The Importance of Genius in our World

By Martin Ettington

Genius is a fascinating subject which I’ve thought a lot about over my life.

There are many books on the subject and they are all different with various viewpoints on what Genius is, who are geniuses, and why Genius is important. No two definitions of Genius are the same.

In this book I attempt to cover the history of Genius, why it is important, famous Geniuses in history, and how you can develop a genius consciousness yourself.

Possibly the earliest Genius of humanity was the person who first learned how to use fire which has been an important part of our ancestors and humanity’s survival for over one million years.

Many geniuses over history contributed to the development of human technology, science, art, war, and much more.

I’ve listed many well-known geniuses in this book but most are male. The problem is that during most of history females were not taken seriously or even allowed to be leaders in the major professions-otherwise more would listed as geniuses too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Ettington
• Release date: Jul 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005644307

Martin Ettington

The owner Martin K. Ettington is an Engineer by training and has had multiple careers. These include technical sales for GE and HP. Martin also Owns his own software and consulting business.Martin’s interest in the Paranormal and Occult goes back to his childhood. He has had many paranormal experiences and has been a student of Eastern Philosophies and Meditation for 35 years.Seeking Enlightenment; he knows that we are already all Enlightened. We just have to realize this deeply.His books are expressions of his creativity to help others understand what he has internalized through study, experience, and membership in different societies.Not many technical persons or scientists spend a lot of time in parallel studying the Metaphysical and have had many spiritual or psychic experiences too.Therefore, Martin believes that he can provide a unique vantage point to integrate Western Scientific thinking with Eastern exploration of the mind and spirit.

Book preview

Genius is a fascinating subject which I’ve thought a lot about over my life.

There are many books on the subject and they are all different with various viewpoints on what Genius is, who are geniuses, and why Genius is important.

No two definitions of Genius are the same.

In this book I attempt to cover the history of Genius, why it is important, famous Geniuses in history, and how you can develop a genius consciousness yourself.

Possibly the earliest Genius of humanity was the person who first learned how to use fire which has been an important part of our ancestors and humanity’s survival for over one million years.

Many geniuses over history contributed to the development of human technology, science, art, war, and much more.

I’ve listed many well-known geniuses in this book but most are male. The problem is that during most of history females were not taken seriously or even allowed to be leaders in the major professions-otherwise more would listed as geniuses too.

2.0 Definition of Genius

What are the characteristics of a genius?

There is no one definition of genius. But many doctors study highly intelligent, or gifted, children to understand genius better. Yet true genius is not just intelligence.

Genius is generally known as a wealth of originality, creativity, and the ability to imagine or think in new ways and areas.

Genius causes a paradigm shift from old to new thinking. The concept of continental drift is a good example. The idea was first originated by several persons in history.

The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. A pioneer of the modern view of mobilism was the Austrian geologist Otto Ampferer. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but the hypothesis was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. The English geologist Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism.

But the idea was criticized and made fun of until the

1960s when deep subsurface drilling showed real evidence of continental drift. So a new idea may not seem to be Genius initially but may be accepted over a period of time.

Same thing with people, some of their ideas and developments are accepted right away and others take many years to mature.

3.0 The History of Genius

In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens), or place (genius loci). The noun is related to the Latin verbs gignere (to beget, to give birth to) and generare (to beget, to generate, to procreate), and derives directly from the Indo-European stem thereof: ǵenh (to produce, to beget, to give birth). Because the achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful genius, by the time of Augustus, the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of inspiration, talent.

The term genius acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, as above, and Ingenium, a related noun referring to our innate dispositions, talents, and inborn nature. Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the talented, the Encyclopédie article on genius (génie) describes such a person as he whose soul is more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost.

Historical development

Galton is regarded as the founder of psychometry. He studied the work of his older half-cousin Charles Darwin about biological evolution. Hypothesizing that eminence is inherited from ancestors, Galton did a study of families of eminent people in Britain, publishing it in 1869 as Hereditary Genius. Galton's ideas were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in statistics: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adolphe Quetelet. Gauss discovered the normal distribution (bell-shaped curve): given a large number of measurements of the same variable under the same conditions, they vary at random from a most frequent value, the average, to two least frequent values at maximum differences greater and lower than the most frequent value. Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the military. His initial work in criminology led him to observe the greater the number of individuals observed the more do peculiarities become effaced.... This ideal from which the peculiarities were effaced became the average man.

4.0 Why Genius is Important

The Single Most Important Quality of a True Genius isn’t just endless knowledge, acute intelligence, or curiosity.

Genius is made out to be some mystical occurrence that only a few great people were blessed with having.

That intelligence is the single factor that defines the success of extraordinary creators like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Albert Einstein, and whoever else you might deem having ‘genius’ level intelligence.

Others say that in order to even dream of reaching this level that you have to constantly learn every single day and aim to be better than you were the day before.

This is fantastic advice, but the simple act of taking in endless amounts of information and facts isn’t going to help you achieve their level of success or creative genius. Not even upgrading these facts to applicable intelligence is going to do that for you.

Don’t just absorb and vomit out facts.

Applying what you learn is very important.

Knowledge and understanding are very important as well.

But the most important thing is the ability to draw connections about what you learn and be creative and imaginative with that information in a way that you can create something entirely and authentically new.

That’s what truly defines uniqueness and creative genius. Separating yourself from the herd of sheep.

The Fine Line Between Knowledge And Creativity

First, let us understand the differences between knowledge, intelligence, and creativity so that you don’t get confused.

Knowledge is nothing more than just raw information, facts, formula, and data.

Intelligence is the ability to process that information in meaningful and constructive ways for comprehension and understanding.

Creativity and Imagination is the unique ability to transform all that information and data into entirely new and original ideas altogether.

Knowledge is Limited, Creativity Is Limitless

Even in a world where there seems to be a boundless and infinite amount of information available through the tips of our fingers via a handheld device that fits in our pockets, there still exists a limit to the amount of information that we have access to.

All this information is already confirmed and