Originally posted by ivanhoewhat is that all about?
Chesterton, G. K. (1874 - 1936)
Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.
Orthodoxy ch. 2.
Originally posted by ivanhoeHmm... not sure I agree with that; I think there is a definite relation between creative genious and madness - and creative genius can manifest itself in the sciences as well as arts. Not all geniouses are mad of course, but think of how many of the most notable geniuses in history had some level of mental problems.
Chesterton, G. K. (1874 - 1936)
Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.
Orthodoxy ch. 2.
Also, I disagree with grouping mathematicians with cashiers, and contrasting them against "creative artists". Mathematicians, the truly great ones, must surely be creative, probably more so than the average poet!
It seems that if the danger lies somewhere, it lies in beeing excessively prodigious and creative in whatever your disipline may be.
-Jarno
Originally posted by SirLoseALot
I don't think there's any relation,lots of people have mental problems.It's just that the geniuses catch the public's attention,while the fact that 'the guy next door' acts looney is nothing worth mentioning.
You're absolutely right !
That's why I posted that quotation !
Ivanhoe Joe
Proud member of the Illustrious Loonies Clan. 🙄
... and you are right too Jarno !!
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783)
Thus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those delicate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this .... The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents.... Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who most deserves to be placed beside Homer.
Discours Preliminaire de L'Encyclopedie, Tome 1, 1967. pp 47 - 48.
I like this quote, especially in conjunction with the quote of my previous post.
Originally posted by ivanhoeSorry Ivanhoe, but I just have to say that if that's not the singularly most misguided statement that I've encountered on RHP, it surely is a good contender for the title.
Chesterton, G. K. (1874 - 1936)
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
The Man who was Orthodox. 1963.
In essense, it seems to translate into "logic is only useful if it agrees with a foregone conclusion"
Truth does not fear logic, as it cannot be contradicted by logic. So if you haven't found the truth, whatever it may be, logic is your best way of eliminating untruths, and thus getting closer to what you seek. If your "truth" is contradicted by logic, then it's a fiction, not a truth.
If you have truly found the truth, then logic is still your best friend - it allows you to defend the truth you hold, and by continuously probing it with logic, and continuously discovering how well it stands up to the challenges, the truth you hold will become even more evident to you and others.
Those that state things like the quote above reveal their fear of what logic may have to say about their cherished beliefs, which seems to imply that since truth has nothing to fear from logic, they are, on some level quite insecure about the actual truthfulness of their cherished beliefs.
-Jarno
Originally posted by SirLoseALotI must stress that I'm not saying that creativity or genius must be accompanied with mental instability, but rather that the frequency of mental disorders appears to me to be higher among the creative professions than the general populace - and I don't think that it's just a matter of creative people beeing more in the public eye. After all, sport's figures and TV weather reporters are also in the public eye, but it's hard to come up with specific examples of people from those professions suffering from mental disorders, much much hader than it would be to name cases among poets, composers or scientists.
I don't think there's any relation,lots of people have mental problems.It's just that the geniuses catch the public's attention,while the fact that 'the guy next door' acts looney is nothing worth mentioning.
I actually did a little research on the net to see whether there's any substance to my hunch, and I did find that the subject has been studied.
I found an interesting article at http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Gosselink.html
It quotes several studies on the subject, all of which seem to indicate that there is a clear a conection between high creativity and higher incidence various metal disorders, though possible sources of error are also listed, as good scientific practice requires.
-Jarno
Everett, Edward (1794-1865)
In the pure mathematics we contemplate absolute truths which existed in the divine mind before the morning stars sang together, and which will continue to exist there when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from heaven.
Quoted by E.T. Bell in The Queen of the Sciences, Baltimore, 1931.
Karl Friedrich Gauss:
There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.
In J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956. p. 314.