Intellect vs.
Cognition
Madness vs. Genius
Since my son came to live with me I've heard him say on
numerous occasions 'I'm not stupid...'
I think that my son's brain is over stimulated in some
areas and the connecting areas are not able to handle the input. Is what is
happening in my son's brain a determining factor of his intellect? Personally I
don't think so. For me it just raises questions on what we as a society
consider to be intelligence. Does what is happening in his brain affect his
ability to gain knowledge? Again I don't think so and I question what society
considers to be knowledge. As with anything that I write about I urge you to do
your own research as I only include the information that I find interesting or
pertaining to what I am writing.
I came across an article called "The Link between
Madness and Creativity". In this article they are discussing the link
between madness and creativity. It's references Vincent Van Gogh who cut off the
lower lobe of his left ear as a present for someone he loved and Ernest
Hemingway who, plagued by depression, committed suicide. It discusses low
latent inhibition (LI) a condition shared by creative people and those with
hallucinatory mental illnesses. The article states: "Each of us is
constantly assaulted with sensory information; that raw data which Snyder
believes autistic savants have trouble converting into mindsets. Humans and
other primates have evolved enough to weed through this information and
consider only what we need to survive, to perform a necessary task or to
consider data we haven't already catalogued. The other information is
unconsciously discarded, filtered through the process of latent inhibition.
It's why we tend not to latch onto the constant buzzing of fluorescent lights
overhead or compile snippets of conversations in crowded restaurants into a
senseless whole.
A low level of latent inhibition has been shown in
schizophrenics [source: Weickert, et al]. Because they can't distinguish
between external and internal stimuli (for example, voices), schizophrenics
attach meaning to the sensory input people with normal latent inhibition
unconsciously ignore [source: Carson]." "What creative people do with
the additional stimuli appears to be the separation between creativity and
insanity. In a 2004 study, Carson found that test subjects with low latent
inhibition coupled with a relatively high IQ (120 to 130) also had creative
abilities. Carson postulated that people with high intellects aren't assaulted
by the additional information allowed into their consciousnesses through low LI
like schizophrenics are. Instead, they make creative use of it:
"Intelligence allows you to manipulate the additional stimuli in novel
ways without being overwhelmed by them" [source: Carson]." This
theory however does not stand up considering "Studies have found a decline
in intellect among some schizophrenics; but others show no decline -- remaining
either at the same high or low intelligence quotient they possessed prior to
developing the mental disorder (which appears on average at age 16 for males
and 20 for females) [source: Weickert, et al, Carson]." I guess it depends
on what you would consider to be additional information. For knowledge sack
wouldn't all information be important? Perhaps the only difference between a
creative person and a schizophrenic is that one hasn't learned how to deal with
the additional information, yet.
The following quotes from another article really hit home
for me. DeYoung and his colleagues close an article with this: "Genius
requires penetrating insight into reality, whereas madness is confusion about
reality. Nonetheless, both madness and genius appear likely to be positively
related to the broad trait of Openness/Intellect. Without the tendency to
perceive patterns that is fundamental to Openness, Intellect may by [be]
unlikely to lead to the creativity required for genius. Perhaps, then, genius
is most likely to emerge given the combination of high Intellect and high
Openness, and one must risk madness to achieve genius."
In "The Essential Psychopathology of
Creativity", Andrea Kuszewski notes: "Were it not for those
“disordered” genes, you wouldn’t have extremely creative, successful
people. Being in the absolute middle of
every trait spectrum, not too extreme in any one direction, makes you balanced,
but rather boring. The tails of the
spectrum, or the fringe, is where all the exciting stuff happens. Some of the exciting stuff goes uncontrolled
and ends up being a psychological disorder, but some of those people with the
traits that define Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, ADHD, and other
psychological conditions, have the fortunate gift of high cognitive control
paired with those traits, and end up being the creative geniuses that we
admire, aspire to be like, and desperately need in this world."
Salvador Dali: "There is only one difference between
a madman and me. I am not mad."
This article states: "How can creative geniuses
simultaneously be mad and brilliant? Only recently, however, have scientists
been able to find out both what connects madness and brilliance, and what
separates them. It turns out the key to this riddle is a deeper understanding
of the most psychologically important dimension of human personality:
Openness/Intellect." This article discusses how intellect and openness can
be separated both behaviorally and neurologically and how cognition is
different in each of them.
It also discusses schizotypy, a watered-down version of
schizophrenia that consists of a constellation of personality traits that are
evident in some degree in everyone. It has positive and negative traits the
same as schizophrenia. "Apophenia is a component of positive schizotypy,
and involves a general human propensity (tendency) to see meaningful patterns
when they don't really exist. Apophenia is a natural part of human nature. Some
examples include wearing good luck charms, seeing Jesus in toast, or mistaking
random sounds for someone calling your name. " They did two studies on
people without schizophrenia-spectrum disorders to look at normal human
variation in both intelligence and apophenia. They came up with what they call
The Paradoxical Simplex and it lists intelligence and competence on one end with
paranormal beliefs and magical ideation on the other end. Intelligence and
apophenia are on opposite ends of the simplex. A system that probably has an
effect on this is the dopaminergic system. Dopamine effects behavior and
cognition. It seems that intellect and openness do not go hand in hand and only
a small part of the population have extremely high levels of both. Those with
higher IQ's and higher dopamine levels.
Another articles talks about a gene called DARPP-32 that
appears to make the brain's most sophisticated thinking region more efficient.
It improves the way information is exchanged between the striatum, a brain
region that processes reward, and the prefrontal cortex, the brain's executive
hub that manages thoughts and actions. When this circuit works efficiently, the
normal outcome is more flexible thinking and better memory. But the circuit has
been linked to brain functions that go wrong in patients with schizophrenia. "Our
results raise the question of whether a gene variant favoured by evolution,
that would normally confer advantage, may translate into a disadvantage if the
prefrontal cortex is impaired, as in schizophrenia," Dr Weinberger said.
