Geniuses are all meant to suffer. Well, that’s not completely true but not completely false either…
Being born with a slight autistic side, I can tell you that this is wrong. However I can also tell you that the current society is not evolved enough for geniuses to be happy.
Moreover, I eventually found out that, intelligence in general was the very source of all our problems in life, and that society was not evolved enough for any of us to master it. Genius or not. Because society and science doesn’t even know what intelligence is.
So first, what is intelligence?
As an AI engineer, this question has haunted me for years. Here are some of the many answers I’ve got from various researchers in this field.
Intelligence is defined by:
- The power of imagination.
- The range of our predictions.
- Creativity.
- Introspection.
- Generative computation: recursive and combinatorial operations.
- Symbols and associations allowing us to capitalize on our learnings.
- Simply the environment in which we evolved.
- Some even say that beginning to walk through various landscapes made us smart.
In reality… all of those answers are right and share a very specific common point, which is the source of any intelligence. This common point is:
Recursion.
This is the recursive power of our brain that creates huge virtuous or vicious circles that will either benefit us or destroy us.
Recursion is most of the time referred as meta-cognition.
To make it simple, this is the mechanism that allow you to think that you think.
Here is how I simplify it and model it in my Artificial Intelligence papers:
This recursive infinite cycle that regulate our brain by connecting its outputs to its own inputs is what will create all of our intelligent behaviors, from the most harmonious ones to the most disgusting ones.
Indeed, those recursive circles can stack on themselves to the infinite and amplify any form of intelligent behavior, emotion or action to heights. Meaning that even if you have an insignificant seed of harmful thought in your mind, those recursive cycles can amplify it to a point where it can even kill you.
Yeah… scary…
Here is an example of how this cycle can be the worst thing of your life. And later I’ll give you an example of how it can be the best thing of your life as well.
- Imagine that you’re driving on a calm road and suddenly see a red road sign on it.
- The red is a color that will automatically make you think about something like “danger!”.
- Now because of your recursive brain’s structure, this “danger!” thought will become an input as well, and your brain will start thinking about everything that you associate to “danger!”.
- We can imagine that you’ll think about a car crash you saw on TV yesterday.
- Now this crash becomes your input again, so you’ll now think about what you associate to a car crash, like dying or suffering from it.
- Now this suffering becomes your input once again, and you’ll start feeling this pain for real, your blood pressure will rise, adrenaline comes in, your hands shake…
- A few other recursive cycles happen on that, you end up loosing control of your vehicle and crash for real.
This is how your natural intelligent recursive power can come from a very insignificant negative seed to your own death.
This is how peoples develop all sorts of mental illness like paranoia, addictions, social anxiety, etc.
On the other hand, if you succeed to control your thoughts by not letting them going through those infinite recursive cycles, you’ll live a far more happier life. Trust me.
But you shouldn’t completely stop the recursions either, since this is what makes you smart and happy as well.
You should only stop the recursions before it goes too far.
Personally, for any virtual thought going through my mind, I will force myself to stop at the second or third recursive cycle. Like that, I benefit from my natural intelligent structure, and I don’t suffer from any useless and harmful thought coming out from it.
Just choose a limit and hold onto it.
For example, here is how those cycles can gives you the happiest life:
- Imagine that you’re talking to your boss about the new project you want to integrate into your company, and he suddenly tells you that he doesn’t have time for that unfortunately.
- Now you’ll make a recursion on his answer and think about what means “I don’t have time for that”. Now you’ll think “what does he have time for then?”.
- This question will become your inputs again, and now you’ll start imagining an answer to it like: “Maybe he needs to spend time onto the budget of the company since our finances are not going so well those days.”
- Now this virtual answer will become your input again, and you’ll start imagining an appropriate answer to say to your boss. You stop the recursive cycles here since it has already been 3 cycles and capitalize on it by giving your boss the answer you just thought about: “I know that our company is not going so well and that you indeed need time to rework our finances. That’s why I developed this new idea…”
- Now he will maybe starts listening to you thanks to your very smart answer and all of those recursive cycles you did in your mind.
That’s how your recursive power can give you the happiest life.
So by being conscious about this recursive power, source of any intelligence, you can now control it, stop any of your addictive behaviors, any of your anxious behaviors — And on the other hand you can now start capitalizing on your natural intelligent structure at the most perfect time, when you need it the most.
This is how powerful you are.
You are born extremely powerful.
But nobody taught you how to use this power.
Hopefully, this is not too late.
Recursion is the answer!
Do you recall loosing your mind into toxic thoughts? Becoming almost crazy?
Would you succeed to stop the madness now that you read this article?
Let me know! I will be happy to help you mastering that wonderful natural tool, which is: intelligence.
