The Secret Principles of Genius

by I C Robledo

  Take someone else’s point of view

  Whenever you find yourself in disagreement with someone, do your best to consider things from their point of view. You don’t need to accept their point of view as your own, but try to understand how someone with their upbringing and understanding of the world could come to the perspective that they have. Try to justify their actions and imagine how perhaps even you would have taken their viewpoint if you had had similar experiences as them.

  For example, go as deeply as you can into their past. Don’t settle for a superficial understanding of the person. What generation were they a part of? Did something very dramatic happen in those times, like a war or an economic crisis? What type of people did they grow up with? What was the general attitude or opinion of the people they were surrounded by? What did their parents do for a living? What kind of income did they have? What was the general environment like? Was it well kept, or run down? Did they face any special difficulties that might have changed the way they saw the world? (e.g., a disability, poverty, prejudice, etc.) When you have gone as deep as you can, ask yourself, if everything had happened to you exactly as it did for them, would you feel the same as they do? Is your perspective right and their perspective wrong? Or are they simply just different perspectives, not necessarily right or wrong? Think about the questions and your answers deeply. Don’t rush to a conclusion.

  Seek alternative viewpoints, even when you are extremely firm on where you stand

  When you have a viewpoint that you know you are especially firm on and that you are certain you would never change your position on, it is still helpful to consider the alternative viewpoint. Chances are you already understand what you believe, and that you know your position very well. Interestingly, many of us choose to surround ourselves with people, books, and messages that support our own worldview. However, we could stand to learn a lot more if we sought out information and perspectives that opposed our worldview. This can feel extremely uncomfortable for some people. It will mean if you are a democrat, to sometimes listen to news networks who side more with republicans (or vice versa). It will mean if you are atheist, to occasionally listen to the experiences and beliefs of religious people (or vice versa). The extra challenge is not just to expose yourself to other viewpoints but to actually take them in with an open mind. Again, the point is not to change your mind, but to simply expand your ability to understand how and why others may perceive the world in a different way.

  Learn a new language to practice shifting perspectives

  Even if you do not become fluent, learning a new language can be a useful exercise. Speaking another language is a great way to start perceiving the world in a new light. Many things will be different from what you are used to, forcing you to consider a different perspective. For example, how words are arranged into sentences, the use of certain types of phrases, and the culture will probably all be different from what you are used to. All of these things will expose you to a new way of seeing the world. If you learn enough, you may become interested in traveling to a country where your foreign language of choice is spoken. When you do speak with people in their native language, they will see that you are open to perceiving the world in a different way, and you may be surprised that they open up to you and show you a different way of thinking, doing, and being.

  Secret Principle #27 : Develop Your Intuition

  “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

  – Steve Jobs, American information technology entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder and former CEO of Apple

  Geniuses Who Applied the Principle

  Albert Einstein, Bobby Fischer, Jane Goodall, Steve Jobs, Stu “The Kid” Ungar

  Description of the Principle

  I used to think intuition was a word that didn’t have much practical use or meaning. But I was wrong. According to Merriam-Webster, “intuition is a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence: a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why.” In other words, intuition is about having a higher level understanding. It is what happens when you attain a high enough level of expertise that you seem to know automatically what needs to be done in a given situation in your field. You will perform the necessary actions, but may not be able to explain well what you have done, why you did it, or even why it ended up being the correct thing to do. To the novice, intuition may appear magical, like a trick, or perhaps blind luck. But it is the furthest thing from this. Intuition is the result of much practice and forming a true understanding.

  Consider Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players of all time. He understood chess so deeply that he did not need to think through every possible chess move to know if it was any good. This played to his advantage in blitz games (or speed chess), where he was known to dominate despite having very little time to calculate moves. Instead of calculating, he had an intuitive feeling as to whether one path would be better than others. He could quickly focus his attention on the one or two worthwhile paths due to his intuition, instead of needing to waste time and energy on a lot of paths that would lead to a losing game. Fischer was able to understand positions quite deeply in very little time. Some people may confuse intuition for making fast calculations, but this is not how it works. Intuitive powers allow one, through great experience, to understand a problem well enough to know the likely conclusions without needing to think logically step by step through every detail.

  There are various jobs or fields where powers of intuition are greatly important. For example, some people make a living tapping watermelons, to check if they are ripe and good to eat. Others check newborn chicks to determine the gender. As reported in “The Art of Chicken Sexing” by Richard Horsey:

  Expert chick sexers are able to quickly and reliably determine the sex of day-old chicks on the basis of very subtle perceptual cues. They claim that in many cases they have no idea how they make their decisions. They just look at the rear end of a chick, and ‘see’ that it is either male or female.

