An Interview with Christian Sorenson on Intelligence, Genius, and Philosophy (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/08

Abstract

Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium.  What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.”  Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife. He discusses: media, genius, and high intelligence; evading public presence; crappy mood as a trait of geniuses; deductive logic; expansion of partials, relatives, and invisibles; science as partials, relatives, and invisibles; the supernatural; living in a multidimensional reality; intuition; genius and theological thinking; theology and the advancement of the material conditions of human beings; cognitive generalism; Ancient Greece generating geniuses; extrasensory perception as an experience and not a reality; meta-intelligence and mystical states; belief behind begging God; nothing making reality ultimately real; empirical and rational traditions of the world; a soul; being an obsessive individual; punishment of geniuses; genius as a quality in itself; other forms of reasoning; inductive and deductive logic; discovering principles of existence; genius and simplicity; societies and genius; restricting genius; genius and excitability and hallucinations; fetishization of genius gone wrong; intelligence; genius; fake genius; intelligence and genius; real genius; ow societies destroy genius; genius; common traits of genius; lunatics; and the criteriaa entering into the “theoretically defined constructs.”

Keywords: Christian Sorenson, intelligence, genius, traits.

An Interview with Christian Sorenson on Intelligence, Genius, and Philosophy (Part Two)[1]^,[2]*

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s talk about intelligence and genius, by the nature of high intelligence combined with unique qualities and cultural factors, there can be a conflation between high scores on intelligence tests and then the idea of genius. The media loves stories on geniuses, as we see with Marilyn vos Savant or Robert Jarvik, M.D. We see these trends in the public mind with an individual who scores high on an alternative I.Q. test or on a mainstream intelligence test, and then media, as per the desire for a good and unusual story, cling to this with all their journalistic might and then want the interview. Sometimes, they get them. What is the fascination of the media with genius and high intelligence?

Christian Sorenson: I believe that commonly genius and high intelligence represents for society and then to media a sort of “fetish.” In this sense, they’re forms of “objects of desire,” which are invested with power, and therefore this functions analogously to sexual objects, and for that reason causes fascination of the media.

2. Jacobsen: How do some, like yourself, evade explicit public presence? I am aware of a few who go for presence and then pretend as if they don’t, get it and don’t want it and then simply live with it, or do go for it and don’t care a smidgen about the other aspects, even social or personal consequences, as in only caring about the coverage for the sake of the coverage. Even at the blip-score highest measured levels (rarity of 1-in-30,938,221,975 people out of the general population, or 198 on S.D. 15), as in the case of the Non-Verbal Cognitive Performance Examination (N-VCP) designed by Dr. Xavier Jouve, published in Cerebrals Online Journal Issue 11 & Gift of Fire Issue 129, and scored very high on by Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, M.D., Ph.D. (who was friends with Dr. Jouve), there is a lifelong presence in the media on the personality level and a Greek journalist fascination with the psychiatrist. While to the vos Savant & Jarvik example, she has only given a few interviews outside of productions in Parade Magazine at any reasonable length to discern views, attitudes, and sensibilities. In them, she matches Mencken’s commentary comparison between men and women with men as more sentimental and vain while women have far more sense as the “supreme realists of the race” (species).

Sorenson: Evading explicit public presence not necessarily means you’re doing so with “high profile,” and the opposite neither does it. “In essence” what I would evade from the explicit public presence, is to consent with being cathectized of “something” in this context, that could turn me fascinating.

Even though they have existed societies like the period of “golden thought” in Greece, where it was likely that geniuses were venerated, the result has invariably always been the same, sometimes coming to them to pay with their lives, like Socrates or more recently C. Dickens. The point is that societies are not prepared “to hear” what geniuses have to say, they are not ready to hear the “truth.” This last as it is revolutionary and disruptive, puts the “establishment” at risk, and therefore this is dangerous because it constitutes a threat.

