

History of Genius - ohaikbai
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/09/wonder-boys-genius/

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jimiwen
"The fallible human mind participates in the beauty of an infallible abstract
realm that, in the view of many mathematicians, exists independently of the
mental and physical worlds." Kurt Gödel

Gödel++

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walterbell
_" To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the
labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing."_, Marcel
Duchamp, [http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/23/the-
creati...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/23/the-creative-act-
marcel-duchamp-1957/)

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jimiwen
an aesthetic osmosis ! "The result of this struggle is a difference between
the intention and its realization, a difference which the artist is not
[aware] of." this i am not so sure... Duchamp's art coefficient = gap, good or
bad, So is it possible art coefficient=0 but asthetic scale = ∞, or art
coefficient= random and asthetic scale = 0 or ∞ depending on which view you
take of Shannon's theory

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abecedarius
This article keeps using the word
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy)
in some sense I don't understand. Can anyone explain it?

About the romantic idea of genius: let's celebrate such people without
mysticism. I'm glad I've gotten to meet some of my favorite thinkers and find
out they don't shoot laser beams out of their eyes.

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gliese1337
I too do not find the reference to theodicy entirely transparent, but here's
my interpretation, at least.

The origin of the idea of genius is supposed to be a means of filling in a gap
left by the loss of cultural belief in God and angels and so forth; that
provides the theological connection. So, it seems to me it's saying that the
belief in genius justifies the existence of evil because our genius-'gods' are
in fact still basically human. Specifically calling it "theodicy of the human
mind" feels like it's suggesting something more, but, to quote the article a
bit more, it's not the traditional theodicy that tries to justify the ways of
god to suffering humanity, but rather one that permits us to see ourselves, in
however attenuated a sense, as the point of it all.

So, yeah. Genius == theodicy because "God is really just us" or something like
that. It's a pretty big stretch from the normal meaning of the word, but
that's the best I can make of it.

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abecedarius
That does make tenuous sense of it, thanks.

