From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jul 17 2002 - 16:06:42 MDT
On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 11:42:22AM -0700, Osher Doctorow wrote:
>
> I agree with Anders on the present email and with Aldous Huxley also in the
> present email, but I would go much further. Nobody is challenging the
> function of sex in procreation, not even I. But this is hardly the function
> of sex in materialistic societies of either the West or the East (former
> USSR, etc.). It is an adjunct and in fact one of the most important
> aspects of materialism as opposed to knowledge-orientation. The fact is
> that to become a Creative Genius, one has to be eventually obsessed with
> knowledge. I've met quite a few people obsessed with sex in my 63 years,
> and they were neither mentally nor physically capable of spending much time
> being obsessed with knowledge.
But is it worthwhile to be obsessed? I think one can measure human
growth and happiness in how much flow experiences a person experiences.
Obsessed people often have much flow, but eventually you tend to reach a
point of dimnishing returns when you are very good at something. Hence I
think well rounded renaissance people are more likely to experience much
flow. Being well rounded doesn't preclude having a few great
specialities.
J.S. Bach was definitely a creative genius, but also very fond of both
sex and love, as his even for his time large family demonstrates. OK,
one data point does not evidence make, but I think the evidence suggests
that most of the really successful geniuses - Picasso, Freud, Newton,
Gauss and Linneaus - did more than just one thing (and with the
possible exception of Newton, did have lovelives).
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:31 MST