Is it a coincidence that many geniuses are good at mathematics

[LSD-Rumi]

I was good at math, I got like 397/400 in the high school exam, and it was pretty hard. But my brain is not designed for math. It was forced to do math, so how good it was, it will never be great at it. It is like forcing an artist to play boxing.

[integral]

The way math is thought in school is memorization.

Instead if math thought in school involved reinventing Newton or Einstein's equations, then id say your pretty intelligent. 

[EdgeGod900]

@Leo Gura

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I was never good at math.

 Maybe you were taught math like how most people were taught math(calculation based). I bet you if the schooling system you grew up in taught a more "proof-based" math, you'll be at the top. Proof based math requires lots of creativity and depth.

[Princess Arabia]

6 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Interesting observation! 
my spontaneous thoughts : people of “lower consciousness “, since their ego is more “dense” they  cling more hard to certain beliefs and ways of thinking.

This is direct limitation to their intelligence as intelligence requires openness to be able to blossom and develop otherwise it is tied and limited to whatever suits the persons identity and survival if that makes sense. So the mind is bound up instead of being more loose and free to make connections etc

So perhaps it is the opposite - higher awareness/enlightenment leading to more intelligence instead of higher intelligence leading to higher awareness /greater chance for enlightenment ??

Hmmm, makes sense. 

[Hojo]

If you are awakened you are a genius. Maybe not mathematically bit Spiritually you are genius you have discovered which cannot be picked up by senses and therefore genius. The only reason mathematically genius people are recognized is because people can see their genius.

[ValiantSalvatore]

The best example is musicians/artists these are the true genuises and creatives as well as anyone who can channel that spirit into any possible endeavour. 

To go to op's question I just presume a lot of truth-seekers are interested in finding truth where they perceive it to be, if they are not doing it spiritually they will channel this vigor, "panache"... into any possible endeavour be it law, politics, music, mathematics, film making, user interface design, physics, sex,electronics etc. I doubt many did legit spiritual practices and just had tastes of what truth is, and what is true to them, so many highly intellecutal people just find that in their work in fact most people most likely get a taste of it while they work in activity. This is also quiet conscious yang type of energy mostly when work is done deliberately with conscious intent, and not with a system of thought claimed to be "Truth". Which is absolute horseshit. 

I notice especially after a few of Leo's recent blog posts, why I was even interested in psychedelics and also why I disliked the idea of truth, as it's often abused as dogma and the people I meet where very rigid mostly. For me Truth = Reality, and that reality even exists is an ingenuity and genuis of itself. Nature is a genius. 

I so far only had two good math teachers and professors, and they both enforced original thinking and coming up with things from ones own thinking, I do say learning how to problem solve is generally an extremely good idea, just to get used to the level of pain and frustration that can invoke and survival, and how beign creative is a pool of enjoying a richness of ideas and putting them into ones own abillity. I recently had to re-think this also as the 10kh rule is false and the skill development and mastery stuff, as I noticed I had shadow parts in my values, and still strong "light" parts.

Apprently it's more to 760 - 16000h rule for mastering something, I do believe these geniuses had one main thing going for them and just put these into practices where they found similarities of their endeavour be it lateral thinking etc. ( I am not a cognitive scientist etc.) It's like when I imagine I meditated for close to 3k h and I still don't have a "classic attainment" and you meet teachers and they still see the spark and potential of it in you, it's annoying to admit how important strategy and mastery is and intensity of practice. Also how well psychdelics and retreats work together, and how rare it is to find a teacher openly admitting to cross-validate experiences. It's extremely exhausting, like mastering any field. I admire some of these people for their abillity to have subversive abillities to go against the grain of what ever percetable truth they find. They recommend for example to go on a 3 month retreat, and you basically have it by sheer intenisity of practice. I had to many odd tastes, and the first time I went on a home retreat, I had a taste of non-duality that surpised the teacher, I also lost consciouness almost as I was to deep into this. 

