Prodigies, geniuses, etc. Can anyone become one at any age?

We've all seen tons geniuses and prodigies in our time. Children who have a natural born gift or who have mastered an art without any effort whatsoever. Many believe that these gifts are the results of lifetimes of experience (if you believe in reincarnation). Others say that it's all genetic and nothing more.

However, could it be possible for any average person to reach this level via law of attraction or some other method such as meditation? Believing that they have already attained such a level in the now and implanting that thought into their subconscious, thus turning it into a definite reality?

There is a man, I probably can't find it for the life of me.

He had a injury to his head, and then suddenly he could carve anything out of wood, something he had never done nor could do.

It all involves the mind, you can try wahckin your head into a wall, and see if it changes you , because it actually might, he got lucky.

There are tons of NLP tricks you can use on yourself, although the most proven is hard work, and that seems like, gives you the most satisfaction.

Is there something you'd really like to have severe knowledge of?

reply to post by ogund.3


It depends how you define Genius or Prodigy. Lets look at a thesis.

First off "Can anyone become one at any time? Scientifically it may be impossible for some people to develop skills in certain areas. It may be due to a disorder or disability (learning, mental or physical), or many other things that can cause difficulty to learning. So no not all people can develop Genius skills. However,

Can anyone become one at any time? Yes. I highly disagree with the age old statement that you can't teach old dog's new tricks. I believe that when the condition is right, a person whom at any age can develop a skill.
To which level you ask? I feel that if a person puts in enough effort in something, there will be success.

Some people however do not have there motivation to learn, or master a new skill. To me, I always believe everyone has the motivation within them. The real question is how to channel that motivation.

As I said in my opening statement, it depends on what you call Genius (or) Prodigy. What you may also look to investigate is whether you are referring to education, sports, arts (visual, performing, music) etc. Certain people are gifted in certain things.

But to me, in my theory, I believe everyone is gifted in there own special way. If you really think about it, all of us have a hidden talent.


[edit on 3-7-2009 by Scooby Doo]

recently saw a discovery show, it was called super humans or something

anyways, in it, this guy who was really bad at math, one day is given god's gift of math, literally, he can do like any calculation, was tested by prof's and universities, and he is genuine

they talked about sudden savantism, autistics and stuff, was pretty interesting

he was a kid who was really bad at math, was made fun of, etc, but one day.. out of nowhere.. is given that talent, i believe he says he just wakes up able to perform extremely complicated mathematics

so yes, i believe it is possible, everyone can get smarter, or to genius levels, if the brain is adapted/trained correctly

me personally? Well i've always enjoyed producing music via computer software. I experiment a lot and tend to do things by ear, but it takes a lot of time.

ex. of a track i did via computer software only...
www.tindeck.com...


However, I can't learn acoustic guitar or any other instrument in a technical manner..I've tried taking lessons, etc. I just can't seem to learn that way.. notes, chords, theory, progressions, etc. I fail miserably at that. I just want my ear to guide my playing..nothing more. If I could have one gift, it would be the ability to play any piece of music/idea that comes to me effortlessly on a acoustic guitar. I would love to have that gift over anything in the world. Forget money even. Just being able to play guitar like that would bring an insane amount of joy for me.

Originally posted by Scooby Doo
reply to post by ogund.3

 

But to me, in my theory, I believe everyone is gifted in there own special way. If you really think about it, all of us have a hidden talent.


[edit on 3-7-2009 by Scooby Doo]

But finding that hidden talent is the hard part....people go their whole lives without even finding out their true potential. So the question I pose is this.

What step(s) could one take in order to find his/her own talent/gift?

[edit on 3-7-2009 by ogund.3]

Watch a documentary called "the boy with the incredible brain", link: video.google.com...

Our brains are pretty much super computers, but the thing is that the averages persons brain is developed sporadically, if it is developed properly or through an accident mishap modified, or through direct modification, almost anyone could become super intelligent.

I know there is a university in Europe somewhere, I think it is mentioned in the documentary I linked, that studies what makes people smart and they believe that almost anyone can unlock super human intelligence and there is a university in north America that has a course on how to train yourself to store memories properly, so that you can gain the ability of pretty much a photographic memory.

In most cases it takes a lot of work and effort, then again you can think of it like your brain is a muscle and that you have to work it out to make it stronger, just like how you work out your muscles. I am pretty sure there are mediations and also different martial arts that can gain you some useful mental abilities.

One simple way is to just start reading more, and study something/learn something new for like 3 hrs a week, like pick a day and sit down for 3 hours to teach yourself something, after a year or two it adds up and before you know it you have a lot more knowledge and raw mental ability compared to someone who did take the time to learn something every week.

If you are truly interested in what makes people become smart and how to become smarter, you should go to your library and take out a few books on neurology and what not.

Just my two cents.

Another thing I should mention, as you would see in the video linked in my previous post, is that you seem to be able to handle mental computation better if you can relate to it emotionally, honestly, I am pretty sure you would find that if you learn something faster if you find learning it fun as compared to if you didn't have fun learning it.

Also some people seem to be born with natural abilities for things, either from genetic means or condition they grew up in, some people’s brains just become wired for certain things. I honestly think that most parents when they have children should pull out a book or two on development psychology, or neurology, seeing what you child’s brain can do at certain ages and when they should be taught certain things could be invaluable in raising children to have their mental capacities developed properly, I am not saying to the insane strict but it really would make a notable difference and would help parents understand their children better at the earlier ages when the child’s mental abilities are limited.

When I tried to join Mensa in my 20's, I called my old grade school to find out the results of an iq test they gave us. Secretary said that I was normal at 110. Not good enough for Mensa. So I took the Mensa tests the next day. I scored 134 & 165 which is 98 & 99 percentiles. Good enough for Mensa & Intertel.

