Etymology of the word "genius"

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:58 am

Kitoak,

I'll reiterate Weininger's view of genius because his view is the clearest and most useful in my opinion.

There really is no such thing as "a genius". A person may have moments of genius which cause people to call him "a genius", but to take that in a literal sense is to put genius inaccessibly over oneself, to remove its moral requirement, and fawn over it to try and rectify the failure to set the highest standard for oneself. People the world over do this when they attribute genius to some ability that they know they can never attain to. They basically annihiliate the concept altogether.

True genius is the culmination of logic and the culmination of ethics simultaneously because in reality the two are inseparable. People are not logical because they won't face the ethical requirement and they are not ethical because they are not logical enough. Catch-22, sure, but only for the one who doesn't have a strong enough aspiration to genius. If the concept of genius doesn't even exist, then it's not likely that one will develop an aspiration in that direction.

Genius is a state of being where the mind fulfills all logicality and a person's ultimate ethical requirement is fulfilled because his mind has become conscious of its intimate connection with the universe in its totality. For a person to literally be a genius, they would have to be born with this totalistic connection and die with it, never dropping it for a moment, and that's not currently possible for humans. It really doesn't matter if a genius actually exists anyway, the point is that for an individual, the standard of genius exists, so it's worthwhile to make people aware of this and its demand. It makes no difference if people don't like someone using the term "genius" if they haven't fulfilled the requirement of genius to give them the authority to say anything about it because it would be like a murderer complaining about the illegality of murder. So it makes ethical sense to try and convince people to attain genius for themselves, even at the expense of one's personal reputation or whatever it is you feel you could gain by not talking about it. But you would be throwing away a lifetime of wealth for a mere trinket.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:01 am

People take the term "genius" far too seriously. Instead of adopting a more light-hearted approach and bending its common meaning this way and that in an attempt to expand the mind, they want to store it away under lock and key and not let anyone touch it. As soon as you try to pick it up, they jump and down in protest as though you were stealing something precious! And yet what is it? An empty word with no fixed meaning, just like any other word.

These people's priorities are all askew.

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Ras866 · Post by **Ras866** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:38 am

DQ said:

People take the term "genius" far too seriously. Instead of adopting a more light-hearted approach and bending its common meaning this way and that in an attempt to expand the mind, they want to store it away under lock and key and not let anyone touch it. As soon as you try to pick it up, they jump and down in protest as though you were stealing something precious! And yet what is it? An empty word with no fixed meaning, just like any other word.

These people's priorities are all askew.

I presume you are referring to me and my arguments.

I REALLY don't give a damn and I don't think anyone else cares what you do with this word or that. You can define a word in any way that tickles your fancy.

All I was trying to do was flesh out the inconsistencies I found on this site.

Don't you find it incredibly ungenius and plain dishonesty when you go around saying that "Wise people came up with this term.. the world stole this term from them." Who the fuck are these wise people? Where did you get this information from? Well, you don't know... You have no idea if this term was stolen from wise people or not.

You made it up.

Why? I don't know... Maybe to justify why it is YOU would steal and reconfigure a word out of the dictionary... Why? Maybe so that you could feel as if you were a "genius". I could do that too: I can change the definition of "honesty" so that every action and every thought I do would fall under my new-made category of "honesty" and I thus would now miraculously have the virtue of perfect honesty.

Actually I really don't know why you made something up? Why did you say that the world stole the term "genius" from wise people?
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Post Script:

I have just now realized where the origin of how you use the particular term "genius" comes from. The "wise person" who had defined "genius"(a typically male quality pertaining to a deep understanding of himself and nature and having nothing to do with talent or natural intelligence) and had his definition "hijacked" by the world was Otto Weininger.

I see, now... Okay. That is where your official definition of "genius" comes from.

