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Real genius is extended intelligence
. . . a bold, bright future is the definition of sanity.
7th December 2011
By Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The other night I had to give a presentation and I was thinking about
the characteristics of real genius. It‘s a much overrated and overused
term. Often it is applied to outstanding and amazing human beings but
ones who are pretty flawed in some respects, remarkable in others. Some
of the cleverest people are actually crazy! In other words, not so clever.
One of the greatest minds of all time, Sir Isaac Newton, was cranky and
irascible, paranoid, and obsessed with the idea that Liebnitz had stolen
his calculus (Newton invented it first but waited 20 years and Liebnitz
published first).
In heat of the moment, a kind of flash, I came up with a better term
than genius for my talk: “extended intelligence“. Since I made it up, I
get to define it. Ha! Here goes.
A person of outstanding mind and thinking capabilities would show the
following traits:
1. Rational, linear and logical.
I keep saying, it isn‘t woo or pretty pink thoughts that got us down
from the trees, able to watch TV, drive cars and use our computers and
cell phones. It was HARD, unforgiving logic.
2. Creative, easily makes mental leaps, parallel thinking, holism and
tolerating ambiguity.
That‘s your r-brain stuff; the feminine side. Nothing wrong with it.
Magical thinking is fine by me but does NOT supplant logic and common
sense. It seems to me that imagination and creativity are two
outstanding characteristics of clever people. They boldly go where other
human minds have never been before! [see #12 for another Star Trek catch
phrase!]
3. Thinking backwards in time, even beyond the present life.
Our lives are in a context and this person would be aware of that
context, both in terms of racial survival and an individual timeline.
History is its own kind of philosophy, pregnant with meaning and
information.
This has to be balanced against the negative effect of history: “That‘s
the way we have always done it“, as the barrier to progress.
I would include past lives here. Anyone who doesn‘t know that
consciousness cannot be extinguished is no kind of genius to me.
4. Thinking forward in time, into the future, way beyond the present life.
I have said elsewhere in my writings, that a bold, bright future is
almost the definition of sanity. What you see ahead of you partly
defines what you are. If you cannot create, as a thinking process, a
worthwhile future, you may as well be dead, because you are already
halfway there. Extended intelligence is especially extended in terms of
a creative future. The genius will see things nobody else is seeing, as
a matter of course.
5. R and L-brain integrated.
There is a lot more understanding of the way our brain integrates
thinking. Mind is not the brain but there is no question the brain is
the access to the mind. That gateway needs working on and improving, by
the use of our personal accelerated learning device, for example.
6. Sees the parts in great detail.
Extended thinking is not vague or woolly. It is precise and contains all
the parts. Otherwise it would be like having a ton of wires,
transistors, capacitors, etc but no radio!
7. Sees the whole, above and beyond any detail.
In the same metaphor, the extended thinker would know that a radio is
far more than a bunch of wires etc. You can‘t learn what a radio is and
does, by merely stripping it down to its parts. You need the bigger
picture of radio waves and on-air channels.
8. Extended intelligence easily spots hoaxes, arbitraries,
authoritarianism and memes and eliminates them from his or her thinking.
This one is a whole lecture I give! Suffice it to throw in a few quick
definitions here:
Hoax is the term I use for those accepted “truths“, which are in fact
false. You know, like the-Earth-is-flat things. There are plenty of
hoaxes around. Religion seems built on them. The medical profession is
loaded with them, as supposed science (fever must be suppressed, for
example, whereas the truth is that a fever is the best natural healing
you can get).
Arbitraries are facts, which get passed around, with no real structure
or support. They just exist. Once you start to examine them, they fall
apart as nonsense.
Authoritarianism is another kind of dead knowledge. Professor Blodwit
of Bunga Bunga University said it, so it must be true. Kids are forced
to learn this garbage to get their grades and certificates. But the true
genius has no interest in such phony knowledge.
Memes, you probably know, are “thought viruses“, a good metaphor for
what is happening: one mind infects another with a thought, which then
gets passed along to yet another and so on. “Destroy America“ is one
that‘s gaining momentum; “The Bible is the word of God“ is another
that‘s been around a long time and has got a LOT of good people killed.
9. Intensely practical in applications.
The extended thinker/genius is no wishy-washy theorist. He or she knows
about carrying knowledge to the real world and using it; Thomas Edison
comes to mind, even if he was a genius plagiarist. Math geniuses have
this trait: for example Albert Einstein. They connect theory with reality.
10. Very clear sensory perceptions (above average visual acuity,
hearing etc.)