3. Jacobsen: Why “crappy mood” as a common personality trait of geniuses?

Sorenson: Because they feel that everything around them is going extremely slow, and that makes them impatient and exasperated. Also because it frustrates them, not to be heard at one moment, and that later the facts show that they were right.

4. Jacobsen: Does the secondary nature of deductive logic make it less refined while rarer in our species?

Sorenson: It is less scientific, since its starting point is an “eternal and universal essence” that doesn’t follow any method. Indeed, it is rarer, in the sense that requires greater ability to make logical inferences from general principles.

5. Jacobsen: Can you expand on “partials, relatives and invisibles”?

Sorenson: Study objects are theoretically defined constructs; therefore, they don’t correspond to any real object. They are relatives, because they can be redefinable, they are partials since they integrate different aspects that together do not correspond to any real object as such, and they are invisible for the reason that they constitute abstractions.

6. Jacobsen: How do objects in science boil down to “partials, relatives and invisibles”?

Sorenson: Because in my opinion reality is inaccessible, and “hermetic,” and then it becomes necessary to build study objects through “noetic consensus,” which I can only know indirectly from these, that actually are artificial instruments. In other words, it is only after the “operability” of the use of them, that I can confirm that the “consensus” is correct.

7. Jacobsen: Who do you mean by “channeled without interference” for better understanding regarding the supernatural?

Sorenson: That is necessary to “empty” the mind and block discursive thought, by adopting a purely contemplative attitude, “like a lover waiting for his beloved.”

8. Jacobsen: How are the boundaries between intellective intuition and extra sensory perception dim? Is this a conceptual gap rather than a claim to the reality on the former and a fantasy on the latter, or both?

Sorenson: We live in a multidimensional reality, and indeed ourselves are “matter and not-matter” at the same time. Actually, there are no limits between the worlds that make up these dimensions. It is we, who create these limits through the intelligence that is matter, in the biological sense of the term, but when we activate the extra sensory perception, intelligence turns to its service, the boundaries fade, and the “connection” to the whole is established.

9. Jacobsen: What is intuition?

Sorenson: It is the “meta-intelligence,” the closest thing to a “mystical state.”

10. Jacobsen: Many geniuses spent their lives thinking about heaven and hell, and the names and traits of God. Why?

Sorenson: Because as me, they are “obsessives.” Both, hell and heaven, and God, generally have to do with what comes after life ends. Obsessive individuals, have a conflict with death, and in consequence, usually geniuses have it too.

11. Jacobsen: Many other geniuses spent their lives on thinking about the advancement of the material condition of human beings. Why?

Sorenson: Because they are “lesser geniuses.”

12. Jacobsen: What, in real terms, provides more benefit to the great mass of people – thinking about heaven and hell, and the names and traits of God, or thinking about the advancement of the material condition of human beings?

Sorenson: I think that both, though the former is at the service of the last. Despite its need to distinguish something. When the former regards “the oppressed,” it is to “anesthetize their conscience,” and to beg God to save them from this hell. While when this is related to “the oppressors,” its also to “anesthetize their conscience,” but… To lighten their anguish, because life is “on the final countdown,” they need to beg God for not ending up in hell.

13. Jacobsen: Are human beings cognitive generalists in which differences in measurements of intelligence amount to mere differences of fidelity of the generality?

Sorenson: Human beings are generalists and “singularists” cognitives, and both are in double sense. The fact of being in that way, regarding intelligence, remarks indeed essential differences of fidelity with generality.

14. Jacobsen: Why did Ancient Greece venerate geniuses?

Sorenson: Generally, they did, nevertheless some were made to pay with their lives for seeking or have found the truth, no matter they were right. They tend to worshiped the geniuses, because the Greek culture was a humanistic and anthropocentric culture that, unlike the Christian culture, did “not demonize” the reason, or the fact that geniuses were special individuals.