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:50 pm

i think you should do something about the genius forum stuff, ksolway, i mean it's loaded quite heavily on the side of the god squad; truth, ultimate reality, enlightenment, wisdom, perfection, give me a break! your above qualifications have left out at least half of the genius brigade, the 'evil' ones. moral/ religious imperatives do not alone = genius. as a post-post modernist mystery man, it's my opinion that your atheism still contains a lot of god....

written for your edification by lightening

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:21 pm

What makes you think that enlightenment/wisdom have anything to do with morality/religion? No one here thinks this.

You are fighting your own imaginary post-modernist battles here. They have no connection to what this forum is about.

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bert · Post by **bert** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:32 pm

sevens,
you use expressions I do not often confront.Inspiring but sometimes vague.

I do not think that the vital ethic of thruth lives in the mind.I partly agree with it though.
depends a bit what you mean with 'vital ethic' and which kind of thruth you are talking about...
It all sound like the buddhistic view.Do you carry the buddhistic view?

I do not belief that there is anything self-potential in creation.

bert · Post by **bert** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 2:42 am

ok,since no one gives this genius view of what a genius should contain at then moment of being geniusfull,i give the bloodsucker:

'seeing strangely' is a common denominator for all the different kinds of geniusfulnesses one or someone or a crowd might contain.

It is a LEVEL ;a level of seeing.

Reasoning is useless ,for being geniusfull requires a dissociation from the correspondences between contrasting things.

As a consequence they reform with new correlatives in our process of arrangements.

The final balance is an out of the ordinary representation.

This is the level of our genius.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 2:43 am

Ras wrote:

I have just now realized where the origin of how you use the particular term "genius" comes from. The "wise person" who had defined "genius"(a typically male quality pertaining to a deep understanding of himself and nature and having nothing to do with talent or natural intelligence) and had his definition "hijacked" by the world was Otto Weininger.

I see, now... Okay. That is where your official definition of "genius" comes from.

Otto Weininger was also seeking to reclaim the word" genius" from the mainstream who hijacked it. You're making the mistake of trying to resolve this matter through the niceties of history, rather than in direct philosophical understanding. That is to say, you are trying to resolve it in a trivial, second-hand manner.

One of the hallmarks of a genius is that he isn't concerned by what the crowd thinks. He is only interested in comprehending the truth directly, with his own mind, now. But most people are deeply afraid of this kind of directness and prefer to live in the warm safety of a second-hand existence.

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zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:01 am

I refer only to what ksolway has written on the subject and to the words on top of this page....thats all....

written for your edification by lightening

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:07 am

hey burt - seeing through to what? there is nothing to see through to, no enlightenment, no perfection, no bliss, no god,
no divine. nothing. there is only the mystery...the rest is pure
crap....belief proves nothing!

written for your edification by lightening

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:12 am

Kevin essentially said that a genius understands Nature, the Totality. There is no hint of morality or religiousity involved. That you instantly reached that conclusion is simply your own postmodernist brainwashing masturbating with itself.

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David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:16 am

zarathustra wrote:

hey burt - seeing through to what? there is nothing to see through to, no enlightenment, no perfection, no bliss, no god,
no divine. nothing. there is only the mystery...the rest is pure
crap....belief proves nothing!

So you believe ....

I love watching postmodernists regurgitate what they have been taught to believe. It warms the heart to see such religiousness in action.

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sevens · Post by **sevens** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:22 am

Yes, but you only experience, through belief.

And a mind.

bert · Post by **bert** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:27 am

seeing through to the 'an 'as if' ' reality,zara

And surely "all is illusion".
yet,we are of the absolute in as much as....

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:30 am

hey mr quinn....wisdom is by its very nature divine - the 'divine spark'. age is almost inevertably associated with wisdom, which usually puts the boot into life, devalues and/or condemns it for having strong instincts/wreckless vitality. wisdom is inspired by the smell of death and the hereafter...when ugly old socrates gave his speech before the greek nobility, who were known for their natural beauty and physiques, they laughed at him - to them he was something to be both mocked and pitied...interesting observation, if plato is to believed....

written for your edification by lightening

sevens · Post by **sevens** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:36 am

Only through morality, do we reach our heights, and our depths. Only through morality, do we continue to see. Only through morality, do we see.

bert · Post by **bert** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:39 am

those who contain the great ideas have no opinions

bert · Post by **bert** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:45 am

So I would counsel closed ears.

