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  #1 (permalink)  
Old 07-19-2007, 05:19 PM
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Default Become a TRUE Genius - Proven Method

Who said that you can only be a genius if you were born a genius? There is a way to become a genius, but it requires lots of discipline.


Wanna know how? Just BUMP YOUR HEAD IN THE WALL or let people THROW BASEBALLS IN YOUR HEAD until you become a genius.

It's that simple. If your head doesn't split in 2 or if you don't become retarded or a vegetable first, you will eventually become a genius. Look this example of someone who became a genius by this method:


Orlando Serrell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Good luck.
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Old 07-19-2007, 05:24 PM
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Or you can just take a gun to your head and pull it. Works wonders.
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Old 07-19-2007, 05:30 PM
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Sam... for the love of god... don't show that to my wife... or I'm a goner...

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Old 07-19-2007, 09:04 PM
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I have a better one. I've studied one guy, he is an artist and a polyglot. He writes poetry in 92 languages. His story started when he was a soldier in Afganistan in 1980s and his truck blew up on an anti-tank mine. He had a near-death experience, but survived with just head trauma. He suffered from headaches for several years and to get a relief, he studied languages. His reasoning was that the damaged part of the brain was responsible for language processing and practice will help it recover.
Over the years he learned 92 languages - many of them are just dialects and some are dead languages.
He is virtually unknown in the west, and not very famous in Russia, and is known mostly as an artist, poet and photographer.
So, to learn languages easily - you need to blow up on a mine.
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Old 07-19-2007, 09:40 PM
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Yea those cases even though they can be funny are amazing. I got amazed when i got to know about orlando's story. One simple hit in the head and "click"; some part of his brain started developing exceptionally, which also seems to be the case of this polyglot artist.


Scientists should study what happened on their brains so they can replicate what happened. Imagine going to a high technology center where scientists can improve your intelligence by just hitting your head with something; would be quite funny.
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Old 07-19-2007, 09:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam988 View Post
There is a way to become a genius, but it requires lots of discipline.

Wanna know how? Just BUMP YOUR HEAD IN THE WALL or let people THROW BASEBALLS IN YOUR HEAD until you become a genius.
Anyone want to join me in a 30-day trial?
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Old 07-20-2007, 08:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam988 View Post
Yea those cases even though they can be funny are amazing. I got amazed when i got to know about orlando's story. One simple hit in the head and "click"; some part of his brain started developing exceptionally, which also seems to be the case of this polyglot artist.
There's another theory currently tested that is based on an approach that makes even more sense. What if the thing that made him a genius was not a brain improvement, but actually brain damage? What if destroying some part of the brain makes it more efficient?

This is a reference to a New York Times article,which can also be found on Serrell's wikipedia page:

The Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator
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Old 07-20-2007, 04:23 PM
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A little know fact is that Tony Robbins was rather small as a kid and the reason that he is now almost a physical giant is due to a small tumor that grew in his brain and stimulated body growth...

So, it is a fact that sometimes anomalies in the brain can have some positive impact... sadly... those are the exceptions that confirm the rule...

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Old 07-20-2007, 06:43 PM
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Originally Posted by agnostic View Post
There's another theory currently tested that is based on an approach that makes even more sense. What if the thing that made him a genius was not a brain improvement, but actually brain damage? What if destroying some part of the brain makes it more efficient?

This is a reference to a New York Times article,which can also be found on Serrell's wikipedia page:

The Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator


Hah cool stuff, thats what i'm talking about. I hope they research and improve it further.

About brain damage, yea this theory makes sense, since orlando was hit by a baseball, so he must have had some kind of "damage" which actually made his brain function a lot better; who wouldnt want to get "brain damaged" like that?
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Old 07-21-2007, 01:51 PM
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Quote:
There's another theory currently tested that is based on an approach that makes even more sense. What if the thing that made him a genius was not a brain improvement, but actually brain damage? What if destroying some part of the brain makes it more efficient?
I think that's reasonable. Autistic savants are a great example of people that are geniuses in one area but completely lacking in other. Asperger's Syndrome is another example. I have a friend that I think has AS.

My theory is that the division of brain functioning is mainly divided into visual/creative/language skills and logic/mathematic skills, so you kind of have to splilt your talents between the two. When you see anyone that is really a genius in one, they typically are lacking in the other. Perhaps damage to one area is overcompensated by the other?


