Thinking like a Genius The first and last thing demanded of genius is the love of truth Goethe "Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future." The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history." 1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!) Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one. 2. Visualize! When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process. 3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity. Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence. 4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual. The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science. 5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects. Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses. 6. Think in opposites. Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form. 7. Think metaphorically. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts. 8. Prepare yourself for chance. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?" Adapted with permission from: Michalko, Michael, Thinking Like a Genius: Eight strategies used by the super creative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison(New Horizons for Learning) as seen at http://www.newhorizons.org/wwart_michalko1.html, (June 15, 1999) This article first appeared in THE FUTURIST, May 1998 Michael Michalko is the author of Thinkertoys (A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Set), and Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Geniuses (Ten Speed Press, 1998). http://www.studygs.net/genius.htm
Yea cosmic brings up alot of great points, Ive read that book..its interesting but I found most of it common sense and ended up getting rid of it cause its soo self helpish. A good book to check out is 'origins of genius' by dean simonton it was published from oxford university so you know its legit. It sheds alot of light on the different aspects and argues that genius is part genetic and part hard work. It also argues that the whole creative process is darwinian in nature, which is one coming up with a large amount of variations and selecting the best. Einstein called the creative process 'combinatory play', and coming from an artist, poet, musician, its true. A great deal of it is learning the similarties between things and combining them, the more variations you come up with the more you can play around with. Try to find a wide variety of stimuli and work work work Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Just check out origins before going to some crap self help book, its based on real research and if you get that you can figure out the rest by yourself.
According to Einstein: "All problems can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than the thought that produced them."
Genius has many different forms I took an IQ test that said i was a genius, but i cannot for the life of me do Math. It took 15 years to learn Simple Division. I still haven't found a skill or talent that im 'Genius' at. But the fact that i keep on trying, and dont' give up, maybe that means i am a Genius. It's all about your own perception i guess
i wont pretend to be an expert, but go to general philosophy in my thread i am you, i was engaged in a discussion on the holosync technology, where one of the benefits of the program is brain syncronization in turn, whole brain functioning, wich is commonly shared amongst "geniuses" its a very scientifically based system using sound frequencies to induce the four levels of brainwaves(beta, alpha, theta, delta) and in doing so it causes parts of your brain that normally dont interact to do so, and eventually you use both hemispheres equally, there other benifits i was trying to discuss there but soon realized it was a lost cause. the reason you've heard about listening to mozart while your sleeping is some of the pieces have a minimal similar effect, but its not even noteworthy. also some of the frequencies found in clasicall music if listened to in stereo headphones have increased the hearing on some level, this program is much more efficient then the random effects of classical music. there is alot of information i could try to share but you can look at the thread i spoke of and if you have any questions i will try to answer, if this subject has been discussed in this thread already i apologize, i just read the first part and got excited that maybe some one would like to hear of a truly remarkable technology in my opinion. ive been a participant for almost a year as youll see when reading my thread. is there any way to transferr any of what i wrote to here?
yes, that post by cosmictraveler was great, but was there a need to post the ENTIRE thing all over again? I'm sorry but I just don't think is very smart to "quote" such a large chunk when it has already been posted in the same page.
I think that some people are born geniouses, but I don't think that a person has to be. I believe that the human mind has the ability to change thought, perception, and knowledge - and that some people can be born a genious, while others need to "release" their genious. - m -
Wow...one has to release their genious to become genius? Might just work!...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
From my experiences, learn how to one fast mofo. It goes like this... Studies have shown (not proven, but a strong argument) that the smarter one is, the faster their brain can process information. Now, this does not say having a fast brain will make you a genius, but one thing CAN be said, if you DO NOT have a fast brain, you are not a genius. Now I know a few things can be said to discredit MY claim, but in general anyway I think most people can at least see this claim having some merit.
If that is true, then the kids would be the smartest persons in the world. That is because, their brain run much faster. As you get older, the brain speed slows down as you may have seen with old folks driving. But the reality is different. All the bosses I know on this planet are middle aged people. Without all the data in the form of experience, a high speed brain will go no where fast.
Well what I mean is compared to one's average age. Another interesting fact I read dealing with this is that there is also less brain activity in gifted individuals than those of average or lower intelligence... mainly because the brain has learned how to proccess information more efficiently.
Your observations are correct. It is all about how effortlessly one manipulates information. However this is learned over time as data is gathered, catloged, relationships are established. Then one item, human beings do, that is somewhat difficult to do with machines. That is we have the ability to reconstruct from compressed key data, the full usable information. You can use some of the fancy algorithm to compress music and uncompress them while using less data (that is raw data). Fractal Algorithm uses a neat trick to mathematically represent a series of numbers to compress the data that can be reconstituted easily. I wonder, if human mind uses something like that - a natual fractal algorithm. Some brain reserachers think so...but, I have not seen any info lately.
That reminds me about a program that actually took in music Mozart wrote, analyzed them all, then produced it's own Mozart song. It was than labeled as a "lost" but then found and played it for Mozart scholars so they could determine if it may have came from him or not... the suprising answer is that almost ALL of them believed it was an orginal Mozart peice. hehe.
