Cognitive Miser-hood?
Answer to the question of "Why do (some) geniuses behave like jerks?"
I would also say, "Because they can."
And the other answer is, geniuses aren't geniuses across the spectrum, and we forget that.
From To Put It Bluntly, via Gog:
In 1990, after 25 years of marriage to the devoted Jane Wilde, Hawking informed her that he was flying to America with Elaine Mason, his therapist. He has long since left the therapist for whom he left his wife.There is also jerkiness unmentioned in the film, but widely known. In May 2013, Hawking, after initially accepting an invitation to speak at the President's Conference organized to mark the 90th birthday of Shimon Peres, changed his mind and declared that he would not participate in any academic or cultural exchanges with Israel. He announced his support for the BDS - boycott, divestment, and sanctions - movement.
Now there are many reasons why ordinary people should oppose BDS. First, Israel, whatever its faults, is the lone democracy committed to individual rights in the Middle East, and therefore deserves support, not isolation. Second, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have greater freedom to protest and greater access to independent courts than any other Muslims in the Middle East. It makes no sense to boycott Israel and give a pass to the oppressive regimes ruling Syria, Iran, or Turkey, to name a few. Third, those attending international cultural and academic events tend to be the very Israelis most opposed to their government's policies. BDS, ironically, undermines the Israelis most committed to change and entrenches those most resistant.Genius
But these are reasons for ordinary people. Stephen Hawking is not an ordinary person. He has an added reason to oppose BDS. Hawking suffers from ALS, which has left him unable to utilize any muscles functions except for his cheeks, whose movement is monitored by a sensor attached to his spectacles. He sole means of communication is through a computer Intel Core i7-based communication system, which runs on a chip designed in Israel.
If BDS were universally adopted, as Hawking wishes, the very technology he relies upon to communicate would be unavailable to him. Hawking, a supposed champion of logic, thus takes the absurdly illogical position of opposing the same kind of exchange that allows him to communicate his opposition in the first place.
A first grader would blush at the internal inconsistency of such a position.
For the vast chasms in the rationality of Hawking and others we perceive to be geniuses, University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Keith Stanovich blames a cognitive bias which he calls "dysrationalia." In short, as Bluntly puts it, "smart people, including geniuses, are disinclined to think too much."
I've talked about how "expensive" the brain is in terms of its energy needs and use on my radio show, and this is one explanation.
But maybe our perception is the big problem -- perception that the genius is a genius across domains:
The difficulty becomes acute when the genius encounters a problem outside his ken. Hawking never acted like a jerk when he was dealing with physics, just as Chomsky was sensible when the topic was linguistics, and Fischer was sane when the arena was chess. Once outside their zones of expertise, they could have and should have assumed an air of modest ignorance.But no. For them, a genius must always be a genius. He must swing for the fences, rather than hit to get on base. And when one swings for the fences, one is more likely to strike out. And the harder the swing, the more ridiculous the batter - or thinker - looks when his bat hits nothing but empty air.
The true sign of genius is in knowing what you don't know.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 24, 2015 6:29 AM
"And the other answer is, geniuses aren't geniuses across the spectrum, and we forget that."
Some do. I don't - and Peter Drucker called this out in describing "the arrogance of the learned" fifty years ago.
A fine example is at PZ Myers' blog. PZ is wonderful when he sticks to his field, and so are his regulars, but they are no more immune to superstition and nonsense than anyone else outside their field of expertise.
James Randi has made a fine career demonstrating to the confident that they have no idea how they perceive things...
Radwaste at February 24, 2015 7:05 AM
It is not just the smart guy who causes this dynamic. As Amy says people like to think smart-dumb at everything instead of good at this-bad at that. So other people encourage bad behavior by lazily thinking 'They are soo smart and always right, they must be right about this too'. With no negative feedback or even serious review of their comments most people wander off into the weeds.
A personal example, I was at work and we would all talk while we worked. The song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida came up. I said 'I don't know music but isn't that In the garden of Eden?'. Everyone just nodded and said, 'Well that makes sense.' But one guy checked up on me, 'Ben's wrong! It's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. I've got it right here.' People talked for days about 'That time Ben was wrong'. It was a very surreal experience. That is why you have to be really smart to be just that stupid sometimes.
Ben at February 24, 2015 7:39 AM
Ben, your post reminds me of a comment made to me by a former co-worker, from a project we worked on together. This project was noted around the company for attracting high-powered talent. He told me: "On previous projects, I was used to being the smartest guy in the room. Then I came here, and I realized, 'Holy crap, these people are all smarter than me.' For the first time in my career, I had to step it up."