The only thing that I can attribute it to was that in high school the trs-80 came out and I taught myself programming. I can still code circles around a friend of mine who has a computer science major. I think that got my reasoning powers to develop.
So, yes, I think that you can reach higher levels using different methods or just finding something that you have a passion for and you won't even notice that you've jumped a level or two.

Originally posted by ogund.3
However, could it be possible for any average person to reach this level via law of attraction or some other method such as meditation? Believing that they have already attained such a level in the now and implanting that thought into their subconscious, thus turning it into a definite reality?

No, but you can get there by studying, practicing, training and working.

I believe that anyone can master anything that he has some natural inclination to doing. Of course everybody cannot be an athlete, an artist and a scientist. But probably anyone could be one of them.

I don't think there are any shortcuts like meditation or "law of attraction". You just gotta be passionate and work very hard.

I think that most of the people get a bit stuck with their thinking patterns after age 30 or so, it may be harder to get ahead at a later age unless you start at a young age.

It all depends upon what you define as "genius," I suppose. If you compare a totally uneducated person with a person who has attained a PhD, then you could say yes, our modern educational system is one way to produce a genius. A neurosurgeon is a genius compared to a ditch digger. Assimilating the collected knowledge of mankind has always been a path to enlightenment, albeit a long and tedious path.

I assume, however, that you're talking about transcendent thinking, the kind of brainpower that appears only once or twice in an entire generation, like an Einstein or a Tesla. People like that are possessed of mental ability that the average person can't even comprehend. Did you know that Nikola Tesla could visualize his inventions in 3-D and test them in his mind before he even started building? The same way we use virtual reality today to test experimental technology — Tesla did that in his head.

Einstein could visualize travel at lightspeed, and then explain it in layman's terms. But even with Einstein meticulously explaining things, his students and those who built upon his ideas didn't spontaneously turn into Einsteins. So, apparently, transcendent thinking is not communicable.

You can't force a snake to shed its skin. By that I mean people expand their minds only at the natural rate of mind expansion. Their minds grow through experience, through trial and error, through imitation, through routine, et cetera; and there is a natural and almost predictable progression of mind expansion.

But, occasionally, there are catalysts that advance human awareness by leaps and bounds. I'm not just talking about mind-expanding drugs, which certainly work — they serve to disrupt the incessant flow of sensorial information and allow your soul/id/observer to step back and enjoy the cosmic perspective. But there is also spiritual epiphany through meditation or religious ritual, and there are certainly myriad other ways to expand awareness. "Getting in touch with the Universe" is humanity's favorite pastime, dating back into prehistory.

But "genius" is something else. Genius is surfing the vast and diaphanous aether of cosmic consciousness, feeling the thrill of omniscient understanding, then coming back to earth with a valuable nugget of innovation that causes a technological revolution. It always boils down to "making it available to the common man," right? That is the measure of "genius"... Can your ingenious ideas be applied in the real world? That's the catch.

"Build a better moustrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."

Remember the book Flowers for Algernon? In which Charlie Gordon changes from retard to genius in one surgical procedure? That's a dream, that's the dream of humankind, to become smarter instantly, but today we're making that dream a reality. We're doing it right now without surgical procedures or brain implants.

We're sitting at our computers and we're becoming smarter, our brains are changing, assimilating information in a torrent, adapting, incessantly gathering and processing data. Interacting with these artificial intelligences is actually changing the way we think, the way our brains work.

I think the personal computer has transformed all of us into geniuses.

— Doc Velocity



[edit on 7/3/2009 by Doc Velocity]

Believe it or not, Eienstien failed many of math classes when he was in grade school.

Originally posted by speeklyf
Believe it or not, Eienstien failed many of math classes when he was in grade school.

Yeah, well, I would expect any guy with highly developed five-dimensional thought processes to experience a few hiccups in the transition to three-dimensional mathematics.



— Doc Velocity

[edit on 7/3/2009 by Doc Velocity]

I think the key to Einstein's genious was that he was a rebel and a dreamer, and then the math caught up with him. Even when he was doing his first thought experiments, he didn't yet have the math, but his girl friend or wife did and he eventually got caught up in that department.

He needn't even have been all that more intelligent, just very imaginative, with the ability to think outside the box, who turned the full attention of his awareness and imagination on the leading physics problems of his time, until creative genious arrived at the solutions.

I suspect it is something that we access outside of ourselves, and that it's all there in potentia, and so true genious isn't about learning or practice, that's just the conditioning for it, while everything is already available, in potentia, awaiting discovery.

LIke a previous poster indicated, guys like Einstein and Tesla, they just had a knack for being able to move to higher planes of awareness and imagination, and pluck ideas straight from the aether, or whatever you can to call it.

Personally I think Tesla had honed in on another civilization somewhere in the universe, and had somehow tapped into their "vibe" and was getting many of his ideas directly from that place or places.

There is nothing new under the suns..

Originally posted by ogund.3
However, I can't learn acoustic guitar or any other instrument in a technical manner..I've tried taking lessons, etc. I just can't seem to learn that way.. notes, chords, theory, progressions, etc. I fail miserably at that. I just want my ear to guide my playing..nothing more.

when a child learns to play an instrument, most of the time they don't think about weather or not they can learn or what they want it to sound like or if it's as good as another persons, they just play. they have no preconceptions and no worries, it's just not an issue. that's why hey learn faster than an adult.

they just play what they think they should, by ear. chords, progressions, scales and all that theory is just a guide, an acquired skill that simply has to be learned, the actual genius is the sound in your head or the skill of your ear.

thats why a genius is usually "tortured", it's so bloody hard to get what's in your head out of your instrument or down on paper. accept it will come and just play. i think you'll get there if you're a bit more zen.