The only difference between genius and madman

[Ero]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Genius, insanity

These two are not that independent. Grothendieck is a prime example. Komitas is another. Some minds break from the intensity.

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

So what's the difference between a true genius and a truly insane? 

It's like apples and coconuts.

Most mentally ill people are not geniuses, they are homeless drug addicts living on the streets mumbling to themselves.

The truly insane are locked up in a padded room. They don't produce anything.

Edited 21 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

The observation is considering genius as recognized by others. Not, genius for its own sake. 
 

Often times our geniuses are at first considered madmen until proven correct years or lifetimes later. 
 

There are likely many geniuses who well never be known. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Thought Art

[Aaron p]

@Leo Gura I think most of us are aware that's truly insane people are locked up in padded cells but this doesn't address the actual question. The op is not asking what we do with insane people he is asking: how you would define what's qualifies someone as being mad or insane? 

Is it murder? Worse crimes? Or the internal mental state of a person regardless of their external actions. I have met people who are delusional, people who are ideological idiots, people with clinical psychopathy diagnoses (who are definitive psychopaths but are very much free and not locked up in padded cells) and people whose mental divergence is extremely difficult to describe and it basically manifests itself in a general strangeness with slights paranoia and occasional extreme outbursts of hopelessness where they might shit themselves for example. And what about the man locked in a padded cell because he killed his father out of pure emotional rage because his father killed his mother...

Are these people insane? Do you not think the term sane or insane is a bit of an oversimplification...

Edited 20 hours ago by Aaron p

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, The Crocodile said:

A madman could be a guy in a Denny's parking lot with a katana running at the police. Could he be a genius? Sure, probably even he is.

A madman sees something nobody else sees, be it concrete things like object/sensory perceptions ("hallucinations"), or value structures or ways of being ("acting insane"). A genius sees something nobody else sees, be it abstract things like thoughts (or indeed concrete things like perceptions), value structures or ways of being. The commonality is being unusual, and maybe also 'extremely so'.

The difference, as claimed, is that the madman's unusual behavior is largely disliked or disapproved of by the common man. For example, if you hallucinate white rabbits or pink elephants, people generally disapprove of that. If you are neither willing nor able to tie your shoes without assistance or outside force, people generally disapprove of that.

On the other hand, if your unusual behavior leads to or is associated with something that people consider a good thing (something they like), or certainly a fantastic thing (something they like very much), because indeed nobody else could've come up with it because nobody else can see it, then you will be accurately labelled a genius. For example, if you find a new technology, a new "accepted" scientific paradigm (more on that later), a new cure for a disease, a new way to make apple juice, or you're just really clever in most situations which astounds most people, people will generally like that, and hence, again, you will be labelled a genius.

 

As for the Katana person, had he been doing unusual things that people like very much (e.g. playing Fruit Ninja IRL and filming it like a high-production action movie with the skill equivalent of 10 000 hours of practice, doing all the work except the filming by himself, fully self-taught, all with stunning world class execution) instead of what people dislike very much (chopping up police officers), I think he will accurately be called a genius. If he had instead been doing unusual things that people like but aren't necessarily blown away by, he would be called clever, creative, innovative, essentially the weaker components of genius.

 

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Did people like Da Vinci in his time?

This ties into what I hinted to about finding a new "accepted" scientific paradigm. If you find a new paradigm or theory or way of thinking that people accept and thus like, then that is all good: you're a genius. If it's something they don't like, they will often call you words like "kook",  "crank", "nut" and "crackpot". These obviously have a flavor of "crazy", "unhinged", but at the core, it's again being unusual.

But the thing here is that these words are kind of a composite of like and dislike, because such people are often recognized as intelligent (which people like) but still deal with things that people don't like (in this case the paradigms, the theories). Had they not been considered intelligent (or had people just failed to recognize their intelligence), then it's more likely that they would be called crazy, mad, insane. When the intelligence is not recognized, that's for example the camp that Leo is sometimes put in.

Edited 17 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Jacob Morres]

Me former, everyone else latter. All you need mhm 

[Letho]

 

Another one of societies pedigree classification difficulties. Is it a labrador? A rottweiler? Fuck I don't know anymore, wait... Shit... A chihuahua? no fucking way! 

I am greeted in emotional presence by passerby's with cognitive and emotional difficulties on a near daily basis, high cognitive abilities does not preclude potential mental illness however by and large, the average IQ is of course, just average. Many more mentally ill people fall along this average than do those with not only exceptional cognitive abilities but also creative abilities. It's a folklore that should never have been folklore and I feel deep down that having these discussions now only allows a community to surface the incongruities between culture and reality but also bring a greater maturity to where most cultural subjects, especially those relating to mental illness and genius, are not only very sensitive subjects that affect the lives of real people but in return add to the definition of our own structures that reflect the language of our consciousness and the subsequent "picture to action" it generates about reality. 

