Bell Curves and The Gaslighting of Genius : Preface

in #deepshit6 years ago (edited)

When I was 11 or 12, I wrote in my 'little kid diary' (it has Lisa Frank colored pages and a lock that was easily bypassed):
"I know I'm smart, but I hope I'm not brilliant. Brilliant people always have the worst lives"

This was most likely after learning about yet another scientist/artist/writer/peaceful warrior who was assassinated/died penniless/put in a mental hospital. How curious that most of the people we placed on a pedestal after they were dead felt so unappreciated while they were alive. Also, quite scary to a young child who felt the most connected to those types of people.

This is not a post about the correlation between genius and mental illness but something specific I have just recently pieced together, something that when it hit me gave me a bit of comfort and made a few things click into place. I thought I would try something new, by breaking it up for easier reading. Feel free to give me your opinions on this decision :)

For those who aren't familiar with 'gaslighting' the definition is:

Gas·light

verb
gerund or present participle: gaslighting
manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.

It is considered the most psychologically damaging form of mental abuse. In a person to person relationship it can take the form of something simple like lying in the face of overwhelming evidence (Think Shaggy's hit song "It wasn't Me") or more complex ways like moving items, changing documents, faking incidents etc. The reason it is damaging is that we all learn to trust ourselves and feel sane through perception; I say the sky is blue, you agree and we both know that our eyes and brains are functioning properly. Gaslighting as a term is used when someone purposefully tries to get someone to feel like they are not seeing or understanding reality correctly. I am starting to see how it can happen accidentally, and the damage is equally as devastating.

Now Bell Curves. It is basically a plot of any trait shown over a population of people. The x axis is some measurable trait, the y axis is the number of people with that trait at x. How many people are 5' 10"? How many are 6' 10", how many are 3' 10"? It turns out that (almost?) all traits fall into some sort of bell shaped curve when graphed, whether it is intelligence, attractiveness, basketball skills, or life span. The majority of people tend to be aggregated in the middle, and as we get further from the average the percentage of people with that trait drops precipitously.

In many instances we might think that being on the far right means better (attractiveness bell curve- far right is supermodels and hunky leading men, wealth bell curve, far right means super rich), but in many instances being on the fringe on either side is not healthy or causes problems (super tall people may not be able to find clothes that fit them, or cars they can comfortable fit into, people with too high or low blood pressures are unhealthy or at risk).

I personally love thinking in bell curves. It answers a lot of philosophical questions for me. When I ask myself "Why doesn't such and such famous person do more good in the world?" I answer myself "The probability that they are not only exceptionally attractive/talented/rich but also exceptionally thoughtful is really low". I could go on for days about bell curves and social questions! (maybe another post haha)

[If you aren't a math person here is quick statistics refresher: If you are in the 1% of musically talented people, 0.01 , then the probability you are also in the 1% of attractive people is 0.01 x 0.01= 0.0001 or 1 in 10, 000. Now add another factor, like selflessness 0.0001 x 0.01 = 0.000001 or literally 1 in a million!]

One last quick piece to this preface. There are theories of ranges in understanding and communication. Most simply put: if someone is much much further ahead of you in understanding something or much much further behind you, your ability to communicate on that subject is hindered or even impossible. It is easy to realize that if someone does not know addition, then you can't teach them multiplication. "But," you may say "If someone knows calculus, of course they can teach someone addition". It actually doesn't always work that way. People who are going to educate very small children have to be given special training on stages of development and learn how to communicate far below their personal intelligence level. Once you are not a child anymore, it's hard to remember how a child thinks and so it becomes very hard to communicate to and teach them. It is also why when you are having a discussion about economics with a friend who has studied it extensively, they may keep correcting you on your terminology and seem to be missing what you are trying to say. They are not always just trying to one-up you, their brains think in those specific terms, and there is now a language barrier. Once we learn some concept, we often forget there was a time we didn't know it, and our communication flows from a place that assumes the other person knows what we know. We simply are not aware of it at all, so we wouldn't think to preface our conversation (see what I did there ). This is also why I do NOT believe the adage "Those who can't do, teach" because it takes a specific type of empathetic intelligence to bridge these communication gaps, and the larger the gaps, the more of this type of intelligence is needed.

Information about the world we live in and are experiencing is a large web of interconnected pieces, and can be quite a lot for a person to hold in one cohesive whole. Let's put these pieces together and see if we agree :)

Photos:

  1. Sylvia Plath
  2. Bell curve from : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/hans-hickler/pay-attention-to-the-midd_b_5924640.html
  3. Buckminster Fuller
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I think I see where you are going here. Great preface as a stand alone piece really. Funny thing about the rich/famous people and doing good in the world - I would suspect there is actually even a lower chance than simple statistical probability would suggest. I am betting there is an inverse correlation between traits that lead to becoming rich and famous, and traits like empathy and selflessness.

Definitely! Especially because a 'trait' like wealth could really be viewed as a 'symptom' or 'manifestation' of other traits, like a focus on numbers, or highly active, productive energy level. Fame, is it's own monster, and, like political power, people who seek it are usually more self focused while those that feel it is a responsibility more selfless.

“the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

I am not discounting science here, and there are certainly limitations to the this, but a lot of things are too fluid for science to accurately measure. Intelligence is much more dynamic than being able to score highly on a test, someone could change their emotional state and suddenly measure in with a higher IQ. They might be unattractive because of certain facial expression and in a different culture they might not feel as inclined to have those facial expressions. Someone who has a strong desire to be extraordinary in many different ways will likely be extraordinary in at least a few. I think in many cases, the bell curve only applies to people who are "meh" and follow common wisdom and believe themselves more likely to be ordinary.

I forgot to reply to this when I saw it but remembered haha. So bells curves are just something that are recurring mathematical distribution ratios. Like Pi or Golden ratio, it is just found over and over. So there's not really any possible argument against the existence of bell curves for measurable things. As far as intelligence goes, I didn't specifically say IQ, but that is one test of a specific type of intelligence, and any other types of genius if they were measured would - most likely- show similar distributions. Also, yes attractiveness is fluid from one person to the next, but if you look into it a bit you will see that there are common recurring traits that make someone 'attractive'. The ratios of the face: Eye width, forehead size, symmetry. (the golden ratio here too) etc all have sizes that are considered attractive by majority of population, and as you start to more away from the norms - really wide set eyes, really narrow set eyes, it starts to become a less widely accepted attractiveness. Usually there is some trait that is considered unique that is considered 'prized' and if it becomes commonplace, that changes. Like back when being skinny meant you were and undernourished peasant, voluptuous women were ideal, then we see people getting heavier due to widely available junk food and then skinny comes in, and then everyone is so skinny, so thicc comes in. It has to do with what the mass population has as an average and then one way or the other nearing the fringe is considered 'gorgeous'. It is very fluid as the society changes, but within that society, there is a bell curve distribution. It's really fascinating stuff .

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