Fine line of Insanity & Genius

Fine line of Insanity & genius


I have mysteries riddling inside my brain eating at knowledge I must contain.
I have a pathological desire to know what lies beneath the ocean of its naked truths.
Look at the cunning dexterity of the mind’s physical limits, and look what surpasses the gates of beyond.
It cancerous world of sin eats its own flesh while us humans yearn for more truth beneath the ripples of sand
and time. How much longer will this truth remain invisible, and undetected to this naked eye?
That is why I come to you, yes you my friend… for I have questions that need answers.
Questions that must not be held back from the world, but released furiously upon the it. So open up your naked blind eyes. Reveal your hidden truths. That is where the fun begins. My question to you is, as followed. Do you think there is a fine line between insanity and genius? I urn for your answers. If so have you ever walked alone it’s beautiful unperceivable lines that crosses you from reality into a world of schizophrenia?

Please answer… my last and final question for now is
how could a genius like Dr. Ted Kaczynskiturn into a mad man?

www.primitivism.com...


I am by no means insane, I am just curious on what you think of this matter.

-Liquid

[edit on 033131p://444 by LiquidationOfDiscrepancy]

So no one thinks there is a fine line or any correlations between genius and insanity?

Can anyone point out any "insane geniuses" throughout history?

All geniuses are insane

1. Sanity is defined as being of sound mind
2. Most people are of sound mind
3. A genius is not like all people, who are of sound mind, therefore a genius is not of sound mind.
4. A genius is therefore insane

Most of those genius inventors, scientists in the past were called "loopy" "crazy" You have to be crazy to want to transcend the norm.

a ridiculous response indigo, i would expect nothing less.
insanity is most certainly not to be confused with eccentric behaviours. although again there is another fine line we come across. asnwers getting more questions?

I was giving the societal definition. Otherwise, "most people are of sound mind"

Now, there is a fine line between eccentricies and insanity as well, most wouldn't know the difference.

Imagine talking to Einstein while he was working out his theories of space and time locked up in his room.

- "What are you doing Einstein?"

" - Im working our the answers to the universe"

Most would consider that crazy

[edit on 31-3-2005 by Indigo_Child]

An insane genius in history was Salvador Dali, without a doubt an artistic genius and probaly insane, just look at his works and judge for yourself:
images.google.com...


[edit on 31-3-2005 by jrod]

Originally posted by jrod
An insane genius in history Salvador Dali, without a doubt an artistic genius and probaly insane, just look at his works and judge for yourself:
images.google.com...

I don't know about insanity in this case but drug use was prevelent at the time. See Absinthe.

Do you think there is a fine line between insanity and genius?

Totally, though sometimes they come hand in hand. Personally I think the insanity factor enters when reality changes from a individual interpretation, personal to everyone, in the way that you know that the way you percieve it is just your interpretation, to an undeniable fact of reality in that persons mind.

It's a built in protective measure of humanity, no one person can hold, or handle an absolute truth. If you want to go there and understand it, you have to do it together. Then it has purpose and is no longer insanity.

EDIT: for a couple of 'insane' geniuses, there's Nietzsche and Nikola Tesla.

[edit on 31-3-2005 by kegs]

10. Semi-Mad Genius Many geniuses were partially insane, if not wholly insane; many geniuses lived on the borderline between sanity and insanity. Schopenhauer is an example of a genius who was partially insane. Schopenhauer had many irrational fears and anxieties; fearing that people would misinterpret a trance as death and bury him alive, Schopenhauer “stipulated that his remains be left unburied beyond the usual time.” Cézanne is another example of a genius who was partially insane. Cézanne experienced “chronic paranoia”; when his friends threw a party to celebrate his birthday, he left abruptly, thinking they were making fun of him.