We make our estimations of the environment from what we see, hear and
feel. Perceptions are notoriously fickle but the extended thinker works
within this sensory paradigm, not assuming that everything is as it
first seems to be. He or she could probably pick out detail that others
were overlooking, precisely because of this trait.
You cannot make accurate estimations of the future, and therefore choose
the wisest path, if you cannot estimate your current environment accurately.
11. Very in touch with the environment and aware of current trends and
changes.
True extended intelligence is part of the everyday world, not some ivory
tower thing. There is a notorious stereotype, the mad genius boffin who
can‘t boil an egg or find his way home, because he is so “clever“ his
brain is busy on other things. Nah! I don‘t buy it. The guy is nuts.
Maybe he has a super IQ but such a person would be dangerous to society.
The kind of guy who would develop the H-bomb anyway and not worry about
what politicians would do with it. Extended intelligence means the
person can work in the context of society, Humankind and the biosphere.
12. Does not use justifications and excuses.
Extended thinking does not allow the luxury of excuses. If you look on
www.foodforthemindandfireforthesoul.com I‘m sure I posted a piece
entitled “The Supreme Test of History“. Did it happen or didn‘t it? Is
the acid test. None of this people-oriented stuff. Just did you or
didn‘t you?
Make it so, is the catch phrase from Star Trek. Just do it! As Nike says.
Excuses and justifications are for wimps; they take you out of the
equation. But who wants that? It‘s like trying to un-exist, as a way of
hiding from responsibility. It gives away all your power.
13. Can solve problems quickly.
Extended intelligence, as you would expect, is fast and smart. Problem
solving comes easily. But the smartest of the smart would know that, in
many instances, the supposed problem is actually someone‘s solution. You
have to solve the real problem behind that, to be super-intelligent.
Thing is, we all need some problems. That‘s what makes life spicy. It
would be very boring if we didn‘t have problems to solve. But most
people can‘t solve their problems, because they don‘t even know what a
problem is. I‘ve written a lot about this for my mind-development
courses. But in a nutshell: a problem is something stuck. There are two
parts to it, effort and counter-effort, which exactly balance and so no
movement or resolution can happen.
For example: I want to go to Joe‘s wedding/I have no time.
One of the two halves of the problem contains a falsehood and until the
falsehood is located and corrected, the problem hangs up.
14. Courageous.
No question, extended intelligence implies courage. It‘s a necessity for
meaningful living. It‘s no good being smart and not having the guts to
act. Indeed, you are in no wise smart, if you can‘t bring yourself to do
what you know needs doing.
Thing is though, a lot of gurus make mileage out of fear as the reason
people don‘t act. I disagree. I think most people don‘t act because they
don‘t really know what to do. However bad things are in your life, you
would not hesitate to fix them, if you only knew how!
It‘s connected with #13. You can‘t solve the issues, if you don‘t know
enough to dismantle them.
You might like to start with the New Thought Horizons, where you can
enroll here for a short time (the program is changing immeasurably in
the next few weeks and will not be available in such easy terms any longer).
15. Able to master destructive emotions and keep them in check.
It stands to reason that true extended intelligence will keep stupid and
destructive emotions of out of the way. It‘s the single biggest human
curse, to react badly to situations, without understanding why we feel
and act as we do.
Wilhelm Reich called it the “emotional plague“ and it‘s easy to argue
that it is far more deadly and killed far more people than any known
microbe.
Why is it that the Christians, professing love for all, want to kill
people who “blaspheme“ or don‘t take the Bible seriously and Muslims,
once known (rightly) as the Religion of Peace, are so sensitive to
criticism today, they want to kill anyone who casts doubt on their way
of thinking?
The answer is irrational emotions. Rage, anger, hate, murder, torture
and wars are all the product of emotional aberration (aberration:
straying from true, like error but really bad).
16. Would understand the nature and meaning of ethics, responsibility
and compassion.
A real genius and extended thinker would see the larger context in which
we all live. This is Spaceship Earth and we are all in it together. The
greedy and destructive fools who abound and cause immense damage to our
world are the exact opposite of what is meant by rational thinkers.
Extended intelligence by definition incorporates my 12 R-zones (zones of
responsibility, beginning with self and spreading outwards to encompass
all of Creation).
Seeing the Web of the Universe as it really is demands and then creates,
intelligence, responsible behavior and true compassion.
I‘m not saying there are only 16 traits. That‘s just the ones I could
think of in a half hour. Send me some more, if you think you can contribute!
Excerpted from “Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby's Total Health Newsletter #93.“
www.letterfromserendipity.com/serendipity93.htm#two
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