The Nature of Genius in Today's Society

High Cognitive Ability (HCA) is something we idealize in society but don't often understand its nature. Those with HCA are known to have developed new and unique contributions to society that range from business to art. For example, Steve Jobs grew Apple into a successful business and Picasso produced master works in Art. Each of them had a unique skill that was channeled into some constructive activity. It is important to understand genius in society so they can be tasked for the greatest benefit.

I read a book entitled Genius Gift or Curse? by Dr. James MacLean that delves into the biological and key modifiers of genius behavior. He studies multiple geniuses throughout history and uses his own practice to understand how HCA influences life and behavior. The work further provides an understanding of the mixed blessing and curse high intelligence bring with it and the benefit of channeling this intelligence into some useful activity.

Genius can either be a positive force or a negative force. When genius is channeled into a useful activity it often creates new and profound additions to intellectual or artistic knowledge. However, when genius is not channeled it can become a destructive force. The genius and their ability to channel appropriately is based in their childhood experiences and the influences of others.

Geniuses also have higher levels of internal angst that cause tension to create and develop new things. This so called frustration encourages to fully lose themselves into some activity.  They have it is an internal desire to work on a new painting, write a new book, study the laws of motion, or any other topic/activity they find interesting.

The neuro-biological template of the genius is very different from other people. Their brains work at a faster pace and create a higher level of neural activity that leads to inspiration. Less loss of current occurs being the neurons because of a higher fatty brain material.

People with HCA often experience emotions on a higher state than others. Those biological skills that allow them to compose music, act, dance, and feel the hum of pleases sounds also offers higher emotional awareness. How this is experienced depends on the person and their ability to deal with these intense emotions.

Moral and ethical values are heightened in this population as they think deeper about the very nature of life and society. That philosophical side that were present in the moral sentiments of Plato and Homer are applied to daily questions of right and wrong. Genius become easily frustrated by lack of fairness or honesty in the system.

Genius are products of their biological nature and the environment in which they were raised. Each will naturally have an impact what types of activities the genius engages in. When properly channeled and groomed geniuses do a great many things but when their creative power is not channeled they often turn in on themselves and become destructive. Grooming those with HCA can pay dividends in the long run as society is advanced through their activities.

Mental Models of the Prodigy and Gifted

Researchers have often what makes the gifted and child prodigy different from the rest of the population. Memory, intelligence, sensory perception, etc. are some of the explanations. A paper postulated by Larry Vandervert (2007) discusses that the learning power in the gifted is based on collaboration between cognitive functions and memory to create “acquisition of superior power, control, and speed of motor activities”. This results in better selection of potential actions based on representative situations. In this case, practice makes perfect. 

As feed forward cerebellar control models are fed back through working memory areas of the cortex the thought processes of working memory become faster, more focused, and optimally timed (Ivry, 1997). It is the process of developing models, sending through memory, and creating a performance outcome. The models continue to develop with experience and reflection (memory) to create stronger models. 

What is a feed forward cerebellar control model? This is a model based upon experience that makes a prediction that a certain action will have a specific result. Putting your hand out to catch a ball, the words used to communicate with others, and the actions that result in certain benefits in the environment.  As people become more familiar with the world they naturally create predictions to events and actions. 

Child prodigies are often good at a particular function like music or sports. Their success is limited to a specific learned activity based upon practice. As they get older these activities may be applied to other areas of their life. For example, a prodigy in a sport can apply developed models for other activities through experience. Genius is based on the ability to take successful models and apply them to other arenas of life giving one greater insight. 

Imagine if a person builds multiple models in their activities. This person could better predict actions and outcomes to apply more control over their environment. For example, a violinist learns multiple models for playing and can create higher levels of performance. These models often overlap and develop different ways of competing and completing this task at a higher level. The more experience and practice a person gains the better they get.

As more models of the environment are created it develops a hierarchy of different models called Hierarchical Modular Selection and Identification for Control. When a stimulus in flow (an environment stimuli) enters the body from the outside, the gifted can differentiate better and find a model that predicts the outcome and meaning of that information based in their experiences. The more experience and practice, the higher developed the models and the associated actions.

Who are the gifted, genius and child prodigy? They are the ones who create more models of the world around them and can use those models for certain activities. The gifted are those with the potential, the child prodigy is one with specific displayed talent, and the genius are those who have hierarchies of models that apply to multiple areas of life. This is why the child prodigy can sometimes grow into the genius if their models expand to create a hierarchy of thought that leads to abilities in multiple areas.

Ivry, R. (1997) Cerebellar timing systems, in: J. D. Schmahmann (Ed.) The cerebellum and cognition (New York, Academic Press), 555–573.

Vandervert, L. (2007). Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum Explain How Ericsson's Deliberate Practice Produces Giftedness. High Ability Studies, 18 (1).

Gifted Moral Development in Youth Far above College Students

Derryberry, et. al. (2005), works to understand the early moral development in gifted populations. When comparing gifted youth to adult college students they found that such youth were more advanced than their adult peers. The research is designed to help understand the nature of giftedness, how to foster further development, and to encourage possible transfers to other members of the population.

Moral development has a number of stages. At the lowest stage such development is associated with a personal interest schema, then norm maintenance, and then the post-conventional schema (Rest. et.al, 1999). Each stage indicates a level of personal development that grows overtime. A large percentage of society never advances beyond the first or second stage.

At the lowest stage of personal interest schema people naturally interpret morality through what is best for them. This means that people are involved in self-serving interests and associations. In the maintaining norms schema morality is based with conventions, rules, and standards. At the highest level of post-conventional schema people base their moral judgments on universal principles of justice and fairness.

