The thin line between insanity and genius.

No, but still I think it all helps goes to prove my point.

You mention dyslexia, it can always be coincidence of course but all those great minds having dyslexia?
OK, maybe in only a very few cases is the line between insane and genius that blurred, but as a general....great minds tend to be odd in some way. I think because it just can't handle their power!!!!

And you have a good point about us labeling someone "scatter brained" once we think them a genius, but my one friend is no genius, but is a very forgetful scatter brain and I have no problem letting him know it.

Guess there's no way to ever KNOW if it's true but isn't this a loooooong standing idea?

That there is little difference between being a genius and being crazy.
I think it is absolutely true.

You can see it in your own life. Very brilliant people who are....eccentric. The "crazy" or "weird" professor.
Various artists, or just regular people. I see it all the time.
Let's not forget the stories about Einstein and his difficulty with simple tasks, or how you see smart people that are amazingly forgetful/scatter brained/ inept socially etc

Why? Who knows. IMO something along the lines of...their brains are so good it can't really handle it.
Or something like that.
The line is indeed true though...

a Flower?

Vompatti wrote: (De)progressive wrote: Vompatti wrote: To bring a purely subjective view into this, I, for example, have been called insane on numerous occasions. That's something we can all agree I guess.  I'm sure you realized how I implied that it goes without saying that I'm a genius.

Vompatti wrote: To bring a purely subjective view into this, I, for example, have been called insane on numerous occasions.

Edited by (De)progressive - March 09 2011 at 10:15

It is a pity that this thread has died. So let's do some cardiac arrest recovery........

From where I am sitting, I have both views towards a mental hospital (next door to me) and a graveyard. I have also done a lot of reading up on the matter. Or research as some may say. This is due to a problem I have got and which I have to deal with for the rest of my life. 

So, let's cut to the chase... Insanity is what you get put into that mental hospital next door to me for (which btw is having spicy chicken for dinner today while I am having two half decomposed tomato & ham sandwiches). The insane one is reasonable easy to detect. Let me also say that perfectly healthy persons also gets submitted to a mental hospital for a shorter or longer term. Normally for 8-10 days. This due to mental stress where simply neither the body and the soul can take it anymore. The mental hospital then become a life saver for the next days until the human being has rested properly. This has happened to all kinds of people one time in their life. Then we have the insane one who are not able to take care of themselves.

All these are reasonable harmless to the society. 

Then I turn around and is watching the graveyard. That's where victims of the most serious personality disorders ends up. The young mothers, the young girls, the young boys, children and men of all ages. All killed by persons with personality disorders. Psychopaths, these murderers was called before. "Yes, but she annoyed me so I had to kill her. I did nothing wrong. In fact; I am the victim here. Not her". That's what they think and says. Those are very charming in the beginning of a relationship, but soon ends up as monsters. I wonder how many get killed every month by men with personality disorder in the world. It is a truly frightening amount of people. And there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing.   

And then we have the harmless men/women with a personality disorder. Those too are in the stats. 

What some use the "insanity" term on, is a wide variety of mental illnesses people get stigmatised for, killed by and if lucky; treated for.  

 

   

Dean wrote: toroddfuglesteg wrote: Dean wrote: There is no line between insanity and genius - you can be insane and a genius, you can be sane and a genius, you can be sane and not a genius and insane and not a genius. If there were a line then it would suggest that it can be crossed, that once you become one you are no longer the other. If there is a correlation then it is no different to the correlation between having blue eyes and two legs. I never mentioned insanity, Dean. I used the term personality disorder. And there is a big difference between a personality disorder and insanity. The latter one is defined in the Mental Health Act (in UK laws) as one not being able to be responsible for it's own actions.... and some other definitions. I wasn't responding to your post. I was addressing the falacy in the thread title, which does mention insanity.

(De)progressive wrote: Dean wrote: There is no line between insanity and genius - you can be insane and a genius, you can be sane and a genius, you can be sane and not a genius and insane and not a genius. If there were a line then it would suggest that it can be crossed, that once you become one you are no longer the other. If there is a correlation then it is no different to the correlation between having blue eyes and two legs. I'm not directly saying that all insane people are genius or all genius are insane, But I'm talking about do some mental illness cause unexpected and different side effects in brain which makes people to see things from a different perspective and improve the brain's capacity as well as its performance. This is like losing your sight and being blind but because of this your other senses become much more effective and strong because the brain and so the body have to make up it and concentrate the other ways to close that disadvantage (I don't know if this happens consiously or naturally) by directing the blood and electrical circulation to the other parts. This is my theory. The loss of a faculty causes to gain another one to compansate the lost one.

I know what you are saying, I am pointing out that what appears to be some kind of relationship is not necessarily valid - someone with a personality disorder or mental illness can be talented or creative, it is unwise to attribute that talent purely to the disorder since we have no means of knowing whether the person would not exhibit that talent without the disorder, or whether the talent is a provable, undeniable trait of that specific disorder. That two people with similar disorders do not share the same talents would suggest that any relationship is tenuous, for example not all blind people or people who have lost their sight through accident or illness have heightening of the remaining senses - certainly their body physiology does not change as a result, blood and electrical circulation (!) does not get re-directed.

Dean wrote: There is no line between insanity and genius - you can be insane and a genius, you can be sane and a genius, you can be sane and not a genius and insane and not a genius. If there were a line then it would suggest that it can be crossed, that once you become one you are no longer the other. If there is a correlation then it is no different to the correlation between having blue eyes and two legs.

Impostors, kick them out