Are you a genius?
Posted by: adonis49 on: August 19, 2009
Are you a genius? (August 18, 2009)
There are brilliant minds in many disciplines. You can be brilliant in a particular discipline but never in more than two different disciplines (for example science and humanities) unless you have a philosophical mind. Let me explain.
They will tell you that philosophy is a game for building coherent systems but this is not correct; philosophers cannot help it; they will erect the scaffold for their own systems. The powerful mind has this damned streak of total control. Even the philosophers who comprehend the danger and futility of thinking up systems of control to manage the world end up doing it; they struggle to defending their systems against reality that they originally meant to discover.
Those philosophers who worked on coherent systems failed in their endeavors: that is why there are so many varieties of philosophy and deadly failures in that discipline. Basically, people have been “astonished” of what they observed around them; they discovered that everything they saw was in states of transformation and change; they yearned to discover any matter, substance, or a phenomenon that has permanence in time and space. Philosophers opted as a start for water, or fire, or air, or the concept of infinity as permanent items for real life.
With quantum mechanics which states that it is impossible to locate and examine a particle in time and space simultaneously then even the most basic elements can no longer be studied for the characteristic of permanence. Thus, the object of philosophy is shot to smithereens. Then what? We no longer need philosophy? Not so quick. Philosophy is interested in the thought processes for discovering realities
You may have an excellent analytical mind and understand thoroughly the tenants of one discipline but the power to synthesize and connecting the dots among the realities of life and the world requires the knowledge and assimilation of this fundamental fact: there is not one logic; there are several alternative logics valid to comprehend reality. There is not one method to think through problems; there are a variety of methods. To be a genius requires a broad mind that is willing to consider many logics and many methods as valid before attempting to unify concepts.
It does not follow that if you studied philosophy that you have acquired a synthetic mind; you first have to prove that your analytical mind, after mastering a discipline, is functional as well before you are capable of connecting dots among life’s realities.
It also does not follow that if you are excellent in one discipline that you don’t have the potential to be a genius; it only means that you could not master enough courage to applying your brilliant mind differently.
There are powerful philosophers; they have mastered practical disciplines in sciences, art, or writing. There are geniuses in many disciplines because they loved to study philosophy as well. Einstein, De Broglie, Newton, and Galileo, to name but a few, are geniuses because they excelled in their disciplines and mastered the philosophical reasoning of considering alternative thought processes.
Einstein could accept the logic of macro physics and the micro physics of quantum mechanics. De Broglie could agree with the particular aspect of light and its wave forms. Newton spent the better part of his research on theology. Galileo mastered several disciplines because he could feel comfortable with various logical reasoning. Those geniuses connected the dots by broadening their fields of interests.
Karl Marx was a genius because anyone who reads Marx thinks that what Marx said is totally common sense and that “whatever he says or think” must coincide with Marx’ philosophical economy. Those “communists” who snatched leadership extrapolated the concept and went as far as considering terror a necessary evil; they endeavored to wiping out entire “classes” within the Marxism teaching to class domination.
Classical logic taught in humanities and the logic indoctrinated in modern math is not necessarily the only “rational” thinking methods. It is necessary though to understand them in order to graduate but not to believe that they can inevitably lead to discovering realities. Any logical process that the human mind finds it appropriate to describe reality is never wrong but simply different. Comprehending reality means accepting the alternative ways of thinking that human mind is comfortable with. Truth is mainly the spectrum of the alternative realities that the mind could view man and the world.
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