There are factors associated with development that include education, intelligence, complexity of thought, personality, and open to experience. People who are likely able to develop morally seek higher levels of education, can reflect on their thinking processes, have positive personality traits, and are open to trying and understanding new things. These are the people who love to experience and learn. They are capable of seeing themselves in a larger social context of history and institutions while able to see broad cultural trends.

The study indicates that age has only a small association with moral development. Gifted people are capable of taking in a wider context of information to come to their own moral conclusions and start doing so at a young age. These differences make them inherently unique compared to both their peers as well as older members of the population. The authors encourage greater study of this population as they are widely outside the bell curve of the norm and often fight against such identification.

Derryberry, et. al. (2005). Moral judgment developmental differences between gifted youth and college students. Journal of secondary gifted education, 17 (1).

Rest, et. al (1999). Postconventional moral thinking: a neo-Kohlbergian approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Scientists Find the Interconnectivity of Einstein's Brain

Albert Einstein was unique in that the corpus callosum that connects both sides of his brain had high density connections that further led to a higher level of thinking and creativity. Researchers from Weiwei Men of East China Normal University and Dean Falk from Florida State University studied his preserved brain and found that the thickness of his corpus callosum was much greater than others, indicating additional nerve connections. 

Previous research has shown that the interconnectivity of the brain and the ability to process from differentiated locations can create higher levels of thinking and creativity. It is considered a gifted trait whereby the holders have higher than average ability to learn and can use this processing power to create new and unique connections among various forms of information. This is what leads to scientific breakthroughs. 

Research on intelligence has also shown the varying forms in which some people excel and learn is based in their processing abilities. Depending on what theory one uses it is possible to see Einstein’s large fluid intelligence working within his memory. This allowed him to dream, connect, and then delve into the varying aspects of his scientific explorations. One must first see the possibility and then construct the pieces that make it real. 

Preconscious understanding is different than conscious understanding. In Einstein’s case the dreaming may have created an important preconscious connection of varying forms of information that eventual led to awareness. It was this awareness of the possibility of relative motion that allowed Einstein to systematically test the concept to come up with his theory of relativity. 

Depending on which one of the eight forms of intelligence, as proposed by Gardner, one excels at may depend on the size and strength of certain areas of the brain. In Einstein’s case this may be more associated with the spatial and mathematical portions. Other geniuses may have different skills based in their neural connections that could enhance their skills in sports, social interaction, or word choice.  

The very way in which he thought about science and his cognitive flexibility can be summed up as follows:

“So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.”

You may read the full 2013 study results:

The Journal Brain

Book Review: Creating Minds by Dr. Howard Gardner

Creating Minds an Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi by Dr. Howard Gardner delves into the personal lives of some of the world’s greatest geniuses and their chaotic development into full productivity.  Dr. Howard Gardner is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard. He is best known for his ground breaking work on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. 

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences indicates that people have different processes for learning and developing. Schools often rely on only a few methods leaving many geniuses out of the academic arena. These arenas of learning are in the linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.  At present he is also considering an additional intelligence called existential intelligence which is the “consideration of big questions”. 

Within the book he looks deeply into the lives of seven creative geniuses in order to come to some conclusions. His review includes Picasso’s visual-spatial intelligence and the transcended interpretive frames of reference that he uses to change human perception of issues. He argues that each person has taken a Faustian bargain whereby they have put some aspects of their lives on hold as they went upon their personal missions that have led to profound breakthroughs. 

Each person has a set of tensions and asynchronous in development that when are not overwhelming lead the creative mind and new perceptions of life. Creators come from financially sound, but not necessarily wealthy families, and have a touch of estrangement from biological members. They hold certain values as important and work within fields a decade or more before making a major breakthrough. As they age their creative works become less even though their followership rises. 

The creative genius has certain intellectual strengths as they relate to the eight intelligence possibilities. Many of these geniuses were late bloomers who started their callings in their late twenties and thirties. Only a few were known as prodigies and this is based upon the support of their family and early recognition of skills. They are self-confident individuals who often self-promote and can have difficulties with others who are not considered as intelligent. 

Many geniuses came from homes where strictness and excellence were required. Yet when they gained enough skills the genius rebelled against their family and loosened the noose of control. They worked in areas of fields others have either discarded or completely didn’t understand. They seek to create their own domain in their chosen fields.  They were productive each day and worked on their craft or other complementary crafts to master skills. They were involved in each of the five distinct activities:

• 1.)    Solving a particular problem.
• 2.)    Putting forth a general conceptual scheme.
• 3.)    Creating a product.
• 4.)    A stylized performance
• 5.)    A performance for high stakes

Each genius works within a triangle of creativity. This triangle includes the domain, the field and the individual. The domain is the knowledge, the field is the audience, and the individual is the creative person. They balance and move through these fields in different ways in order to find their creative breakthrough. It is the field that must accept that breakthrough as important. 

If you are seeking a book that discussed the nature of genius and the overall development of major scientific and artistic breakthroughs this is likely to be the one for you. You will find that intelligence mixed with the environment creates in part the genius. The book doesn’t state this but each of these individuals seem to have developed in times of international conflict as related to the world wars and other societal rubs.  Perhaps this is a background factor whereby society feels pressure to change and adapt and the genius is more capable emotionally, psychologically, and biologically to head the call. Perhaps it is a call to greatness?

Gardner, H. (2011). Creating Minds an Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.