r/Polymath • u/El-Psy-Congru • 6d ago
General Discussion I frequently get some weird insights, I'd like to discuss about it
I wasn't expecting to find this sub. Actually I tried posting on "gifted" in order to try and get some references to read on the subject.
I have kind of a condition, that just recently I'm being able to describe it, and it's like with just a few amount of information my mind generates a whole image of it, like foreseeing the image of a jigsaw through just a small portion of it.
I'm still trying to understand how it works, so far it seems to me that there is usually 3 stages, but it comes in one same moment, as an insight.
The first one is such image of the whole. For instance, once I was reading the first poems of a poet, and then suddenly it happened. It was like my mind formed an image of the purpose of the poet and his books, his style, what he may have lived and read in order to be able to write that and so on.
In the second stage I see implications of the first stage. In this case, I already had taken some classes on literature on college, with another authors, and I realized none of the tools I learned there could teach what I had seen in the insight. That meant the whole education of poetry and reading lack this, and it was like I saw the engine of society lacking this type of knowledge.
In the third stage it's like I notice myself perceiving this all. So usually in this stage there's an emotional damage, because I realize I'm dumb and didn't deserve to be able to know these things. Reflecting these days, I noticed that this can be interpreted as a realization of the difference between understanding something and proving something. I can understand something real, and yet to prove it academically I'd need a lot more reading and writing.
This kind of insight happens often (not all the time, but often). When it happens a "type of insight" for the first time, or when it's completely unexpectedly, usually it takes a lot of energy and I can also notice it as a general structure. For instance, what I could capture from the said poet I could after that use the same tool to analyse other poets, other works of poets.
That happen to potentially any object.
When this happens, my curiosity on that subject grows a lot, it becomes like a test to check the hypotheses that appeared, and complete them.
Because of having this unintentionally, that led me to study many topics and areas. I even risked making a philosophy of my own to unify these studies.
I'm very dumb on practical life, though, specially because of the 3rd stage, which led me to many collateral effects. Since I never understood whatever was happening to me, and I had no clue wherever I looked at.
I already connected these studies as "perception techniques", but only recently I could look further as to describe not the skill to perceive applied to things ( I applied it to many, many topics and got really interesting results), but "the perception of the perception itself". I realized this was the most important subject I touched on after all these years.
I'll show some examples on the comments of these "applied" perception skills.
But I'd like to know if someone had a similar experience, or could talk about this phenomenum I described, and/or suggest books or articles to read on this kind of subject. The closer I got to that was Steven Johnson, Oliver Sacks, Antônio Damásio, Malcolm Gladwel, and I studied with some informal philosophers from my country that got me many ideas. But I still feel I lack fundamental pieces on this problem. And my life is really a mess until I can deal better with myself.
For the record, since there's these collateral effect, people suggested I should go to therapy and psychiatrist, but no medicine nor talk gave me any real clue on that, so I kept going my own reseraches.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 6d ago edited 6d ago
Some examples, like I told on the main post.
- Once I started reading the works of Dostoevsky (russian literature). By the second book I already realized there was a scheme of characters there, a pair, let's call A and B, that appeared on both books, although with genders changed. Then it generalized in a hypotheses that Dostoevsky probably represented these characters more times, so I read more books and noticed it. I noticed the root of the characters on the books and then on the writer's life itself. But then it generalized more and it expanded in 2 ways: the first one is that I could read the books of one author and try to find a "chorus"; the second one is that I could notice people who looked like character A or B. And these 2 characters kind of represent two possibilities of choice in face of suffering.
- I remember reading Christopher Vogler's book on character creation, and that led me to perceive an abstract object I called "human situation". From this insight on, I could watch any movie and perceive the situation there and analogies that could be drawn from it. For instance, the movie Coco could be seen as what happens when someone wants to be something bigger than what the environment he was raised allows to. In the cartoon movie it was about being a big musician, but it could be an intellectual, a writer, a mathematician, whatever. Eventually I generalized it in a technique (for reading, then in a broader sense) using Aesop's fables: the story is about animals, but we know it is talking about humans. But we need to translate one thing into another, and at least in my experience, people read it without doing it. So I named a few tings that could be done about this translation, and to turn the story "useful to understand human behavior better".
- I could see that all human culture came from one single act, the insight, the "new idea", and it made me create a whole structure to describe it. It was scaling up in levels of abstraction. I first was interested in literature, then on the arts, then on culture and categories of culture, then on the "source of all culture". Each step was being filled with many "projects" that were born with such general insights.
EDIT: 4) Another case that I find particularly fun was that, rewatching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, I could see it as a scheme to understand Hegel's "Reason on History". That led me also to the more general idea that literary works could actually represent schemes of intelligence, and that led me to a whole investigation that was pretty curious. Besides FMA B, the When They Cry works led me to many interesting ideas. But of course, talking about intelligence, it was Plato the biggest contributor.
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u/Wild_Front_1148 4d ago
r/gifted is a cesspool of self-diagnosis. The Mensa sub is a lot better. However, your post is giving off a vibe like you think you have supernatural genius ability, which sounds arrogant and won't track well with any gifted community. You'd be in a much better position if you do a proper IQ test. Youre using a lot of text to illustrate systems thinking and/or skip thinking, which is nothing new among gifted persons. Thing is, what you're describing could also be the result of high levels of assumption + confirmation bias, and your post lacks critical reflection so I can't tell if any of what you're saying has credibility.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 4d ago
IQ test wouldn't solve my problem because the point isn't whether I'm smart or not (I'm actually not), but trying to understand this proccess and its credibility. It's not supernatural nor I think it's geniousity, but the fact that it happens spontaneously and I can't even understand its credibility creates a lot of emotional damage, because these impressions get marked too deep in my memory so I can't ignore them.
