Lending some of my experience and observations from within the High IQ community.
Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh
Published: September 31st 2018
Edited: Original Edition
Original Quora question: “What should I do to be a genius?”
My answer:
Reincarnate or transubstantiate.
Or to be more helpful: maybe you shouldn’t be thinking about how to become a genius. That is not a concept with a clear scientific application. Instead, think about how to become a master of something. I recently read this book, and believe it offers a constructive way to become an eminently skilled person. If you attained the mastery described in this text, people would come to want to call you a genius. That’s what people really want. They just want to be called a genius by others.
The version of “genius” that is really of any use, relates to when people see evidence of ideation and productivity making them strongly desire to apply the term. If you create amazing things people will want to call you a genius, and in a sense you will be indistinguishable from other “geniuses” who had comparable productions. But would you then be a genius, really? I hope this conveys that there is no clear meaning here beyond the application. The word was not systematically developed.
So just focus on growing as a person, attaining a measure of wisdom, and producing new things.
Answer also available here on Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-genius-and-who-can-become-one/answer/Christopher-Matthew-Cavanaugh
[Mattanaw was not the author of the Quora question. Only the answer.]I am a semi-retired social architect and consultant, with professional/academic experience in the fields of computer science, psychology, philosophy, and more recently, economics.
Articles on this site are eclectic, and draw from content prepared between 1980 and 2022. Topics include ethics, art, fitness, finances, health, psychology, and vegetarianism. The common theme connecting all articles is moral philosophy, even if that is not immediately apparent. Any of my articles that touch on "the good and virtuous life" will be published here. These articles interrelate with my upcoming theory of ethics, two decades in preparation.
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