  You might wonder why anyone would want to determine the sex of a newborn chick in the first place. The answer is economics. To farmers, the more valuable chicks are the females, because they will lay eggs which can be sold. Therefore, they would prefer to invest their time and money on raising these females. And they prefer to identify them soon after birth, as opposed to spending energy on raising too many males which will not lay eggs.

  There are also professional poker players who do not focus on the math of the game. Rather, they are experienced enough that their intuitive grasp makes it unnecessary to do deep calculations. Consider Stu “The Kid” Ungar, widely believed to be the best poker player who ever lived. He was also so good at Jim Rummy that most players refused to play him. And he won so much at Blackjack that he was eventually unable to find a game in Las Vegas. Stu Ungar, and players like him, develop a feel for how they should play their hand. This is based on the thousands of hands they’ve played in the past and seen others play.

  In Your Worst Poker Enemy by Alan N. Schoonmaker, he summarizes how intuition can work:

  The intuitive players have a gift, and it is as natural to them as Michael Jordan’s miraculous moves were to him. When someone unexpectedly blocked him, he responded instantly by switching hands, twisting his body, and shooting the ball a little higher with a little different spin. He could never tell you how he did it; it was just by feel or instinct.

  Some great poker players have that gift: they remember how you played a certain hand or they see a look in your eye or they sense something from the way you handle your chips, and they make exactly the right play. If you ask why they did it, they probably can’t say. It just felt right.

 
I think of intuition as a developed instinct. It is not a true instinct, because by definition, instincts are innate, not learned. But intuition is a developed sense that becomes an automatic process (like an instinct). This intuitive feel helps us bypass the need for deep calculations, even when dealing with complex problems.

  Benefits of the Principle

  Intuition is not an ability we can choose to turn on and off. It is built up over time with expertise in an area. But when you do build up your levels of intuition, the benefits can be immense. To some people, you may even appear to have a special power, as silly as this may seem. You will be able to do things that astound people and seem impossible, simply through a highly developed sense of intuition. The key benefit is that you will be able to make precise decisions that lead to the best outcomes in a short time, and have great confidence in your abilities.

  Someone with highly developed intuitive abilities can be extremely productive, and highly valued. Often, the intuitive person will be able to see things that escape others. One of the keys to achieving the highest levels of productivity is to develop intuitive skills, as this will help solve tough problems in a faster more efficient way. Understand that intuition is a higher level skill set, and there are many people who will never fully develop this ability. An intuitive ability will be expressed differently in different fields. But in certain fields, as with watermelon checkers (for ripeness) and chicken sexing, intuition will clearly have very direct and immediate benefits.

  How to Apply the Principle

  Gain expertise first

  There is no simple shortcut to reach a high level of intuition. To develop it will require a great amount of work, probably over a long period, and to become an expert in a field. Even expertise alone may not be enough to fully develop your intuitive abilities. To develop the highest level of intuition will usually require ongoing practice using it as a skill. But it is pointless to try to exercise your intuition until you have at least some expertise in your field or topic.

  Understand that intuition will be a different type of skill in different domains. An intuition for knowing what people are feeling will be a different type of skill than an intuition for composing music. You will have to focus on one kind of intuition at a time in order to master it.

  Practice your intuition

  A way to help develop your intuition when you have built your expertise, is to practice making intuitive judgments, of course. Many of us never practice intuition, probably because we are not aware that it is a skill that can be practiced. But it can be. As an example, consider reading people’s feelings as an intuitive skill. When you walk into your work area, or your classroom if you are a student, you can try studying the faces of some of your colleagues. Try to figure out if they are sad, happy, tired, content, upset, disappointed, proud, etc. When you think you have the feeling pinned down, you can simply ask how their day is going, and see if their response lines up with the feeling you detected in them. If you think this is a flawed way to test your intuition because someone can lie, or appear happy but be sad inside, this is true. There is a lot of potential deception in human behavior, and I would say taking those things into account is part of strengthening your intuition. The other point I would make is that intuition is not easy to test for, and every way to test and develop your intuition will probably have some flaw. This is one of the reasons few people develop their intuition to a high level, because it is not simple or easy to make progress with it. It will take true dedication and work.

  Verbalize, or write down the things you do intuitively (or without thought)

  Many of us are intuitive at something. If you have a child, perhaps you know what all of her facial expressions mean automatically, without being able to put it into words. If you look at the sky on a cloudy day, perhaps you sense whether it will rain or not. Intuitive feelings are difficult to put into words, and it may feel like an impossible task at first. But simply practicing breaking it down into concrete steps, may help you to learn new things more intuitively.

