Genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for the future, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors.
[3] When used to refer to the characteristic, genius is associated with talent, but several authors such as Cesare Lombroso and Arthur Schopenhauer systematically distinguish these terms.
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".
Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the military.
[citation needed] 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.'
[34] Several people who have been regarded as geniuses were diagnosed with mental disorders; examples include Vincent van Gogh,[35] Virginia Woolf,[36] John Forbes Nash Jr.,[37] Domantas G. and Ernest Hemingway.
[38] In a 2010 study conducted by the Karolinska Institute, it was observed that highly creative individuals and schizophrenics have a lower density of thalamic dopamine D2 receptors.
This could be a possible mechanism behind the ability of healthy highly creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a problem-solving situation and the bizarre associations found in schizophrenics.
[46][47] In 1939, David Wechsler specifically commented that "we are rather hesitant about calling a person a genius on the basis of a single intelligence test score".
[48] The Terman longitudinal study in California eventually provided historical evidence regarding how genius is related to IQ scores.
Two pupils who were tested but rejected for inclusion in the study (because their IQ scores were too low) grew up to be Nobel Prize winners in physics, William Shockley,[50][51] and Luis Walter Alvarez.
On the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any thing 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.
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.
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.
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.
[71] Throughout both literature and movies, the tortured genius character is often seen as an imperfect or tragic hero who wrestles with the burden of superior intelligence, arrogance, eccentricities, addiction, awkwardness, mental health issues, a lack of social skills, isolation, or other insecurities.
[72][73] They regularly experience existential crises, struggling to overcome personal challenges to employ their special abilities for good or succumbing to their own tragic flaws and vices.
[74][75] Although not as extreme, other examples of literary and filmic characterizations of the tortured genius stereotype, to varying degrees, include: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus, Dr. John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Leonardo da Vinci in Da Vinci's Demons, Dr. Gregory House in House, Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting, and Dr. Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory.
One of the most famous genius-level rivalries to occur in literary fiction is between Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty; the latter character also identified as the modern archetype of an evil genius.