Which brings back to the question. Some of the problem, quite frankly, is the same trap star atheletes can fall into: they are widely admired and catered to, and that can delude them into thinking that their talent in their speciality extends to all subjects. There's a particular problem that artists are prone to these days: They get involved in politics, an area where they are usually way over their heads because most of their time has previously been focused on their art and they haven't studied politics very much. They get involved with a certain political philosophy and then they start to buy into the political conceit that the purpose of their art is to propagandize for their political views. Once they start doing that, the quality of their art falls off the cliff. A prime example of that, to me, is the band REM. I will still whip out Chronic Town or Murmur and listen to them any day of the week. But the more Michael Stipe got involved in politics, the less interesting their music became.
Cousin Dave at February 24, 2015 8:35 AM
Much moar.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at February 24, 2015 8:58 AM
Hawking already has his communications device and his personal protest against Israel is not likely to deny him those benefits.
He is completely helpless within an academic environment for his meaningful life. He is smart not to antagonize the lefties around him, whatever his personal views. His political positions are as meaningful as the testimony of a US prisoner in North Korea.
Andrew_M_Garland at February 24, 2015 10:49 AM
Crid,
I disagree with the 'brain works faster' claim. I've come to the view that outside of obvious mental defect the raw processing power of people's brains is pretty much the same. What matters is what you do with it. Unfortunately most people spend a tremendous amount of time on status seeking. The depressing part being most of them lack the ability to change their status. So all of this time and effort is wasted.
Ben at February 24, 2015 3:01 PM
Crid,
I disagree with the 'brain works faster' claim. I've come to the view that outside of obvious mental defect the raw processing power of people's brains is pretty much the same. What matters is what you do with it.
Posted by: Ben at February 24, 2015 3:01 PM
Got any evidence for this?
The workings of human brains are complex and *an obvious metal defect*. Is a slippery slope since some people who are mathematical geniuses can barely tie their own shoe laces.
Some of us have incredible areas of strength in either verbal processing, or mathematics while falling short in a lot of other areas. Others fall short in *every* area.
This is why IQ tests and academic entrance tests are timed. IQ is largely the ability to to understand, and execute a concept quicker than average.
Your position Ben, is a bit like stating:
Everyone has the physical skills to be a professional basketball player. They are just spending too much time on video games....
Isab at February 24, 2015 5:10 PM
That is why I qualified with 'pretty much'. There are those who are inherently predisposed to things. These are a small minority. There are a small number of people who are significantly better at basketball. But for the vast majority practice is the only real difference. Similarly there are a small number of people who are significantly better at quantum physics. But for the vast majority it is all about practice. There are a maximum of 450 people in the NBA out of a nation of 320 million. I'll agree there are 450 idiot savants in quantum physics. But for the other 99.9998594%?
And the fact that these tests are timed doesn't mean their brains are faster. They are faster at those tasks. And all of those are learned skills. As people practice they become faster and more confident at executing tasks. Neural conductivity has not changed.
As for evidence, smart parents have smart kids and dumb parents have dumb kids. I'm sure you can find evidence of this all over the place. But the same is true for adopted kids. Their intellect mimics their adopted parents and not their birth parents. Intelligence for the most part is not a genetically inherited trait.
Ben at February 24, 2015 8:07 PM
All of us have our ideas about why we're superior to others… Sharing the why is presumed to be more courteous than affirming that we are in the first place.
(I, for example, am incredibly good-looking, as well as conversationally deft.)
There is no character weakness to which smart people are immune. That's what I was getting at here: February 18, 2015 3:31 PM.
A favorite passage from Colin Powell's book:
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at February 24, 2015 8:45 PM
". But the same is true for adopted kids. Their intellect mimics their adopted parents and not their birth parents. Intelligence for the most part is not a genetically inherited trait.
Posted by: Ben at February 24, 2015 8:07 PM"
I don't know where you are getting this. Twin studies indicate otherwise.
The heritability of intelligence is again, a complex thing. This isn't Mendel's pea pod experiment with one dumb gene, and one smart gene, with two intelligent parents breeding true, but in the nature verses nurture debate, nature is of statistically greater importance than nurture.
You aren't going to turn a person with an average IQ into an astro physicist anymore than you are going to turn a five six white guy into an NBA player.
Fortunately the world is structured so people within one stanine of average can do most commonly required intellectual tasks reasonably well with enough practice,
And it doesn't require a super genius to be a good scientist, but if you want to be a great scientist, it will help to be highly intelligent.
There are many cases where a good engineer with an above average IQ is quite a bit more useful than a theoretical genius mathamatician. The engineer doesn't have to derive the equation. He just has to know how to apply it.
Like I have said before, a good plumber has been of more value to me than a theoretical physicist, but that doesn't mean that the two jobs are essentially interchangeable.