15. Jacobsen: Do you believe in extrasensory perception as a reality? How do you define extrasensory perception in a more comprehensive and precise meaning?

Sorenson: I believe in it, as an experience not as a reality. Itis the result of a “noumenic identification” with the whole to form the “one” in the sense of unity.

16. Jacobsen: Can you elaborate on the “meta-intelligence” and the associated “mystical state” of mind implied there?

Sorenson: “Meta-intelligence,” is a rational action that dispenses of reasoning as a cognitive process and, therefore, captures in an instant abstraction the formal quality of being itself. A mystical state, is a “reminiscent” experience, in which a supposed condition is revived, since once, we lived with entities that were eternal.

17. Jacobsen: Is fear of a hell and punishment, and a god, a major reason for the belief in one, in line with the comment of ‘begging God’? 

Sorenson: That is rather a consequence, since fear is due to the anguish, because one feels in front of a “unbearable lightness of being.”

18. Jacobsen: If reality amounts to something, at bottom, inaccessible and hermetic with the requirement of “noetic consensus” for the study thereof, what makes reality real? 

Sorenson: Nothing, becauseindeed, there is a barrier between the subject who knows and reality as a known object. For this reason, between both, there is only mediation, an indirect relationship, which is given and it is determined only by the level of operability of the “noetic consensus.” In other words, if what is empirically verified corresponds to what was previously defined, then we can confirm that there is a “consensus,” because we are understanding the same thing, but not a thing can assure me that the last effectively corresponds to reality.

19. Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, how does this bring together the empirical and rational traditions of study of the world?

Sorenson: I believe that empirical and rational traditions, indeed representrationalism and therefore modernity, while what I propose represents a perspective, that although it is not irrational, it is “postmodern,” in consequence they hardly could come together.

20. Jacobsen: What dimensions comprise the basic dimensions in the “multidimensional reality” mentioned before? I am speaking, of course, of the more than three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. I mean interpretations of nature too, qualities of it. 

Sorenson: I feel that the dimension of “soul,”not necessarily in the sense of divine breath or transcendent spirit, but as a “body” which in turn is an object, of who it is possible to get an “idea.”

21. Jacobsen: Do you consider yourself an obsessed individual?

Sorenson: An obsessive individual, rather than an obsessed one. In my opinion they are not equivalent, since the former represents a “floating condition,” while the last supposes an “object fixation,” and therefore, can indicate something very different.

22. Jacobsen: If you take the revolutionary nature and impact on societies of geniuses, and if you take the increased complexity of societies, do geniuses seem more likely or less likely now? In that, societies remain far below human upper limits to permit the emergence of new genius or societies are too complicated to see as many true geniuses when societies were less complicated.

Sorenson: Even though they have existed societies like the period of “golden thought” in Greece, where it was likely that geniuses were venerated, the result has invariably always been the same, sometimes coming them to pay with their lives, like Socrates or more recently C. Dickens. The point is that societies are not prepared “to hear” what geniuses have to say, they are not ready to hear the “truth”. This last as it is revolutionary and disruptive, puts the “establishment” at risk, and therefore this is dangerous because it constitutes a threat.

23. Jacobsen: Is genius almost an emotional, instinctual quality more than a quality of intelligence? In that, intelligence merely amplifies other human qualities.

Sorenson: Genius is not a quality of nothing, therefore exists in itself and not in something as qualities do.

24. Jacobsen: Are any other forms of reasoning from inductive and deductive valid to you, e.g., paraconsistent logic or dialetheism?

Sorenson: Both aim to go beyond consistency or mitigate contradictions. For me they are indeed valid, despite they’re not true forms of reasoning.

25. Jacobsen: How would the development of intelligence as an inductive and deductive logic directed towards particular problems, together, evolve?

Sorenson: Inductive more than deductive logic, due to its starting point of study, has more chances of evolving because it’s directly related to scientific method.

