I
Recognized, that geniuses best of all manage to get new and non-obvious knowledge. To same, the mass of various signs of genius is listed.
However, all this, in essence, is about nothing, because it doesn’t say what specifically ensures the acquisition of new knowledge and how can geniuses get it so effectively? What signs have knowledge obtained ин the genius, unlike, for example, from knowledge, received by the talent.
In other words, a lot of correct words and in general much interesting are told about genius and properties of the genius, but to this day remain not clear: the source of genius, the driving force of genius, the main incentives of genius, the main method of achievement by the genius of the adequate result, the main signs of expression of genius.
Nothing intelligible about these peculiar properties, which necessarily accompany genius, is not said, except for the presence of obligatory natural endowments, extraordinary intelligence, favorable conditions for the manifestation of genius and the results that are recognized out of the ordinary.
Moreover, from all that has been written about geniuses, a picture emerges of a certain fallout of geniuses from the ranks of humanity, their perfect singularity, which is far from being so, since many geniuses were called to action by current events – means, they were already ready to manifest their properties to a certain extent.
Again, there is still no explanation of the boundary separating genius from talent.
All this vagueness, as well as the banality of definitions of geniuses and talents, forced us to comment on this matter.
Indeed, how many can reason, that talent is set of outstanding abilities, a high degree of endowments in certain sphere of activity, and genius is the highest degree of talent development associated with the creation of qualitatively new, unique creations, the discovery of previously unknown ways of creativity?!
These words indicate only one thing: the mediocrity of their writers.
Let's see what else they talk about genius, and it's easy to check, looking at the Internet.
Some claim that genius is determined under the results of a person’s work on creating something that is absent in nature and society, and that are out of a range of known achievements.
It is absolutely fair, but is unclear at the expense of what nevertheless similar results are achieved.
Some researchers of this phenomenon (a number of the directions of the structurally-functional theory of genius) believe, the genius is a result of huge diligence, persistence, patience, determination and will power (the theory of efficiency).
The fact that this statement is not serious, is evident from the fact that it does not mention such mandatory properties of creativity, which are characteristic not only of geniuses, but simply for people of creative activity, for example, some endowment, sufficient level of intelligence, education, experience, aspiration to inspiration, etc.
There is also the consideration that at the heart of genius lies exorbitant passions, love for the world, for people, for own work, and an irresistible desire to learn the truth (the passionary theory).
All these properties, rather, can be attributed to the great opera singers, and not to geniuses of various kinds.
Other structuralists believe that a genius is a person with extraordinary intellectual power, exceptional and extraordinary mental abilities (the intellectualist theory).
All these remarkable signs are peculiar, for example, to outstanding chess players, who have nothing to do with obtaining extraordinary (non-obvious) knowledge, dealing only with a combinatorial mind game.
There is also a rather strange consideration regarding genius: it is based on a passionate desire to improve everything that exists and constantly follow the highest standards of excellence (the perfectionist theory).
Properties of this sort belong to all idealists, but idealists great multitude, though, of course, and geniuses are in some way idealists, since they largely neglect pragmatics.
Who only doesn’t show own rather limited ideas about genius?!
Here, there are also theorists relying on attribution, that is, being lumped together of all more or less clear signs of great persons, pointing herewith the extraordinary development of one of them.
Their definition of genius: phenomenality, limit and extreme level of development of abilities, domination and extraordinary development of one of the qualities or mental processes of a person.
To gain these remarkable properties can only, in their opinion, by increased attention, lively perception and impressionability, intuition (they do not define it in any way), unusual imagination and fantasy ideas, the ability to think well, great experience and perfect memory (apparently, poor geniuses should be regretted only as they are forced by that memory to remember all bad for them all rest of life).
Theorists of suprematism are relied on this remarkable list, believing certainly to achieve thanks to optimum "binding" of the specified advantages of the ingenious manifestations.
Following these considerations, you can easily identify individuals, who can compete under the mathematical account with the computer; can have the incredible imagination, on what big swindlers are capable, the impressionability of schoolgirls, and at the same time are capable to argue of any subject very competently, but geniuses among them were not found yet.
