Quote Originally Posted by fetishdj View Post
Genius is independent of intelligence as genius is a way of looking at the world in a unique way - to see things that should be obvious and point them out to others.
Correct me if I misunderstand you dj, but if you're saying that genius is the spontaneous apprehension of novel concepts, I do disagree (though I hear that perspective a lot). Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein are all good examples of geniuses in my opinion; none of them were known for their spontaneity. They all spent incredible amounts of time on the accomplishments they are lauded for.

To be clear, what I'm saying is that a genius doesn't see things differently because its natural for them to do so - they see things differently because they have an unnatural focus. Mankind is rarely characterized by the kind of ant-like persistence exhibited by a genius like Kant, who never traveled more than 40 miles from his birthplace of Konigsberg... who always took a walk around town at the same time, at the same pace... who consumed the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day until he was in his 50s.

Even Archimedes, famous for his "eureka" moment as he came to understand displacement, didn't figure it out the moment he hopped in the bath. According to Pliny, he'd been puzzling over King Hiero's problem for months.