Genius takes many forms. The accomplishments of the people that are thought of as today’s genius’s (like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc.) are different from the accomplishments of the historical figures (Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, etc.), but all of these people seem to share the attribute of very high levels of creativity.
In the world of the 21st century, psychiatry is informed by brain science, and among the developments that have helped to advance brain science is the MRI. With the MRI, it has become increasingly possible to zero in on the precise areas of the brain that are involved in specific tasks, and specific types of reasoning. Through these methods and others, psychiatric researchers now understand that there are different types of creativity, and that high levels of creativity have only a very loose correlation with intelligence. Or to put it another way, highly creative people have intelligence quotients ranging upwards from about 120 on the Stanford-Binet, but beyond that, the accomplishments of such people (the genius factor) is not linked to their IQ.
Unfortunately, highly creative people also share a tendency toward mental health problems, and it is this association that University of Iowa neuropsychiatric researcher Nancy Andreasen is most interested. The nature, underpinnings, and findings of her research is extensively revealed in the article she recently wrote for publication in the current edition of The Atlantic magazine.
Herewith, two excerpts, the first on the nature of creativity:
One approach, which is sometimes referred to as the study of “little c,” is to develop quantitative assessments of creativity—a necessarily controversial task, given that it requires settling on what creativity actually is. The basic concept that has been used in the development of these tests is skill in “divergent thinking,” or the ability to come up with many responses to carefully selected questions or probes, as contrasted with “convergent thinking,” or the ability to come up with the correct answer to problems that have only one answer. For example, subjects might be asked, “How many uses can you think of for a brick?” A person skilled in divergent thinking might come up with many varied responses, such as building a wall; edging a garden; and serving as a bludgeoning weapon, a makeshift shot put, a bookend. Like IQ tests, these exams can be administered to large groups of people. Assuming that creativity is a trait everyone has in varying amounts, those with the highest scores can be classified as exceptionally creative and selected for further study.
And the second, on the subject of the book and movie by the same title:
In A Beautiful Mind, her biography of the mathematician John Nash, Sylvia Nasar describes a visit Nash received from a fellow mathematician while institutionalized at McLean Hospital. “How could you, a mathematician, a man devoted to reason and logical truth,” the colleague asked, “believe that extraterrestrials are sending you messages? How could you believe that you are being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world?” To which Nash replied: “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”
Some people see things others cannot, and they are right, and we call them creative geniuses. Some people see things others cannot, and they are wrong, and we call them mentally ill. And some people, like John Nash, are both.
The full article, HERE, is lengthy, but worth the time to read. And inquisitive readers may wish to supplement Andreasen’s views with those of Harvard professor and developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, as presented on WikiPedia, HERE.