26. Jacobsen: How did these capacities transition from regularities in narrow ancestral environments and more into discovering general principles of existence seen in the sciences?

Sorenson: As a challenge, since science increasingly has to open towards working with study objects that are more partials, relatives and invisibles.

27. Jacobsen: Why is the presentation of solutions “as simple as possible” the key hallmark of a real or true genius?

Sorenson: Because perfection is simple, in consequence genius is more close to the former.

28. Jacobsen: How do societies work to foster genius, when or if they do?

Sorenson: Societies should do that by integrating geniuses more, but that doesn’t reflect actually and currently what societies do, or what they have done in the past.

29. Jacobsen: What types of societies appear to have eliminated geniuses altogether now?

Sorenson: Specially those theocratic societies with strong fundamentalist beliefs.

30. Jacobsen: How do lower threshold for excitability and deeper saturation of sensory and internal representative information of the world help build richer networks of understanding of reality? Is this more conducive or less conducive for hallucinations, misrepresentations of reality? We hear lots of tales of ghosts, angels, whole spiritual realms. Yet, many of the more sophisticated classes of people in history have devoted lives to the investigation of these representations of the world.

Sorenson: If they can be channeled without interference, then they can help to build richer networks of understanding. Boundaries of intellective intuition and extra sensory perception are dim.

31. Jacobsen: Is there an even greater fetishization of genius or the highly intelligent gone wrong – a juicy journalistic story?

Sorenson: Yes, when they attract attention and produce fascination for their rarity.

32. Jacobsen: What is intelligence?

Sorenson: It is the procedural capacity of thought to elaborate reasoning in an inductive and deductive sense facing a certain problem.

33. Jacobsen: What is genius?

Sorenson: It is someone who disregarding of formal reasoning, is able to come out with a solution through instantaneous intellective intuition.

34. Jacobsen: What is a fake genius?

Sorenson: Someone who scores an IQ much lower with a mainstream test than with a high range one.

35. Jacobsen: What relates intelligence and genius?

Sorenson: Nothing, because it is not something related to a quantitative dimension but to a qualitative nature.

36. Jacobsen: What are the elements of genius? The components bringing about that which we title with the exalted status of (real/true) genius.

Sorenson: The extremely rare ability to solve extremely complex problems, without following any sequence, and through solutions that are as simple as possible.

37. Jacobsen: How do societies, typically, function to destroy genius?

Sorenson: Thermodynamically speaking, by operating as closed systems. Since genius tends to produce revolutionary changes in societies, they see on them a threat that compromise their balance, and for this reason, they occupy mechanisms of resistance and opposition in order to neutralize and exclude geniuses who finally disappear.

38. Jacobsen: What can foster genius?

Sorenson: Curiosity and a desire to learn from them.

39. Jacobsen: What are the common personality traits of genius?

Sorenson: Extreme sensitivity and susceptibility, and the fear of being isolated and rejected.

40. Jacobsen: Why are some people lunatics while still intelligent, even highly intelligent? The statistical outliers in both intelligence and mental illness.

Sorenson: Indeed. If on the one hand, there is the architecture and functioning of their central and autonomous nervous system, that operates with lower stimulus which lead to greater hyperreactivity and saturation. And on the other side, there are often hostile environmental variables. Then, it is easy to understand, why endogenous and exogenous variables make them more prone to mental illness.

41. Jacobsen: What criteria enter into the composition of the “theoretically defined constructs”?

Sorenson: The criteria of “phenomenon” and “reduction of the phenomenon”. What I mean with the last, is that it is necessary to place the “phenomenon” under study between two “parentheses”, as if they were two brackets. This produces a cut and delimitation effect in reality, which develops naturally through a continuum of phenomena. It is analogous to what happens with a movie, and the scenes that individually structure it, and therefore, it would be through this “reduction”, that the object would later be definable as an object of study.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Independent Philosopher.

[2] Individual Publication Date: May 8, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/sorenson-two; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.