I had to rewire my brain & thinking in the last couple of months to realize how biased reality is and how much I have naturally thought in higher order thinking, yet had lacked tools for note-taking for higher-order thinking and processing. As I am better at synthesis than technical analysis. It's insane it's like when I intuit I meet others who are extremely good at spotting trends before they exist, how enjoyable it is to synthesis information, especially also spiritual information. I miss the level of spiritual humillity in a lot of teachers. I doubt I will ever find one. I don't synch well with the value of truth, yet I notice how important it is. So I am making it a top 10 value, as in the relative domain it's super important. Might even be more important than spiritually for many etc. Anyway my 10 cents, I won't buy 1D-LSD and most likely will buy an electric guitar lmao. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by ValiantSalvatore

[LSD-Rumi]

2 hours ago, EdgeGod900 said:

Proof based math requires lots of creativity and depth.

Yup, this is it. And this happens in phsysics too. Solving problems instead of pure understanding. I always looked at physics as some kind of philosophy rather than science. Genuises of physics were not geniuses because of solving problems, thy were because they came up with ground shattering theories and inventions.

[Leo Gura]

It's true I was unfortunate to have very bad math teachers, otherwise I would have been much better.

[Yimpa]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

It's true I was unfortunate to have very bad math teachers, otherwise I would have been much better.

My math tutor was very good at following the rules of math, but completely stupid when it came to paradoxes. 

[Bobby_2021]

Genius is a specific thing. It is the knowledge and understanding of all things. Math is an integral part of the world and it's understanding is necessary to the understanding of everything else. It fits in so neatly. 

They also had high IQs. 

[ValiantSalvatore]

I am not very good at mathematics either, I was good at it when I was younger and had joy to do the homework. Also due to mechnical bias, and me beign more emotional it's not a good fit, even though I am good/average mostly. I disliked the peer pressure of mathematic classes and the stage organge rigidity of it. I wish I had more influence to see the beauty of mathematics and it's patterns, and the abillity to love mechnical explanations and things, I am doing my best to embrace this since years, even if it's not the truth. I hope I can still take one course with the good professor to learn something of him, physicists are generally on another level and he invented an ml algorithm, as well as appreciates creativity and runs around with a hat. Hopefully I get the chance I never had such good professors who actually care. Although they are very rigid about school knowledge, and the issue of image within science. 

I dunno even when I do the stuff, I only like calculus and statistics and linear algebra so far. I don't enjoy the other things so much. I am not particulary good at any of it, yet I like it so much I would do it at home to advance my career/life purpose. 

I also score below average on emotional scale, yet I disliked how socially unskilled many of these people are it's like they confuse truth with every concotion of their mind and then attack others to justify their believes. I am glad I meet better scientist.

The job interview I had for a development position the guy just smiled at me the whole time and was so happy I had social skills unlike many others. 

Unsocial scientist who woreship materalism and IQ, is by far the worst and most damaging aspect of academia, the only guy I meet who made significant contributions did not have insecurities around these concepts and held them to any glory. It's the biggest hallmark of immaturity to be so arrogant and conceited. I am glad I am gone from a university where many acted on this blue/orange mechanistic paradigm. It's super disgusting. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by ValiantSalvatore

[Bobby_2021]

5 minutes ago, ValiantSalvatore said:

I disliked the peer pressure of mathematic classes and the stage organge rigidity of it.

Sadly true. I made a stern decision to not let academic bullshit corrupt the beauty of mathematics.

I used to  half heartedly listen in classes and then come back home to teach myself the real way. In the end I topped it of course. Mathematics is as beautiful as a beautiful painting. 

[ItsNick]

In the first few years of middle school I was terrible at maths. It was my weakest subject.

Then I got a maths teacher who gave me a Rubik's cube and I fell in love with it, competing with my best friend to get our times under 10 seconds. We also bought very strange Rubik's cube variant puzzles, like shape-shifting cubes.

Playing around with many such puzzles and creating mathematical riddles for myself and this friend of mine slowly turned maths into my best subject at the end of high school.

I love intuitively understanding maths. But I'm horrible at writing proofs.

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, ItsNick said:

I love intuitively understanding maths. But I'm horrible at writing proofs.

That cube speaks for itself 

[Bobby_2021]

2 minutes ago, ItsNick said:

love intuitively understanding maths. But I'm horrible at writing proofs.

That's beautiful. Ramanujan also was the same. For me I had zero creativity/intuition.

I absorbed textbooks just like that. For me every page was a painting written in symbols. I studied systematically. Proofs didn't make any difference to me at all. I don't care.

