The Genius Checklist: Nine Paradoxical Tips on How You can Become a Creative Genius
Dean Keith Simonton
MIT Press (October 2018)

How to co-create “a cultural florescence most worthy of posterity’s admiration”

What seems to be Dean Keith Simonton’s working definition of creative genius? Consider this observation: “Authentic genius leaves an impact longer than a testing session, creating a pervasive impression that endures for decades, even centuries.”

The material in this book is based on 150 years of research and much (most?) of it has not been accessible to general readers. Simonton extracted what he views as the “central discoveries,” adding his own thoughts about them. With regard to the nine tips they are “paradoxical.” Consider the first:

TIP 1
Score at Least 140 on an IQ Test/Don’t Even Bother Taking the Test

If you’re smart enough to score 140 or better at an early age, you can “then spend the rest of your life basking in the glory of certified geniushood…But if you don’t succeed, even after multiple retesting, there’s no need to despair. Just pick some ‘department of art, speculation, or practice,’ and then achieve eminence for some ‘imaginative creation, original thought, invention, or discovery.'” Simonton urges his reader to use the nine tips as “a sort of double-edged checklist” when making an assessment of creative genius.

In Dallas near the downtown area, a few of the merchants offer complimentary slices of fresh fruit as samples of their wares. In that spirit, I now offer a few brief excerpts that suggest the thrust and flavor of Simonton’s thinking.

o Salvador Dalí boasted of having an IQ of 180. “But given the bizarre images that float in his wildest surrealistic paintings, it seems like IQ 180 was just barely enough to keep him sane. That IQ partition would then explain Dalí’s own perplexing paradox: ‘The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.'” (Page 51)

o “You’ll need to lean heavily on both [your home and school environments] if you want to become a creative genius. Too bad you’re not given a menu at the moment of conception to make these critical selections easy. Even so-called designer babies require designed environments!” (78)

o It is noteworthy that both Copernicus and Goethe “were able to accomplish so much in so little time develops the ultimate coup de grace for the 10-year rule [i.e. peak performance requires ten years of deep, disciplined practice] — at least if you aspire to become a polymath. If not, then just start studying very hard, and very narrowly focused! You’ll then avoid becoming a dilettante, but still fall short of creative genius in any domain.” 129)

o If the certification of creative genius depends on the production of a major work — as separated from apprentice pieces and juvenilia — then becoming a child prodigy seems an ideal way to go.” (158) However, most of those who read this brilliant book will probably be too old to qualify. They cannot join the ranks of John von Neumann, J.S. Mill, Alexander Pushkin, Pablo Picasso, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

o “The creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi may be a psychologist, but he still advanced the position that creativity is not a purely psychological phenomenon. Instead of creativity taking place within an individual’s head, it is something that comes out of the interaction between an individual and a specific domain and field — the three domains of his systems model. The domain is defined by a specific set of ideas, concepts, definitions, theorems, images, themes materials, genres, styles, methods, techniques, goals, criteria, and so forth.” (235) Genius absorbs and digests the given domain, transcending and often transforming in ways and to an extent that had not been done before.

Simonton has written a “must read” for those who have one or more of these questions in mind:

What are the most common misconceptions about the term “genius”?
How can I become a creative genius?
How can I help someone else [e.g. daughter or son) to become a creative genius?
What do all creative geniuses share in common?
Are creative geniuses born, developed, or both?

My own opinion is that the term “genius” has been misapplied so widely and so frequently that it has lost much of the significance it once possessed. It is absurd, for example, to characterize Joey (“Jaws”) Chestnut as a genius because he set a new world record by chomping down 74 hot dogs (and buns) in 10 minutes. I’m going with Dean Keith Simonton’s suggestion that “authentic genius leaves an impact longer than a testing session, creating a pervasive impression that endures for decades, even centuries.” Presumably Chestnut will not.