I am not a big fan of the educrat cheerleading hype that tells kids "You can be whatever you want to be".
We had a five foot eight Japanese exchange student who was 16 who stayed with us for a year when my son was in high school.
After playing a few games on the JV of a very average small high school basketball team, he was still convinced that he was going back to Japan to become a pro basketball player.
Isab at February 24, 2015 8:58 PM
And I agree with Crid. There is no people so smart as to be immune from doing really stupid, and ill advised things.
And there are very few people so stupid that they do nothing right.
But life, like standardized tests, is a game of percentages. Those that stay above fifty tend to do much better on average than those below it.
Isab at February 24, 2015 9:21 PM
You keep focusing on an extremely small percentage of people Isab. Yes, you are right that there are people with skills and abilities that others cannot match. But for the other 99.99% that is not true. Also, I'm not saying anyone can be anything at the drop of a hat. You need to put the time in and for someone who starts later you need to put more time to unlearn what you have already learned. Reread your twin and adoption studies. They show evidence for both predominantly nature and predominantly nurture. The literature is inconclusive.
My original objection was to the word 'speed'. Given how little is know about how the brain works measuring the speed of a brain is farcical. You suggest using IQ tests. How to you separate speed, efficiency, specialization, ...?
Ben at February 25, 2015 11:44 AM
"Genius" might be the most over-used (and mis-used) word in the English language. And not just by Apple.
Conan the Grammarian at February 25, 2015 11:55 AM
My original objection was to the word 'speed'. Given how little is know about how the brain works measuring the speed of a brain is farcical. You suggest using IQ tests. How to you separate speed, efficiency, specialization, ...?
Posted by: Ben at February 25, 2015 11:44 AM
I suggested nothing of the sort. I suggested that the reason achievement tests, IQ tests, and professional entrance exams like the LSAT are timed is because all these exams are measuring core knowledge plus processing speed, and if processing speed wasn't a very important component of intelligence, they would not be timed.....
You don't need to separate speed, efficiency, and specialization, because the purpose of most of these tests is to measure *aptitude*
And we know a lot about how the brain works.
We know from various studies that the brain works much like a computer. Higher IQ means faster processing, and faster connections, but it is still subject to the hard and fast rule of garbage in, garbage out.
A high IQ isn't enough. If you don't know something, much like a computer without data, processing speed becomes irrelevant.
However, since your argument in support of "speed doesn't matter" was to state that you see the intelligence bell curve like a big box, with little tiny boxes of the mentally gifted, and the mentally challenged at each end of the spectrum., and your further stated incorrectly that intelligence is largely environmental rather than inherited, I asked for your sources.
You haven't provided any, so what was your point again?
Your last three posts have been nothing but an attempt to change the subject rather than provide a citation for your claims.
Isab at February 25, 2015 9:55 PM
Boy is it the wrong time of the year for you Isab. Want to quote any sources yourself especially for that 'we know a lot about how the brain works' gem?
Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin. American Psychologist, 67, 503-504.
Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Intelligence: New findings and theoretical developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159. doi:10.1037/a0026699
There, that took 10min of googlefu. Care to stop taking things out of context? Or do you want to keep being an ass?
Ben at February 26, 2015 5:59 AM
Boy is it the wrong time of the year for you Isab. Want to quote any sources yourself especially for that 'we know a lot about how the brain works' gem?
Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin. American Psychologist, 67, 503-504.
Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Intelligence: New findings and theoretical developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159. doi:10.1037/a0026699
There, that took 10min of googlefu. Care to stop taking things out of context? Or do you want to keep being an ass?
Posted by: Ben at February 26, 2015 5:59 AM
You don't know how to cite either.
Which of these articles, and specific conclusions in them support your argument that the brain *does not* work like a computer?
And that the speed of your processing is not the critical component of intelligence?
First you quote, then you explain how it supports your argument, and after that you cite.
I'm not here to do your research for you Ben, and I know you haven't understood this stuff because if you had, you wouldn't be throwing out incredibly dumb statements like :
"Given how little is know about how the brain works measuring the speed of a brain is farcical"
Really Ben? You want to stand by that nonsense?
And read the twin studies, and "The Bell Curve"
As to your first citation, do you understand the difference between group differences in IQ and individual differences in IQ?
I thought not.
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Together-Reared-Apart-Landmark-Minnesota-ebook/dp/B008FD89K2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424962023&sr=8-1&keywords=Twin+studies
Isab at February 26, 2015 6:50 AM
Eff off Isab. You and your straw men can take a hike. I'll pay attention to you once you learn to read again.
Ben at February 26, 2015 4:40 PM
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