What are some good essays on the concept of "genius"?

I know Harold Bloom is basically a meme at this point, but he does have a very fine book on genius, called...uh... Genius. It's his individual analyses of 100 geniuses of literature, and the particular nature of each one's genius. It's a great read. Bloom can be insufferable when he talks about anything that's outside his interests as a theorist, but when he's talking about works he actually loves and admires, his abiding love for literature becomes infectiously apparent in his writing.

There are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the others.

What is his take on what genius is?

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A genius, for me, is just some one with a high rate of learning versus time. It is someone who learns very fast with little effort. That can translate into achievement, but not necessarily.

No one makes a masterpiece that survives the ages if they don't submit their soul to it. No one, as smart as they can be, can shit effortlessly something of the quality of, let's say, Shakespeare. They have to fully compromise their being to be able to do that, in a similar sense that a nun devotes her life to God.

This is kind the message of Good Will Hunting, but, at the same, I think they gave too much power to the prodigy. A significant portion of the movie is an ego trip that's very unrealistic; geniuses aren't like that.

I don't know, I don't really read books. Especially not the ones I recommend.

>A genius, for me, is just some one with a high rate of learning versus time

How is that specific to a genius? So anybody who learns very quickly is now a genius?

>It is someone who learns very fast with little effort

What does effort have to do with genius?

>That can translate into achievement, but not necessarily.

So someone who learns very quickly and without much effort is a genius.

>No one makes a masterpiece that survives the ages if they don't submit their soul to it.

What a vague romantic sentiment.

>They have to fully compromise their being to be able to do that, in a similar sense that a nun devotes her life to God.

This theological comparison is a false equivalence fallacy,

For me genius is originality and generativity. Truly creative.

Someone more 'in tune' with wherever-the-fuck impressions of genius come from, combined with the knowledge and the skill necessary to express the impression as congruently as possible through a mode and medium of communication and representation.

Mozart used to 'hear' entire complete symphonies in an instant, a singular perception outside time, as it were, that he then apprehended, translated through his training as a musician and represented in time, AS IT WERE.

But yeah Schops is probably tight on this shit.

Greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astonishing results; that is what constitutes genius.

Here's one theory.

>I feel Hollywood movies like pic related are dishonest about such a concept.

I'm with you on that. That movie, and a lot of others, seem to think geniuses are naturally born, they don't have to do any work to develop it, aside from that one moment where a semi-homoerotic with an older teacher gives them the idea of, "you know what? I should like....actually USE my genius for something! Yeah! Holy shit I never thought of that before!!!"

Another theory based on the imprinted brain theory.
Needs work imo.

>This site is a cultural movement
so is pornhub and stormfront. you're deluding yourself.

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I don't think there is such a thing as a "genius", not in any practical sense.

Simply put If you can't see inside the mind of somebody else how can you say if they're a genius?
The only way you can even catch the slightest glimpse is by looking at things outside of them.

So you can look at Hamlet and say "this is genius" and that makes sense because you're judging something that, honest, stationary and pure by nature, can hide nothing from you. Even more appropriately you might say it is an "act of genius". Now we see it as transient almost likened to the divine.
But You can't hoist up Shakespeare and say "this is a genius"
You're attempting to judge something which is infinitely beyond the sum of its parts. Its like trying to capture a ghost in the dark with your bare hands

You can absorb Hamlet. It can become a fixture in your mind and it can offer no resistance.
You can't absorb the mind of another person, you can only fabricate a false image inside your own utilizing limited information. Not yet anyway. Someday perhaps but until then I will never call anyone a genius.

There goes our beloved shitposter again

Aren't most people potential geniuses, though? Isn't being a genius only a question of talent, discipline, and context? Take a young person, figure out what they want, and then let them repeat that thing twelve million times until they are insanely good at it. Poof, there it is.

I know this is to be reductionistic, and that there are some things that can't be replicated or repeated purely through practice. But isn't genius just talent writ large, refined to its peak potential? Doesn't everyone have that in them?

Genius is supposedly having that X factor that is indescribable, un-acquirable and immeasruable

>Aren't most people potential geniuses, though?

Probably. I know tons of people who would be brilliant at this or that, but for whatever reason they never apply themselves to it, and it naturally never develops. I know a guy who probably could have been the best stand up comedian on the world, but he never pursued it, and works as an EMT.

There's a lot of reason why people don't actually apply their gift, one being that the path of becoming a great person at anything is actually really really fucking hard, and there's no guarantees of success, so most people would rather just work a safe desk job their whole life.

I do believe some people do innately have the talent and natural understanding of something to be great at it, sure, but even they have to work their asses off at it, and apply themselves for that talent to translate into anything.

How about you two either read the literature on it or stop spouting nonsense.

Yes, some good essays about the concept of genius would be found in my diary desu, seeing as I myself am a genius myself and often write about myself

Why is it nonsense?

>Why is it nonsense?
Ok maybe not nonsense, but potential nonsense. I know this is Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums, but it would be nice to see some sources instead of personal speculation.

I dont think the concept of genius is anything but speculation

Thats the problem, how can you measure genius scientifically? IQ can only suggest

Pornhub is not. Stormfront is. The latter is NOT a beneficial movement, though.

It is still mostly speculation I can agree with that, but some theories have been put forward.
It includes gray matter, white matter, connectivity, network theory.

And it matters what kind of genius we are talking about. From what've read creative genius and scientific genius are of opposite ends of a spectrum.

One claim is that IQ is necessary for creativity up to a point, but too high IQ doesn't allow creativity - but this needs to be tested and researched.

>Pornhub is not.
I wouldn't be surprised that it has cultural significance though.

Genius is what other people put onto someone or something, so i dont think the answer to what is genius is necessarily studying the thing itself

So you mean it is cultural what is considered genius?
I could agree but only partly, I think there is overlap between different cultures

I think it is culture's attempt to define something or someone extraordinary

But don't you think a factual definition can exist?

No, I don't believe so. It is too subjective and interpretative of a concept. Go and look at definitions of the word and they are incredibly vague.