Tread carefully, there's literally millions of people suffering right that are mentally ill but fall short of these genius and popularity appraisals, and there's arguably an equal number of people that are not 'mad' nor 'genius' but are being programmed to be narcissistic enough to either conclude that they are the latter or hypochondriac's concerning the former, or both, including popular. Narcissists weaponize cultural labels for their popular benefit, even if it momentarily means they have to be partially viewed in a negative light. The mind's capacity for creative 'mad' thinking is not in its reflection of chaos but in its order to handle it where said demonstration of power translates into repeatable not one-off creative feats. 

Otherwise, likely a German Shepherd. But, I have always had a particular fondness for the Wolfdog which are largely prohibited in Australia however all my life, I've always wanted a Siberian Huskey, though to date, I have been blessed to be the owner of other pedigrees.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Letho

[diegogomez42]

i think it comes down to 100 percent confidence in 100 percent verifiable reality, a genius is confident, a madman will lie about their arrogance to themselves, warped perspective. 

[Carl-Richard]

14 hours ago, aurum said:

This is only true if you consider intelligence to be relative and socially constructed. 

Intelligence is one of many likeable things that you could ascribe to a genius. And even if you want to define intelligence as something objective, intelligence as a concept is still generally considered a good thing (people like it). Same with "profound insight into reality" as @Salvijus has written below.

Edited 7 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Buck Edwards]

Was Ted Kaczynski a genius or an insane  madman? 

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by Buck Edwards

[Salvijus]

Genius - someone with a profound insight into reality. 

Madman - profound disconnection from reality. 

[Carl-Richard]

28 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Was Ted Kaczynski a genius or an insane  madman? 

Maybe a better question is: for all the things that people call Ted a genius, do they like or dislike those things? And for all the thing that people call Ted a madman, do they like or dislike those things?

[Carl-Richard]

Here is an exercise: take any extremely exceptionally "good" behavior and see if it does not fit the label of genius. Take any extremely exceptionally "bad" behavior and see if it does not fit the label of madman/madness.

Here are a few: defecating on the street in broad daylight, winning a Nobel Prize, killing all of your family members, landing a rocket on Mars, living on only Mars bars for 10 years, living in a state free of suffering, living in a state of constant suffering.

Edited 16 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

I just asked ChatGPT-1o what it thinks and I'm disgusted by the absolute sophistry it attempts to spew. Get us better AIs already omg.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Genius, insanity, and popularity are 3 independent variables which rarely go together.

You may think of genius as Albert Einstein or Nicola Tesla, but I also think, after some thinking, of for example Aurora Aksnes and the Buddha.

Edited 16 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[vibv]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Genius, insanity, and popularity are 3 independent variables which rarely go together.

Challenge accepted.

[Leo Gura]

What most people casually refer to as "mad" or "insane" isn't actually so. Those are just sloppy labels people throw around because they don't know any better. Real madness and insanity are rare and not what most productive or genius people have.

Genius is usually very talented people who also train really hard and long in some domain. Such people can be weird or eccentric, but that shouldn't be confused with mad or insane.

Edited 14 hours ago by Leo Gura

[LastThursday]

Both genius and madman are social constructs and not inherent in someone's make up. It's the whims of a society that confer these statuses on people. In the case of insanity the person is often removed from the pool or neutered by drugs in order to either protect society or to make the person conform to the norm. At one time in the UK homosexuality was considered a mental illness, and treated with chemical castration. 

Someone could be a self-confessed genius, but really there has to be a general societal consensus that labels the person as a "genius", often post mortem. At one time people weren't geniuses but had genius, the implication being that the genius had entered the person via some means. The word genius is related to genie, jinx and jinn.

A genius and a madman are completely separate things, the only commonality is that they're both divergent in the eyes of society.

Edited 14 hours ago by LastThursday

[AION]

Genius is lead by holism while a madman is lead by separation.

Their brains work differently. A genius brain that works holistically is productive and cohesive while a madman brain is not productive and cohesive.

A holistic brain is a sharp knife but it can cut into itself when it becomes mad/egoistic. That is why dumb people will never become a Hitler. To be a very successful madman you first need to be a good set of brains to be able to turn it in a madman brain.

There are dumb madmen but they will get anything done what they want to achieve. These people are usually their own worst nightmare. Usually they fuck themselves up physically/judicially/in terms of health/or other ways, before anything and try to take others with them.

Edited 14 hours ago by AION

[Davino]

They are both ends in the Gaussian Distribution function of humanity.

And ends touch but that's all. The worst and the best in being so departed from the mean gives the impression of madness. Because normality is the mean and all that deviates from it is weirdness, the only difference is whether that deviation is towards higher development and functionality or actually lower mind and dysfunctionality.

Edited 13 hours ago by Davino