  Here are some key questions you can ask, which may help in breaking down your intuitive processes:

  What is the most important feature (e.g., signal, clue) that helped me get to the correct solution?

  Where did my mind go first, when I came across this problem?

  What are the actions I take, every time I have this problem? And in what order do I do them?

  Are there certain key things I always observe or check, before I am able to solve the problem?

  What seems to cause others failure, but allows me to succeed at this problem?

  The point of thinking through such questions is to help you get into a habit of breaking down the thought process or action steps that you go through in solving problems intuitively. This will give you a better insight into how intuition works, which may help you to actually learn to be more intuitive in other areas.

  Secret Principle #28 : Maximize Your Freedom of Action and Limit the Constraints

  “Intelligence should be viewed as a physical process that tries to maximize future freedom of action and avoid constraints in its own future.”

  – Alex Wissner-Gross, American computer scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur.

  Geniuses Who Applied the Principle

  Jorge Luis Borges, Albert Einstein, Alex Wissner-Gross, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Artificial Intelligence Systems

  Description of the Principle

  Alex Wissner-Gross, the computer scientist quoted above, has researched the importance of freedom of action for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Even though he mainly applies the principle to AI, he believes this is one of the most universal properties of intelligence. He gave a fascinating TED Talk called A New Equation for Intelligence (viewable at TED.com) on the topic.

  The key point of this principle is that a truly intelligent person, system, or entity will desire to maximize its personal freedom to act. This means it will want to maximize its freedom to make choices, so that in the future it can continue to have many choices or options to make. To understand why this principle is important, consider that the one thing we can be certain of in life and the universe, is uncertainty. And this uncertainty exists because everything around us is constantly changing. Sometimes it happens in a minor way that is barely noticeable, and sometimes in a major way that can be unsettling. A way to help us make the best decisions, no matter how things change, is to pursue the freedom we need to always make the best choices. Keep in mind that another way to view this principle is that we want to limit the constraints placed on us. We want to reduce or eliminate anything that restricts our options.

  The implication of this principle is that an intelligent system or person will be thinking ahead. It will be trying to judge whether certain actions it can take will increase its freedom of action. And it will also try to judge whether certain actions by others will reduce its own freedom of action. This principle is mentioned toward the end of this book because really this implies many things. It implies the necessity of good senses to take in information (Principle #1), having a strong foundation or breadth of knowledge (Principle #11), being objective and seeing things as they are (Principle #19), and understanding the big patterns (Principle #22). It appears that when many other principles are put in place, this one emerges. This is in effect a sort of mega-principle, and one we should all pay attention to.

  Benefits of the Principle

  When you increase your freedom to act, and eliminate possible restrictions on your ability to act, you will be more adaptive (Principle #3). You will allow yourself the most options, and therefore have the greatest opportunities available to you. If you think of the human being as compared to other animals, a key difference is that we are capable of handling a wider variety of problems. Most animals are masters of one or a few skills or abilities. The bloodhound has its sense of smell. The cheetah has its speed. The tortoise has its protective shell. Although humans do not innately have these abilities, we are not as limite
d. For example, humans train bloodhounds to track the scents that are important to us. We build vehicles to go faster than a cheetah. And we have created a variety of protective gear that suit more situations than a protective shell would, often allowing for much greater flexibility.

  We are always capable of learning and mastering something new. A key benefit of increasing our freedom of action is that the more freedom we have, the more options we have, meaning we have a higher ability to make good choices. For example, imagine that someone much bigger and stronger than you picks a fight with you, and keeps walking toward you until there is nothing between you and him. And you are stuck in the corner of a room. You have made the mistake of allowing him to restrict your freedom of action. Your options are now severely limited, and your opponent has every advantage. With such few options, it is much more difficult to engage in intelligent behavior. It would have been more intelligent to have taken any action necessary to avoid this restriction.

  When you increase your freedom of action, you will release yourself from many limitations. You will be in a better position to solve creative problems because of this. For example, the concept of “thinking outside the box” is really about exploring beyond your traditional ways of thinking. We often confine ourselves to certain expectations, but if you increase your range of freedom and see outside of those expectations, you will find that some problems, especially creative problems that seem unsolvable, can suddenly be approached. Many creative problems are set in a way where people tend to define the problems more narrowly than they really are, for example. Looking beyond those limitations will improve your ability to solve them.