Anyways, this thread reminds me of Pi because the guy has headaches after a childhood accident. And well, he's also a genius.
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Old 07-21-2007, 07:51 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Addict View Post
My theory is that the division of brain functioning is mainly divided into visual/creative/language skills and logic/mathematic skills, so you kind of have to splilt your talents between the two. When you see anyone that is really a genius in one, they typically are lacking in the other. Perhaps damage to one area is overcompensated by the other?

I previously thought of this theory too, but it doesn't explain the case i previously posted in the thread, the case of Orlando Serrell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 07-22-2007, 01:27 AM
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We don't know whether Orlando Serrell suffers from disadvantages due to his accident.

We have a lot of calculating power in our minds and have no idea how to use it.
When it comes down to calculating 1278956^5 we don't know how to do such a task. If we would have access to our neurons on a per neuron basis 100 neurons would probably be enough to calculate it in seconds.
Sure doing such calculations can help you show off, but we have computers why do we need to calculate 1278956^5 in our head?

Memory is similar, we store the information but are pretty bad at recalling it, because we can't navigate to the information we need.

But we don't have access to them. Human are pattern seekers. Autistic people generally aren't good at filtering information and get have their own problems.

Our brain isn't optimised for mathematical calculation. If they would have been a greater biological advantages than the disadvantages of authismn evolution would have made us all authists.

Quote:
My theory is that the division of brain functioning is mainly divided into visual/creative/language skills and logic/mathematic skills, so you kind of have to splilt your talents between the two. When you see anyone that is really a genius in one, they typically are lacking in the other. Perhaps damage to one area is overcompensated by the other?
Jared Diamond is someone I would consider a genius in both.

The brain is a really complex, blowings things up and gaining a few benefits in addition to a few disadvantages is a bad idea as long as you don't understand how the brain works.
Neither should you try to overclock your computer if you know nothing about computers.
You can do amazing things with clever mnemonics and practice.
Their is a meme about people who play simultan blind chess. Even when it probally isn't true, you should think about it before you do crazy things yourself.

Their are probaly ways to dramatically increase human performance, but take intelligent risks.

With advancement in brain science we will get better at improving our brainfunction in this century (in addition to the ability to link computers directly to our brain to do those stupid calculations).

The only thing we know about the future is that it will different.
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Old 07-22-2007, 02:38 AM
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Interesting. My parents are looking into TMS to help my severely clinically depressed brother who has unsuccessfully tried lots of different meds.
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Old 07-22-2007, 03:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilya View Post
I have a better one. I've studied one guy, he is an artist and a polyglot. He writes poetry in 92 languages. His story started when he was a soldier in Afganistan in 1980s and his truck blew up on an anti-tank mine. He had a near-death experience, but survived with just head trauma. He suffered from headaches for several years and to get a relief, he studied languages. His reasoning was that the damaged part of the brain was responsible for language processing and practice will help it recover.
Over the years he learned 92 languages - many of them are just dialects and some are dead languages.
He is virtually unknown in the west, and not very famous in Russia, and is known mostly as an artist, poet and photographer.
So, to learn languages easily - you need to blow up on a mine.
Do you have any good sources on him? WWW.KOMI.COM/JAPANESE (warning: link in Russian) has an interview with him, where he makes several basic, factual mistakes about the languages he claims to speak (he's -way- off on the number of consonants in Hawaiian, he claims to speak 5 types of English (and claims that Canadian English is called 'Frenglish', which is nonsense - that's only true in part of one city....)). Etc. I've seen interviews utterly mangle what a person has to say before, so I'd be curious if you knew of any better information about him.

The greatest living polyglots that I'm aware of are Eugene M. Czerniawski (Russia, reads 50 languages, speaks many of them fluently), Arvo Juutilainen (Finland, reads nearly 60), Donald Kenrik (UK, reads ~70), and Pent Nurmekund (Estionia, >80).

Other polyglots of note are Alexander Arguelles and Ziad Fazah; both speak, to some degree, over 50 using conventional definitions of language, though the former likes to claim a lower number.

The greatest historical polyglot I'm aware of was Cardinal Mezzofanti.

To the best of my knowledge, none of these guys stepped on any mines or had any head injuries.
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Old 07-22-2007, 04:32 AM
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(and claims that Canadian English is called 'Frenglish', which is nonsense - that's only true in part of one city....)).
It is true that in the Province of Quebec some people will mix English and French words to a small extent... however, that situation is increasingly becoming less and less prevalent...

A French Canadian who was obviously not bilingual once said, "I do not speak much England... but I does the best I are..."

