intensity that is hard for mortals like me to grasp, a kind of passion for abstraction that doesn't lend itself towards easy communication..."
Geniuses all have one thing in common. That is the ability to ask themselves questions regarding the unknown. Once the question is served up to their minds, a process then begins to seek answers. It is like planting a seed, then allowing it to take hold. And, finally producing a result. When is the last time you asked yourself a question about an unknown?
Complete focus on the task at hand, figuring out the issues and developing the strategy be it science based or design based is the key. Great things do not come from people who talk a lot. They come from people who think a lot, which means isolating yourself from distractions. Patience is another factor plus stamina to see it through.