Some enthusiasts-researchers of the process of creativity also believe that genius, rather, – the highest level of intelligence, depending on the enormous memory, comprehensive education, critical abilities and self-development of a person. Under these conditions and gifts, a genius will certainly have to come.
If everything was so simple, then geniuses would be “grown” like chickens in an incubator by artificial selection according to these characteristics.
There are pundits who consider extraordinary endowments from birth to be the main thing for a genius, that is, a rare combination of fields and subfields of the brain's subcortex, giving or extraordinary sagacity, characteristic of sages, as well as recognized writers and critics, or giving the special sensitivity to sounds and their overtones, so important for composers. or the extraordinary ability to feel the slightest shades of colors, without which it is impossible to become an artist, and the rest will follow with diligence, education and experience.
Indeed, such, gifted by nature people, are recruited a lot of always. They are even specially selected at competitions and olympiads, special schools are arranged for them, but the recognized geniuses out of this large number of child prodigies was not getting, behind the rarest exception (Mozart).
There are those who claim that a genius appears as a result of an accidental combination of circumstances, in which any intelligent and gifted person can rise and produce something extraordinary – in the manner of Napoleon.
The reliance on accidental set of circumstances does not take into account the mass of human features, without which, in any case, genius could not be manifested in any way. The same Napoleon had a number of extraordinary abilities, including a unique memory, high speed of decision-making based on the ability to adequately summarize the data, enormous ability to work, etc.
It is also believed that if life requires a genius, then he will certainly appear from the masses of the population and will think up demanded by this life – it is only necessary to strain and be allocated to someone. Whoever is able to do it in favorable circumstances will be recognized as a genius. And no matter as far as he is silly or clever. The main thing is perseverance, the ability to find and unite like-minded people around you on the basis of, perhaps, the wrong idea, keep on the wave of success, not allowing to remove yourself, skillfully to use the known practices and ideas of the colleagues, receiving the desired result. Lenin and Stalin managed all this, for example.
Here already the matter is being resolved by history. In particular, it is impossible to recognize Lenin and Stalin as ingenious after years, since the social structure, respectively, laid and built by them, historically quickly enough failed.
Also curious are statements about geniuses of such expert on life as the famous German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer famous for the aphorisms and strange interest in will, assigning the role of representations for the rest.
The viewpoint of Schopenhauer about genius come down to the following.
“Genius … consists in excessive intellectual surplus which can find for itself the application only in that to head to the general beginnings of being" (A. Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. Volume 2. Chapter XXXI. On Genius).
"In the private constantly to see the general – exactly in it and consists the main line of the genius" (ibid.).
All great theoretical creations, whatever they may be, are realized in such a way that the one who begins them, all forces of the spirit direct to one point in which he connects them and concentrates to such extent strongly, firmly and exclusively that all other world for him disappears" (ibid.).
"The talent can create that above creative abilities of others, but not above their receptivity. That is why he immediately finds connoisseurs. On the contrary, creations of the genius go beyond not only creative abilities of other people, but also their susceptibility therefore they also do not recognize him" (ibid.).
Thus, Schopenhauer sees signs of genius in an extraordinary giftedness, alienating genius from the rest of the public; in a decisive tendency towards generalization, the high concentration. In addition, he notes the discrepancy between the products of the activity of a genius and the current epoch, which is not perceiving his works.
It should be noted that the specified signs of genius are absolutely not enough, especially as Schopenhauer does not open the nature of genius, that is, a source of genius , the driving force of a genius, the main incentives of genius, the main way of achievement of adequate result by the genius, but shows only the well-known need for the genius to have these or those natural endowments, which for some reason is associated by him with a high level of intelligence, that far not so; the detachment of the genius from public and the current time; his synthetic abilities and ability to concentrate on a problem.
These signs are rather commonplace, since, for example, among composers and scholars is a lot of clever people with the ability to concentrate excellently on solving the problem posed, and quite good to generalize the obtained data in the form of a symphony or dissertation. There are millions of these persons, and no more than a few hundred the geniuses have been manifested for all the time of existence of civilization.
