Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> In general my readings seems to suggest that genius is a combination
> of both having a very strong attitude or interest in something, and
> getting enough stimulation and input to excel at it. While there are a
> few people (Mussorgsky, Ramanujan) who managed to succeed even with
> apparently no initial support, they are rare and seemed to have been
> able to give the support to themselves (a very important skill for all
> of us!). Most geniuses become true geniuses first after much
> training. So there may be genetic components of personality and
> aptitude, and then there are powerful influences from the
> surroundings.
Yes, I know, there are 20 or 30 caveats (and the mother-to-brain linkage may mean that the operation will fail completely. Rather depressing, that - males can reproduce a lot faster than females given extreme success; this puts a much lower upper bound on the success of a cognitive mutation). Genius is environmental, genius is a combination of genes that gets broken up in descendants, etc. etc...
But you'd think people would at least try!
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.