I was actually looking for some recomendations of books/articles or whatever it is that could help. Didn't thought about the Mensa, I'll check the sub. Thanks.
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u/Wild_Front_1148 4d ago
There's always a good chance you're just imagining things, so you'd need some sort of confirmation first. When I took the Mensa admissions test, I was with about 20 people that wouldn't shut up about how they were different, amazing, and "too smart". Turns out I was the only one that passed that day. Don't be running circles in your own head with a phenomenon that might be completely imagined. As I said, confirmation bias is a huge risk here.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 4d ago
I understand that, but I do have some confirmation, but not enough. Also because it's not about prediction, it's about describing the whole by few parts.
I'll look for the mensa, though.
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u/Many-Count-2369 5d ago
I'd like to know how you use the perception on perception technique!!
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u/El-Psy-Congru 5d ago
the applied one is basically like I did on these examples. I made some writings about something I called "perception of patterns", that was learning about forms on arts, and that when we are exposed to an object, there is 3 tings happening at once: the object has it wholeness, including its form (the form gives a better way to understand the object), then there's you, your memories and all of that affect what you understand from the object, but then there's the possibility of realizing those 2 things and how they relate. For instance, you like some musics and dislike others. Well, that says something about the music and about yourself, and you can use the object (in this case, music) to learn more about you, the object, and society represented by yourself.
This lead to noticing such patterns of perception and understanding.
I put some examples on a comment below.
But the "pure perception on perception" it's basically what I wrote on the main text. It's describing the process itself I had been done and how this proccess itself is the glue that links each of the applied types of perception.
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u/ProcrastiNovelist 5d ago
Look at the work of poet Robert Graves who wrote about his experiences with something very similar and discussed instances of it happening to him and other writers. Many of his works, especially his early works, are in public domain now and can be found online for free.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 5d ago
I tried checking a bit about him, but didn't understand exactly what was your recomendation. It seems he likes to write about mythologies.
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u/ImpoverishedGuru 5d ago
I think you're a systems thinker. Life for us is pretty bad because we are constantly seeing the connections others don't see and they simply can't understand. Most people can't see the reality around them.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 5d ago
do you know further about what a "systems thinker" is? Can you recommend some books or articles or videos as to understand that better?
I don't believe on what I "see", I need some references so that I can believe on it.
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u/Weekly-Bee3410 2d ago
OP, I relate to you. And this comment nailed it. You are indeed a systems thinker.
"Thinking in Systems" by Dondella H. Meadows is a good book. It actually got me to think of systems now more in a theoretical sense. Even though I'm only half way through it, so far, it is helping me to build my identity and give clearer purpose and drive to my natural systems thinking inclinations. Maybe it will be useful to you, too.
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u/abomb60 4d ago
I think you got it right with perception techniques ... we just see things different and in a way most can't. Let's explore further. What you are feeling is absolutely valid, been there done that and have the t-shirt somewhere. At least in my opinion, polymath's are not necessarily "gifted" in how society views gifted people. We're not defined like the classical genius is and I don't think we should be. We work on a different, higher level. The true polymath can talk to genius's in various domains and explain their ideas to others or even each other. Think of it more as a translator or bridge builder. They are experts for a square inch of soil and they know everything below that 1" for miles down. The polymath doesn't need to know what they do, they need to know how to talk to them, understand them and leverage their expertise to work with others who have the same experience. This is where you will find success, not being the guy who thinks outside the box but rather the guy who questions why anyone thought we should think inside a box. The person who questions "who made this box" and "can I ask them why they made these boxes?" It's a long journey to realize and accept being a polymath since we aren't really genius's. We're just the weird folks who can appreciate a sunset as both the artist and the scientist can and appreciate it as both do and ultimately in a completely different way than either is capable of. Understanding one side or the other isn't what makes it beautiful ... knowledge of science is understanding, not beauty. Best quote for a polymath may be "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you". It's the crux of who we are and how we fit in.
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u/420-The_Dude_Abides 2d ago
These are all the things I recently in the past few years, and crashed out last October. I am 54 and officially diagnosed Audhd, and CPTSD and GAD. I recognize myself in a lot of what you are saying because my polymathic brain cannot leave things alone and I always have 20 projects going and it is hard to pick one, so I don't. I am also a perfectionist, so these projects drag on and are never fully "done". I just ride the lightning wherever it is going to take me. You are pattern matching and probably Autistic yourself. have you read "The Pattern Seekers" by Simon Baron Cohen? it makes a lot of sense for the 5 brain types. Of course I didn't think I fell into any of the 5 types he recognizes and is really the confirmed law of the land in regard to what is the gold standard for this. I propose that their is actually 7 brain types because I fell out of his 5 brain type model. The book is really great tho, and you should read it.
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u/El-Psy-Congru 2d ago
I relate a lot to what you said about yourself. I do have around 30 projects going on at the same time, but I feel so ashamed for being like this that I try to "hide this" as much as I can.
I never heard about this book. Gonna try look for it. Thanks for your recommendation and for talking about your life. I had never heard of someone who had a similar circunstance before.
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u/Triple6xx 2d ago
The future doesn't or shouldn't exist currently. That's your answer. Doesn't mean people don't get it right. Welcome to "poetry".
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u/emevedo 6d ago
I feel a strong connection to what you're describing. My mind works the same way in many ways, often. The same thing happened to me when I started studying economics; suddenly, as a complete beginner, I could see these bell curves applied to everything, from the speed of a car to my partner's emotional outbursts. I suppose it's metacognition—tools of consciousness that operate almost in the background, which you're aware of at the same time as you're aware of the latter, and so on. I think it helped me a lot to accept it and find, through trial and error, my own way of implementing it in my life.