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Old 07-22-2007, 11:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Sam988 View Post
About brain damage, yea this theory makes sense, since orlando was hit by a baseball, so he must have had some kind of "damage" which actually made his brain function a lot better; who wouldnt want to get "brain damaged" like that?
I wouldn't.

The Wikipedia article you quoted says that Orlando can perform "calendrical calculations of amazing complexity". I wouldn't call that a quality of a genius. A genius is someone of incredible intelligence and creative strength. Being able to figure out what day of the week June 18 1994 was doesn't seem that creative to me.
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Old 07-22-2007, 11:18 AM
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he claims to speak 5 types of English...
Yeah, I wouldn't call American English, New Zealand English, and Australian English separate languages, they're too similar. It would make us all polyglots as well
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Old 07-22-2007, 06:32 PM
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I wouldn't.

The Wikipedia article you quoted says that Orlando can perform "calendrical calculations of amazing complexity". I wouldn't call that a quality of a genius. A genius is someone of incredible intelligence and creative strength. Being able to figure out what day of the week June 18 1994 was doesn't seem that creative to me.


Type the word "genius" in dictionary.com, and you will get: genius - Definitions from Dictionary.com

A genius doesnt have to be incredibly intelligent and creative in all areas. There is no person, living or dead, who would qualify as being a "genius" in all areas of knowledge. What thre is is people having exceptional abilities in certain areas, like mozart in music, einstein in physics, etc.

Try making mozart come up with physic formulas or einstein making up symphonies....


Orlando is a genius at NOT ONLY at calculations but also in memory.

While the calculations ability might not be very useful in these days where we have calculators, i doubt there's anyone who wouldnt want to have his memory ability.
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Old 07-23-2007, 05:06 PM
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I was hit by a pair of surgical scissors because the doctor who delivered me when I was born was nervous. I still have a tiny bald spot on my head that is a result of this bump.

Maybe when I achieve something really grand soon in my life, I will tell people this and attribute my genius to the surgical scissors.
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Old 07-23-2007, 05:14 PM
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Originally Posted by Shamou View Post
It is true that in the Province of Quebec some people will mix English and French words to a small extent... however, that situation is increasingly becoming less and less prevalent...

A French Canadian who was obviously not bilingual once said, "I do not speak much England... but I does the best I are..."

.
I lived in Canada for 11 years, in a region where I never even heard the term Frenglish, much less anyone speaking it, so the idea of calling all of Canadian English 'Frenglish' jumped out at me instantly as absurd.
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Old 07-23-2007, 05:54 PM
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Kat,

This thread started with baseball hit on the head to improve one's memory.
I thought I could suggest stepping on a landmine to improve language skills without smiley and not being taken 100% serious

Now, the guy I mentioned has some language skills. He claims that already knew 6 languages prior to the accident. In fact, his skills made KGB think that he is a spy, because "only with spy training one can learn that many languages". To prove that he is a good citizen, he volunteered for Afghanistan duty.

On a serious note... When I studied the guy, I managed to get his phone number, but decided against meeting him. Most of what he claims seems to be self-created myth. Obviously his 93 languages number is inflated with dialects. He also claims that he gets the knowledge of dead languages through channeling. Even if all this is true, it would be hard for me to verify it and knowing that stepping on a mine can have such result is not practical.

I think that he knows some languages. I learned bits and pieces about his learning method. It is nothing special - he uses flash cards to learn words and commute time to practice. What is unusual is his motivation. He says, that "learning new language is like breathing, and not learning is like suffocating". Not a very healthy motivation, but it may be effective.

He also have an interesting success criteria. He considers a language as learned if he can compose poetry in this language.
This might require to know the language grammar, but does not guarantee, that he will be able to maintain conversations in this language. No one says that he writes good poetry

He claims that he made it into Guinness Records Book. It could add credibility to his claims, but again, I don't know how to verify this.

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T. What if the thing that made him a genius was not a brain improvement, but actually brain damage? What if destroying some part of the brain makes it more efficient?
This would make sense to me. I think, it is an scientific fact, that by learning we are actually straightening neural pathways, switching unnecessary circuits off.

However the guy in question is most probably creating a myth about himself.
Calendar calculations and exceptional memory abilities are skills that can be learned with enough practice.
But excellence through hard work is boring, so the guys are better off with a cool myth. I wouldn't hold this against them. It's the problem of public demands.
For me knowing that it is possible to learn this stuff is more interesting then knowing that I can get these skills by head trauma
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Old 07-25-2007, 06:55 AM
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