It is an indication of the genius’ partial insanity that he goes to extremes and is one-sided. The genius lacks moderation. Dostoyevsky, for example, said, “I go to the ultimate limit everywhere and in everything; all my life long I have always approached the limit!”9

A second indication of the genius’ partial insanity is that he’s moody, more so than most people are. Genius often oscillates between elation and depression. Kierkegaard is an example of a moody genius. Kierkegaard’s mental state was described as “depression, alternating with, but more commonly blended with, a condition of exaltation.” Strindberg was also moody; “throughout [Strindberg’s] life,” wrote one of his biographers, “his moods varied from elation to the blackest depression.” The moodiness of genius tends to take the form of depression rather than elation; genius is melancholy. Kafka is an example of a melancholy genius: “every day,” said Kafka, “I wish myself off the earth.”10

A third indication of the partial insanity of genius is that genius often has a tendency toward illness. Examples of geniuses who were chronically ill are Epicurus, Pascal, Lichtenberg, Schiller, Leopardi, Darwin, Nietzsche and Proust. Illness often has a psychological cause, and chronic illness is often the result of psychological problems. Certain illnesses, such as epilepsy and asthma, almost always have a psychological cause. Several geniuses were epileptics, including Muhammad, Dostoyevsky and Flaubert. Proust’s asthma was a symptom of his psychic state, a plea for maternal attention. While the ideal man, according to the adage, has a healthy mind in a healthy body (mens sana in corpore sano), the genius often has an unhealthy mind in an unhealthy body. Is it surprising, then, that so many geniuses die young?


www.ljhammond.com...

9. Mad Genius How is genius able to see into the future? Partly because genius has a high level of consciousness, and partly because genius is in close contact with the unconscious. The prescience of genius is the result of unconscious feeling, as well as conscious thought. The genius draws from his unconscious ideas, images and intuitions.

Because the genius is in close contact with his unconscious, he runs the risk of becoming insane. Many geniuses have gone insane; examples are Tasso, Newton, Swift, Comte, Gogol, Ruskin, Hölderlin, Schumann, Nietzsche, Strindberg and van Gogh.

www.ljhammond.com...

Originally posted by intrepid

Originally posted by jrod
An insane genius in history Salvador Dali, without a doubt an artistic genius and probaly insane, just look at his works and judge for yourself:
images.google.com...

I don't know about insanity in this case but drug use was prevelent at the time. See Absinthe.

Many artist and writers drank too much of that stuff in that time.

Here is another literary figure that as far as I know wasn't on the bottle: Emily Dickenson. I think you were looking for science and math mad geniuses though. Newton was suppose to be grumpy, unpleasant, and had few friends maybe he was a bit insane too.

I think there could be at least a few insane geniuses here

Originally posted by jrod
Newton was suppose to be grumpy, unpleasant, and had few friends maybe he was a bit insane too.

Maybe he could have used some of the green genie? He might have been more popular.

Guess we can settle for his physics work though.

I believe this site has its fair share of geniuses here

Definatly far more intelligent opinions here than any other site I've stumbled upon.

[edit on 31-3-2005 by jrod]

Newton was considered insane by many, and still is. He was always notoriously unpredictable and some of his friends even considered him truly mad after he had what would now be considered a nervous breakdown after he published Principia.

He's one I don't see as insane, just a man insanely ahead of his time.

Good thread!



[edit on 31-3-2005 by kegs]

[edit on 073131p://444 by LiquidationOfDiscrepancy]

Statistically speaking, the percentage of insane geniuses is roughly the same as the percentage of insane people in any normal population. There is no correlation between any type of psychosis or abnormal mental condition and genius.

And yes, the IQ here is probably higher than on some other boards.

I think the stereotype of the insane or eccentric genius may stem from the fact that almost by definition a genius will have thoughts and ideas that some people around him would never conceive and possibly could not even understand.
I'm sure plenty of people of reasonable intelligence have encountered this phenomenon when dealing with less intelligent peers, especially as children in school. Just for example, a faint and short-lived rumor went around during my senior year that I thought in some kind of strange gibberish rather than normal language. I had tried to explain to somebody how I had used mnemonics to condense half a page of notes into a few letters which I wrote in between two fingers to use on a test. It was misunderstood and evolved into that rumor, which I suppose would make me sound pretty insane if it had persisted.
That being said, I don't like to go on too much about whether or not I'm a genius (because I prefer to set low standards which I can handily exceed) so I'm not setting myself forward as an example of an insane genius, I'm just trying to illustrate how misunderstanding rather than insanity could be behind the phenomenon.

Oh, and always use spell checker, especially in posts about IQ. Mine just saved me from a couple of duzies.