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:46 am

life is anything but an illusion. life is simply that which is SIGNLESS and EVERPRESENT- belief has nothing to do with it.
when I blink it's still there - right? but when I blink I can't see fucking god can I? but I can make a sign and write god on it -
with an arrow beneath pointing to a beautiful flower, a constellation of stars or the face of a beautiful girl - so what? big fucking deal.....oh yeah, I'm not a post-modernist, I'm a post-godernist - ha!

written for your edification by lightening

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:00 am

how wise, berty boy, how very wise....what's the fucking use?the old geniuses know - don't they? that the telling of wisdom is so futile, falling like rap music on the ears of the ignorant
...better to shut up, say nothing, sit under a yum yum tree and become enlightened....OMMMM

written by lightening for your edification

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:02 am

Zarathustra wrote:

hey mr quinn....wisdom is by its very nature divine - the 'divine spark'.

No, wisdom is the elimination of all delusion from the mind. It is a very down-to-earth thing. It has nothing to do with "the divine spark", whatever that is.

age is almost inevertably associated with wisdom, which usually puts the boot into life, devalues and/or condemns it for having strong instincts/wreckless vitality. wisdom is inspired by the smell of death and the hereafter.

People can certainly be inspired to seek wisdom (that is, to eliminate delusion and comprehend truth) by a fear of ageing and death, yes. I don't know about the "putting the boot into life" bit, though. That sounds too much like the tired, old postmodernist interpretation of Nietzsche that one often hears these days.

Becoming involved with wisdom certainly puts the boot into deluded life. But deluded life is really a form of death, so no harm there.

..when ugly old socrates gave his speech before the greek nobility, who were known for their natural beauty and physiques, they laughed at him - to them he was something to be both mocked and pitied...interesting observation, if plato is to believed....

Yes, if you have other natural strengths, such as physical beauty or a knack for writing glib poetry, then you probably won't be as motivated to seek wisdom. It's often the biggest losers in society who are motivated to become seriously involved in their thought and seek the highest understanding.

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zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:02 am

how wise, berty boy, how very wise....what's the fucking use?the old geniuses know - don't they? that the telling of
wisdom is so futile, falling like rap music on the ears of the ignorant better to shut up, say nothing, sit under a yum
yum tree and become enlightened....OM

written by lightening for your edification

sevens · Post by **sevens** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:06 am

Yes, Zara, but when you continue to draw connections, you will see 'God'.

Your own Divinity, is not a single isolation - it is.

E = emcee Squared

Light is Creation

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:16 am

zarathustra wrote:

life is anything but an illusion. life is simply that which is SIGNLESS and EVERPRESENT- belief has nothing to do with it.
when I blink it's still there - right? but when I blink I can't see fucking god can I?

When a wise man blinks, everything he sees is God. A signless and everpresent God, of course.

but I can make a sign and write god on it -
with an arrow beneath pointing to a beautiful flower, a constellation of stars or the face of a beautiful girl - so what? big fucking deal.....oh yeah, I'm not a post-modernist, I'm a post-godernist - ha!

Well, there is a little more to philosophy than simply attaching signs to things. It's the opposite, in fact - it's more about removing the signs from things. Signs such as "mystery" and "beauty".

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zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:25 am

epicurian argument...

either god wants to abolish evil and cannot
or else he can but does not want to
or he cannot and does not want to
or lastly he can and wants to
if he wants to remove evil and cannot,
he is not omnipotent
if he can and does not want to he is not benevolent
but if god can abolish evils and wants to
then why the fuck does evil exist and persist?
since then evil does exist and persist
and god is described as being both omnipotent
and benevolent
then god does not exist....

goodnight all....

GENIUS FORUMS

Etymology of the word "genius"

Understanding

Morals

God in a Plastic Cup