But reading the proof gave me some solace and peace of mind. I could never fly off the seat completely detaching from proofs either. I just like to marvel and admire mathematical work. It's like a painting to me

[Nemra]

@MarkKol maybe the people you think of were forced to learn math.

[ValiantSalvatore]

21 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Sadly true. I made a stern decision to not let academic bullshit corrupt the beauty of mathematics.

I used to  half heartedly listen in classes and then come back home to teach myself the real way. In the end I topped it of course. Mathematics is as beautiful as a beautiful painting. 

I am amazed by people who can enjoy mathematics at this level for me it had a strong cultural and classic western connection that was never fully served, as I was in musical school and enjoyed playing chess, yet my family had no interest in these things, and I could not handle the pressure alone and how unwise my family acted, when I had emotionaly problems they just get angry. This also caused me to have an interest in eastern philosohpy most likely as they dealt with the idea of self-control and temperance in a different way. I do I enjoy it, yet I had to reframe most task solving as a chess puzzle and some other tricks. I dislike how anti-conceptually it is currently taught to me, and how good professors care more about conceptual depth than solving problems, due to the generalist type of demand that can exist in the tech field.

A friend of mine is similar to you, who did all of this at home and just enjoys it organically and does his Ph.D in A.I, yet his politics are screwed every since survival forced him into this way of thinking and the war in Ukraine etc. and a death of his family member, he seems to be doing better, yet it's unfortunate when life circumstances prevent dreams from fully blossoming. I hope a psychdelic could change his mind and aid his work, if he already connected so many deep patterns, yet he keeps ruining his health and just does his work. I dunno I at least exercised with him for 2-3 months, the lonliness of beign at the top is immense. He is also socially not as dense and can actually listen and take care.

Also the issue of the schooling system and testing is a huge issue imo, especially also beign hypersensetive not having a musical and physical outlet is extremely bad. Top technical unverisities (in the u.s) have very rigorous physical programms for their students, my old neighour an old judge and his daugther both also fall into this pattern. For me math never fully works if I don't have a creative and physical expression of some type. Actually this is interesting thank you for commeting on my writting, I completely forgot this is a serious pattern I did not consider, as I was good in mathematics when I had music classes. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by ValiantSalvatore

[Jodistrict]

Einstein was a genius in physics but not in mathematics.  He had to search for the mathematics created by other people to find a math that expressed his intuition in physics.   In college, I was in a PHD mathematics program for a while until I switched to something else.  There are many other areas that have geniuses, such as literature.   

[Moksha]

17 hours ago, MarkKol said:

What does that even mean? I can't understand a single word

The genius of being a genius is that nobody can understand what you're saying well enough to disprove it 

Gödel was just pointing out that even genius mathematicians can't agree on a common set of assumptions. So not only is the body of knowledge built on a shaky foundation of unprovable assumptions, but the foundation itself constantly shifts.

In other words, Socrates was right about knowing that we know nothing. Absolute knowledge is only directly realized. It's beyond the capacity of any conceptual mind (human, alien, or god) to comprehend.

[thierry]

13 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

What is this “real” mathematics called?

. 
I’m a highly visual thinker but struggled with the math in school and have thought its not my strong suit but now since you made that distinction it got me curious. 

When I say « real mathematics » what I mean is the good way of doing math to me. The effective way. The productive way. The way of doing math where you are actually doing real work rather than just superficially jumping hoops when everything deep has already been prepared for you. 

It would requires to come back to the very basis of maths. Having a very good theoretical foundation and then building your reasoning on a solid ground where you actually understand everything that’s happening. Understanding the demonstration of the theorems and tools you are using is very useful. You can spend days on that while your classmates will laugh at you saying that they just use the theorem and it is working and that you are just wasting time. The problem though is that when confronted with an exercise that requires you to visualise with precision. They ll be completely lost whereas people who did the real work will have a chance to see and solve the problem. 
 

But in most universities you’ll never have or very rarely have such exercices. It’s like maths is finding you way in the Amazon forest and maths taught in school are more likely to be a fake artificial forest where every interesting skills that are requires in the amazon forest are no longer useful and now you just need to learn that when you see this you should turn left and when you see that you should jump…

(ps: I might be a little hard though. maybe in the top top universities, something close to the real work can be done)