Your Narcissist: Madman or Genius? (Based on News Intervention Interview)

Prof. Vaknin on Genius and Insanity

Cerebral narcissist regards himself as misunderstood and unappreciated genius.

Actually, he is depressed. His depression accounts for his sexual abstinence (no libido) around which he constructs a grandiose ideology of superiority.

The problem is that both madness and genius involve the ability to reframe reality in an unexpected way (i.e., provide insight) either by gaining a synoptic or interdisciplinary vantage point – or by radically departing from hidden underlying assumptions.

The scientific method is designed to tell the two apart by applying the test of falsifiable predictions.

Both madness and genius are theories of the world and of the mind and, like every other type of theory, they yield predictions which can then be tested and falsified.

Most of the predictions yielded by insanity are easily and instantly falsifiable.

Most of the predictions garnered by genius hold water for long stretches of time and, even when falsified, it is only in private cases or in extreme conditions.

Thus, the theories of relativity falsify Newtonian prediction only on vast scales with incredible energies.

Psychopathology is rigid. It is unyielding, not amenable to learning, nauseatingly repetitive, constricting, and divorced from reality (impaired reality testing).

The genius is immersed in the world even if he is a recluse, he learns and evolves all the time, his mind is kaleidoscopic and vibrant, ever expanding. Insanity is mummified, genius is life reified.

Is high intelligence required for true genius?

If by intelligence you mean IQ then the answer is a resounding no. The adage about perspiration and inspiration applies.

But, more importantly, genius is the ability to see familiar things in a fresh, unprecedented way.

Imagination, intuition, and the ability to tell apart the critical from the tangential are the core constituents of genius – not intelligence.

What intelligence does contribute to genius is alacrity. It is a catalyst. It speeds up both the processes of theorizing and of discovery.

What happens to an insane person who happens to have high intelligence too?

Vaknin: He is likely to construct theories that will pass for genius, especially among laymen.

The intelligence of the gifted madman serves to camouflage the lack of rigor and the delusional, counterfactual content of his creations. Rather than catalyze disruptive discoveries, his intellect works overtime at the service of aggressively defending a manifestly risible sleight of hand. It is not open to any modificatory feedback from the environment. The madman’s intellect is solipsistic and moribund.

What happens in the mind of a genius who slowly deteriorates into an insane person?

He visibly transitions from cognitive flexibility to defensive and hypervigilant rigidity (confirmation bias).

His work becomes way more easily falsifiable, sometimes even with mere Gedankenexperiments.

He repeats himself ad nauseam. He becomes grandiose (cognitively distorts reality to buttress an inflated and fantastic self-image).

How do fake geniuses cover for their lack of insight, ingenuity, intelligence, etc.?

They copy and plagiarize. They imitate a real genius’s structured thinking and work.

They are good at promoting themselves and getting credit where none is due.

Most of these frauds are actually intelligent, but dark personalities (subclinical narcissists, subclinical psychopaths).

Is true genius more inborn, innate, native to the individual or more honed, refined, developed extrinsically?

We know that IQ is responsive to environmental stimuli. The analytic kind of genius (IQ above 140 or 160) is by far the most studied because it is the most facilely measurable. There are no studies that rigorously link it to heredity. On balance, anecdotal evidence clearly suggests that genius is acquired and can be inculcated at an early age if the child is subjected to rigorous training and a regime of positive and negative reinforcements.

It would behoove us to make a distinction between polymath or synoptic genius and “idiot savant” type of one-track mental acuity (think “Rain Man”). The latter form definitely is neurological and, probably, with a pronounced genetic contribution.

Jacobsen: Some mental disorders, including schizophrenia, appear mostly heritable. Is it the same for various states of insanity in general?

Vaknin: We don’t know enough, not by a long shot. Certain mental illnesses present with structural and functional abnormalities of the brain that are very likely to be genetically coded for: schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder. Other mental health issues run in families, so a genetic component is indicated: Borderline Personality Disorder and psychopathy, for instance.

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