[lit-ideas] Re: Einstein
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:49:34 -0600
A.A:
>> Maybe my standards are too high, but to me a genius is a genius, someone
>> gifted who doesn't work hard at something but still gets a profound result.
>> <<
Not too "high", Andy, just too childish. Like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy,
there's no such thing as your 'genius'. You've been laboring under a mythology
all these years, alas! For your information, sir, I am a genius and yet I've
labored 50 years starting with paper routes, I've discovered nothing,
accomplished nothing, am only a mediocre refrigeration mechanic, a mathematical
moron, a semi-illiterate English major (what a joke that is) an embarrassing
poetaster, a failed provider, a lousy lover and yet, still I insist I am a
genius. Why? because for 61 years now I have thought seriously about, but
have not yet killed myself when all the world argues vehemently that I should
-- the reasons I've come up with for not pulling the trigger are sheer genius,
that and a little laziness.
So pay attention, godddamnit, this is genius talking to you. You've been
snookered by American ideology. To you a genius is someone set apart from the
rest of us slobs by INTELLIGENCE. No, no, no, no. Intelligence is but a
glorified Pavlovian response to hunger. Genius is creativity, it has nothing
to do with intelligence. Nothing comes to anyone entire of itself. In fact,
though, genius isn't even creativity. That's a myth, too. Genius amounts to
nothing more than a misunderstanding of someone else's idea. In fact that's
all that philosophy is as well -- maybe everything's just a misunderstanding,
hell, I don't know, give me 10 years to think about it. Genius is a fool's
misunderstanding of another genius's mistaken notion of some other's wrong
idea. We approach truth through error. The greater the error the greater the
ingenuity.
Mike Geary
genius extraordinaire
of Mempis
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Amago
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ; lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2005 8:01 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 10/30/2005 12:14:39 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein
In a message dated 10/29/2005 8:18:56 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I'm disappointed in him, not in his accomplishments
Hi, Andy,
I'm also a bit perplexed here.
Why in the world would you be disappointed in someone's learning/creative
style. . . especially when it had the outcome that it did?
A.A. Because I along with everyone else I always considered Einstein a
"genius". The word Einstein is synonymous with the word "genius". Then I
learned that he is no more a genius than anyone who spends years working on a
problem and has a breakthrough. Maybe my standards are too high, but to me a
genius is a genius, someone gifted who doesn't work hard at something but still
gets a profound result. Einstein does not fit that description. He's no
different from Thomas Edison or any other dedicated researcher, a little
insight, lots of hard work. At the same time, Einstein has been mythologized
into a demigod, where Edison is all but forgotten except as the guy who
invented the lightbulb. You're satisfied with that state of affairs?
Andy Amago
If you actually read all sorts of interesting thoughts on both learning and
creativity and how to get the most of what and who one is. (and you can on the
internet, even, if you don't like to go to the library and ask for some titles
on the topic)
What Einstein did is actually very critical. I'm not sure why you would be
disappointed in him...though I know a number of parents who are disappointed
when their kids learn by reading instead of hearing or by hearing instead of
reading.
(Or, like the article once in Fortune Magazine that I posted one talks
about the bunch of CEOs who are all dyslexic and who were willing to be studied
by the physicians at Yale doing a study on their brains. Sure--they all learned
to compensate for not using parts of their brains--and they all have had those
in their companies who couldn't understand how they made decisions [they are
all using a part of their brain that we regular folk are not] Many of them, I
suppose, had people in their lives who were 'disappointed' in them, too, for
not learning as others did.)
People learn and create in all sorts of ways. (I wish I was one of the
people who got paid to go into the companies to assist with helping their top
people learn how to be creative. Or, even, the top level companies who actually
are doing innovative things [I was just reading about Koch Industries the other
night] spend a lot of time/money/investment in their people to provide the
synergy of many creative minds working on problems/creative energy/etc. in
order to let them have those opportunities to pool information and take lines
of thought\inventions to new levels.
Instead of considering it 'obsessing' over a problem/puzzle, maybe you
could soften that belief statement to something like
'determined/curious/dedicated/continuing despite difficulties/persistent.
If you think of him having those qualities, do you like him better? (What
do you think a genius is? Someone who just wakes up someday and "knows"
something? or someone who ponders, mulls over, thoughtfully reflects, gets
other opinions, collects data and sifts through it looking for new ways of
thinking about something, or ?)
I suppose you are also disappointed in Edison, too, right? After all, in
spite of his taking his inventions to new levels and so forth, he had gobs of
inventions which didn't pan out. He was constantly working on several ideas all
at the same time--and though what worked, worked wonders, many of them did not.
He, like Einstein, had persistence and curiousity, though.
Waiting for ten years from now when Andy will have taken Einstein's thought
to the next level (presuming he takes up his own challenge and has the
persistence to do it as well as the intelligence),
Marlena in Missouri
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