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Nikko Scelzo

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Is everyone capable of deep intellectual thought?

I have been thinking a lot lately and I have wondered whether or not the average person is capable of the intellectual thoughts of the "geniuses" of our world. Is it possible that the geniuses of our world have just been fortunate enough to connect the dots and that everyone is capable of these thoughts, they just have not had that sort of... self discovery yet.

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Topics: adventures and dreams curiosity driven life deep thought enlightenment freedom of thought goals intellectuals self discovery
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    Debra Smith 200+

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    Oct 7 2011: It is a simple fact that as many as 60% of university students never reach the stage of formal operations (Piaget) which distilled is abstract thought. This is seldom discussed or written about. That means that many, many people never understand sarcasm, irony or other abstractions in math and in other areas of cognition.
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      Nikko Scelzo

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      Oct 7 2011: As far as morals go, I have been thinking about them a lot lately. I have been wondering... what is it that decides these morals? I believe that it has been societal influence, the way that we have learned many things in our life, through association. We interpret this information differently though that is why people have different morals... it is similar to a math problem... with an infinite number of variables... influences on our life... on our brain... our interpretations of these experiences are due to our interpreting of all of the previous experiences... when i was thinking about morals... i saw them as a problem of clarity...peoples morals vary from person to person because when we are taught the morals they are not clearly defined...they are a part of our subconscious... another way i was looking at this issue is psychopaths... because i believe that it is key to look at extreme situations as well as the average... because they can tell you a lot about something... psychopaths are known as people without any morals... they are able to act without any emotional impact... i.e. killing someone without any remorse... this may seem to be a very unstable person... someone who does not function properly... but i believe that psychopaths might even have a greater understanding of the world than most people...it may not be that they do not have morals it may be that they do not agree with the societal influences... they do not feel as though society should be able to tell them "this is wrong" or perhaps they do not know that something is wrong, they failed to learn that lesson.... why is something morally wrong? because we have decided in the past? okay if so then how do we make these decisions... what is the right moral decision when deciding what the value is? is one life worth more than another? is a childs life worth more than an adult? we often see this as being the case because the child did not get a chance to live yet.
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        Frans Kellner 100+

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        Oct 8 2011: Just a remark.
        I do not like the word 'psychopaths' and praise the day it will be vanished from our language.

        There are people with deficient brains in the way that input is processed a bit different than usual. They conflict with society and in many cases can develop psychoses.
        A psychosis you can see as an illness as the body dysfunctions. If this happens there is nothing wrong with their hearts and they are often confused but loving and caring people.

        Psychopaths are mental healthy people with good brains that in contrast have a heart of stone due to a lot of atrocities they had to injure as they grew up. They’ve shut themselves off of their feelings to survive.

        I noticed that few people make this distinction and hold the mentally ill for the mentally disturbed and mix it all up. The first are not dangerous and need our care, the second can be dangerous and need our love.
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          Nikko Scelzo

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          Oct 8 2011: Words are meant for communication...I used the word because it is what the mental illness has been defined as in reference to these people. I do not believe neither person to be at fault for the things that they do, it is merely the way they have interpreted the messages society has given them. It is because of lack of clarity that the lessons that are meant to be taught are not always learned. People retain different lessons from the same situations.
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        Debra Smith 200+

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        Oct 9 2011: Please let us not be glib about psychopaths. I had to study them intensively when I was developing a neuroscience tool for a computer input. If there is such a thing as an evil human being, psychopaths are the very definition of evil. Much of what we know in the media about them is a function of their own superlative skills of manipulation. They are not always formed by abuse. They are not always caught. They are people who are so self centered that the only thing that counts is their own pleasure and success to the extent that if it gives them pleasure to rape and torture a child that is just the way it is. This is why I reject Ayn Rand philosophies so completely.

        Here is an old interview with the world expert on the topic.

        http://youtu.be/VkRUyGkmEj0

        In addition, only the stupid ones get caught. The rest are out there and often in the business world where exploitation, lies, and ruthlessness are most grandly compensated. For more information on this please read "Snakes in Suits" by Robert Hare PhD world expert in psychopathology.
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      Nikko Scelzo

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      Oct 7 2011: but how many adult lives is that childs life worth? 1? 10? 100? at what age does someone life become less important? what if one of these people are the next world genius... and how would we know? these are all stemmed from clarity...we do not know the answer to these questions...(or at least i don't nor am I aware of a way that this should be properly decided) well... anyway this is the reason for this question.... I was wondering what other peoples opinions were on the subject... and once again everything i am speaking of is all based on my personal insight and what i have observed in the world... I may be wrong... but this is why I believe that everyone is capable of deep thought ... just some are not able to connect the dots
      hope you all have a wonderful day and keep up the responses i find them very interesting to read (and i will reply to them all as long as time permits me to do so)
      p.s. sorry for my lack of grammar I tend to just write to get my thoughts down as they are in my head

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