"Normally, enhanced cortex connectivity with the striatum would provide
increased flexibility, working memory capacity and executive control. But if
other genes and environmental events conspire to render the cortex incapable of
handling such information, it could backfire - resulting in the neural
equivalent of a superhighway to a dead end."
Let's delve deeper into IQ scores. Did you know that
there are different kinds of IQ tests? Some tests are visual, some are verbal,
some tests only use abstract-reasoning problems, and some tests concentrate on
arithmetic, spatial imagery, reading, vocabulary, memory or general knowledge. A
little history. In 1941 Raymond Cattell proposed two type of cognitive
abilities as a revision of Spearman's concept of general intelligence. He
hypothesized two forms of intelligence. Fluid intelligence (Gf) as the ability
to solve novel problems by using reasoning and declines with age. Crystallized
intelligence (Gc) as a knowledge-based ability dependent on education and
experience that is resistant to decline. This theory was revived in 1966 by
John L. Horn who argued Gf and Gc was only two of ten broad abilities. There
are 10 broad abilities (*listed at the end) that are in turn subdivided into 70
narrow abilities. This theory became the Gf-Gc Theory. In 1993 John B. Carroll
proposed the Three Stratum Theory which has three levels. The bottom consists
of narrow abilities that are highly specialized like spelling, the second
consists of the eight broad abilities with Spearman's concept of general
intelligence, for the most part, a representation of the third stratum. In 1999
a merging of the Gf-Gc theory of Cattell and Horn with Carroll's Three-Stratum
theory has led to the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory and has influenced many of
the current broad IQ tests. In 1997 Alexander Luria's earlier work on
neuropsychological processes led to the PASS theory that argued that only
looking at one general factor was inadequate for researchers and clinicians who
worked with learning disabilities, attention disorders, mental retardation, and
interventions for such disabilities. The PASS model covers four kinds of
processes (planning process, attention/arousal process, simultaneous
processing, and successive processing). It has
influenced some recent IQ tests, and been seen as a complement to the
Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory. Although modern comprehensive IQ tests
still give an overall score, they now also give scores for many of these more
restricted abilities, identifying particular strengths and weaknesses of an
individual. Still modern tests do not necessarily measure all of the broad
abilities. There are such critics as Keith Stanovich who do not dispute the
stability of IQ test score however they do argue that to base a concept of
intelligence on IQ test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of
mental ability. They fail to account for certain areas which are also
associated with intelligence such as creativity or emotional intelligence.
I don't think my son's current intellect or IQ is a part
of the equation but rather his cognitive thinking and his ability to
rationalize the information that his brain is processing. Information that most
of us disregard as being unimportant. What if his brain is an indication of
where evolution is taking us? Could a
prefrontal cortex currently unable to handle the amount of input be a negative
consequence of our current technological age and something nature is trying to
fix? Am I reaching... Maybe but we do live in a time where machines and gadgets
do more and more of our thinking for us. Most of us have heard the term New
Age. How about The New Age Movement? A spiritual movement that developed in the
second half of the 20th century. The New Age aims to create "a
spirituality without borders or confining dogmas". It includes elements of older spiritual and
religious traditions combined with science. I won't go any further into the
spiritual aspect as I'm hoping to write about this later on.
I'm currently
having to fill the role of teacher in my son's life and this means that I am
having to relearn what I learned in high school so that I can teach it to him. My
son is capable of learning these things as we are currently proving. Almost
daily I can see his cognition improving to the point where I'm having to push
myself to make his homework a little more challenging than I think it should be
because he breezes through it. I would even hazard a guess that anything that
I'm currently teaching him will not be as easily forgotten as I forgot. Of
course motivating him to want to learn this form of knowledge is the bigger
challenge. It's just not important to him. He's more interested in his
spiritual growth and what is going on in this world behind-the-scenes, so to
speak. Still we need to know the physics of the world we live in. We need to
know the basics and then some of how to manage our day to day lives in the
physical world. Open curtain: In walks mom with her homework for the day...
"Perhaps, then, genius is most likely to emerge
given the combination of high Intellect and high Openness, and one must risk
madness to achieve genius."
Perhaps madness is but a stepping stone to genius or vice
versa.
A list of famous people throughout history who have had a
serious mental illness:
Abraham Lincoln - Sixteenth President of USA - suffered
severe and incapacitating depressions.
Virginia Woolf - British novelist who wrote To the
Lighthouse and Orlando - mood swings of bipolar disorder.
Lionel Aldridge - A defensive end for the Green Bay
Packers of the 1960's - paranoid schizophrenia.
Ludwig van Beethoven - Brilliant composer - bipolar
disorder.
John Keats - Renowned poet - mental illness.
Isaac Netwon - Scientist - manic depression, mental
illness.
Michelangelo - One of the world's greatest artists -
mental illness.
Winston Churchill - Prime Minister of UK - bipolar
disorder.
Patty Duke - Academy Award-winning actress -
manic-depressive, bipolar disorder.
Charles Dickens - One of the greatest authors in the
English language - clinical depression.
Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams,
Robert Schumann, Vivien Leigh among others. Who knows, in generations to come
my son's name may well be among them - Spiritual Leader, Reiki Healer, New Age
Guru - paranoid schizophrenia.
Mom
BarbieBF
*Fluid intelligence (Gf), crystallized intelligence (Gc),
quantitative reasoning (Gq), reading and
writing ability (Grw), short-term memory (Gsm), long-term storage and retrieval
(Glr), visual processing (Gv), auditory processing (Ga), processing speed (Gs)
and decision/reaction time/speed (Gt).
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