/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10966597
Whether or not it is true no one could even say, so it is somewhat unhelpful.

I think a better idea is to look at people who have historically been identified as "geniuses," and look for the common traits.

One of the biggest ones is that they lost one or both of their parents at an early age.

I think it also matters, in identifying them, to look at what field they are a genius of: you can be identified as a musical genius at a very early age, but no one can be a genius at writing epic poetry at a young age: Milton didn't write Paradise Lost until fifty, and he didn't write his major poems until about thirty. I imagine the difference between the two is that music is much more a formal, mathematical thing than poetry: to write a epic poem, you have to have gained a monstrous amount of experience of living, but a symphony does not hinge upon life in the same way. When identifying genius, I think it is helpful then, to keep in mind what subject they are trying to be a genius at: generally the more abstract the discipline, the more easy it is to master it at a young age, because you don't need life experience to understand it. So in math, music, logic, physics and chess one would expect to see genius at an early age; in literature, ethics, the writing of history and political theory genius cannot shine until late in life, because these fields need to be filled out with life experience.

One might also look at philosophy to get a better understanding of this: someone like Wittgenstein was able to tutor Bertrand Russell in logic after only a year of studying with him: had his first major work in logic published at 25, and finished the Tractatus by age 27: Plato, in contrast, was in his mid thirties when he wrote his first dialogues, and didn't finish the Republic until he was around fifty. But this makes sense if we understand that Plato's works are more general, and Wittgenstein's works are extremely technical and abstract works of logic.