Genius is a word that is difficult to define, because it represents quality, personality or a person, sometimes all three at the same time. If genius is a matter of quality, then is it consistent in a person, or is it elusive and independent? If it is a personality, does it mean that said nature can be imbibed in someone, and therefore learned? And finally, if it is a person, does it mean that genius is a freak of nature, and it can no more be learned or created than a work of art might be replicated in toto by a different artist working in another part of the world with the same idea?
The one thing common in all three aspects of the term is a peculiar ability that distinguishes it from the usual fare, or whatever passes for the usual fare in a specific episteme. If it is scientific genius, then it follows that it lies not in the discovery, or invention, but in the genius's having seen something important in a discovery that no one found exciting enough scientifically to warrant studying, or it could lie in the ability to leap to a certain conclusion, or to recognize a certain train of thought as being that which brings about a paradigm shift.
The confusion stems from not knowing how human creativity works, and to what extent human creativity can be provoked to, as it were, think outside the confines of heteronormative rationality.
This is made complicated by the fact that the literary work that chooses to represent genius is an attempt at identifying imaginatively and hypothetically, and for certain, what passes for genius. Further, in trying to answer something that modern science is still at a loss for, and in proposing a theory through a fictional treatment of a hypothesis, the work of art could itself be one of genius in how strange and/or belittling it is of concurrent notions of morality, aesthetics, rationality etc.
There is one more difficulty which must be addressed: if we do identify something as genius, it means either that we have it within ourselves to become genius, and/or a genius is something that is identifiable to begin with. But herein lies a paradox: if a genius is something or someone so ahead of his time to warrant an outright negation or incredulity, then it follows that we would not be able to identify it in the first place to begin with. The alternate mode of existence postulated by a man or woman of genius would be too alien to the common man to comprehend and therefore, identification of said genius would be impossible. At best, he could think it to be something outre, or uncanny. But uncanniness does not always translate into genius. How then do we identify something we cannot comprehend?
The only answer to this would be to posit that genius is not identified as much as the potential he or his work has for utility, or exploitation. If what is discovered may translate into abnormal gains for a certain age and time, then it must be something worth pondering. The node of utility becomes then the only point of contact between genius and common man, at least in science.
But what then is the case when it comes to representation?
The one thing common in all three aspects of the term is a peculiar ability that distinguishes it from the usual fare, or whatever passes for the usual fare in a specific episteme. If it is scientific genius, then it follows that it lies not in the discovery, or invention, but in the genius's having seen something important in a discovery that no one found exciting enough scientifically to warrant studying, or it could lie in the ability to leap to a certain conclusion, or to recognize a certain train of thought as being that which brings about a paradigm shift.
The confusion stems from not knowing how human creativity works, and to what extent human creativity can be provoked to, as it were, think outside the confines of heteronormative rationality.
This is made complicated by the fact that the literary work that chooses to represent genius is an attempt at identifying imaginatively and hypothetically, and for certain, what passes for genius. Further, in trying to answer something that modern science is still at a loss for, and in proposing a theory through a fictional treatment of a hypothesis, the work of art could itself be one of genius in how strange and/or belittling it is of concurrent notions of morality, aesthetics, rationality etc.
There is one more difficulty which must be addressed: if we do identify something as genius, it means either that we have it within ourselves to become genius, and/or a genius is something that is identifiable to begin with. But herein lies a paradox: if a genius is something or someone so ahead of his time to warrant an outright negation or incredulity, then it follows that we would not be able to identify it in the first place to begin with. The alternate mode of existence postulated by a man or woman of genius would be too alien to the common man to comprehend and therefore, identification of said genius would be impossible. At best, he could think it to be something outre, or uncanny. But uncanniness does not always translate into genius. How then do we identify something we cannot comprehend?
The only answer to this would be to posit that genius is not identified as much as the potential he or his work has for utility, or exploitation. If what is discovered may translate into abnormal gains for a certain age and time, then it must be something worth pondering. The node of utility becomes then the only point of contact between genius and common man, at least in science.
But what then is the case when it comes to representation?
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