However, Schopenhauer quite right noted the lack of a coincidence of creations of the genius with his era, but explained this phenomenon purely psychologically. However, behind the lack of a possibility of susceptibility of "works of the genius" has to be something?
II
Nevertheless, the properties of genius are one thing – and they are well described with many examples, and another is the source of genius, the driving force of a genius, the main incentives of genius, the main way the genius achieves an adequate result and the main signs of the expression of genius. They are not revealed in full yet and not formulated especially as the genius has to appear on certain "soil", that is have the signs and genesis coinciding generally with group of certain individuals, having, nevertheless, from them some essential differences.
Therefore, at first it is necessary to clear origin of geniuses and their general properties, for example, with creative persons, and then to turn to the differences of geniuses from them.
As things stand, on the subject of nature as well as the expression of genius arise such questions.
There are millions of outstanding, intelligent, energetic, highly educated, hardworking figures in engineering, science, and art, who sometimes achieve outstanding results, but few out of them are automatically recognized as geniuses in the public consciousness.
The entire educated public reads exactly them the novels and stories, even though they were sometimes written hundreds of years ago; on their pictures at exhibitions line up huge queues; practically, only their concerts, symphonies and operas are performed in all the halls of the world continuously, causing tears to listeners, although other musical works are innumerable; their scientific and technical approaches have made and make decisive changes in our lives, etc.
It means, that between endowments, talent even at unusual diligence of their owners, and the genius lies a certain abyss, which very few manage to overcome.
If manage to find out at the expense of what some persons are overcoming this abyss, having ensured themselves the recognition in centuries, then the principle of genius will clear up.
However, the principle is a principle, but it is still far not clear, what is that basis from which the genius grows and that stimulates it and supports such phenomenal results that are impossible not to recognize.
Let's try to answer these questions.
Everything that has being concocted in engineering and art can be divided into two parts: combinatory and inventive.
The combinatory activity, characteristic, for example, for the operation of computers and actions of chess players, is capable not on discovery of essentially new knowledge, that is unobvious, hidden, absent in the nature and the database of public consciousness, but its possibilities are limited to creation of only another combination of the known things and processes (phenomena).
It is on the principle of combinatorics that the overwhelming majority of representatives, science, technology, art acts. And there is nothing shameful here, since exactly a harvester has revolutionized the agrarian sector of the economy. Moreover, any rationalization makes an undoubted and significant contribution to the development of civilization, and, most importantly, to the development of self-awareness of each person who joins this activity. And it does not require special talents, outstanding intelligence. All that is needed – savvy and the desire to change something, that is, a manifestation of the interest in what the soul seeks, rather than lying on the sofa by the TV.
All this, of course, not bad, but the geniuses in this field, alas, in the afternoon with fire you will not find, inasmuch abrupt coups the combinatory activity does not give, and provides only rather slow development of both the person, and all civilization, including culture, owing to quite insignificant increase of new information to the available database of mankind.
Quite another matter – inventiveness, which, having generalized it on culture and art, it is possible to call creativity.
But from where creativity undertakes?
In order that to understand it, it is necessary to make small digression to the concept of consciousness of a person, inasmuch the consciousness of any person has two the main components.
One of them fully corresponds to the primate's consciousness, from which a person occurred, – the lowest, or animal consciousness (often referred to as the subconscious), another – the highest consciousness – it can be qualified as awareness of the self, or self-consciousness, that is, everything accumulated in the subcortex for two million years in the role of hominids, and then – Homo sapiens, – distinguishes the person from all other on the planet by his separation from the fauna, completely merged to the environment, by hiss alienness to this environment, thanks to what the person becomes capable to change surrounding and himself quickly enough according to the purposeful (conscious) understanding, which appeared at him, in comparison with sluggish development of the nature, based on random changes (mutations) of the body's genome. According to their aspirations, these types of consciousness are opposite: the animal strives for survival and reproduction, and self-consciousness, or the highest consciousness, tries to strive for perfection both individual and social.