Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com

Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Journal Founding: August 2, 2012

Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year

Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed

Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access

Fees: None (Free)

Volume Numbering: 13

Issue Numbering: 1

Section: A

Theme Type: Idea

Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”

Theme Part: 32

Formal Sub-Theme: None.

Individual Publication Date: September 15, 2024

Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2025

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Word Count: 8,366

Image Credits: Johnny Brown on Unsplash.

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts.*

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*

Abstract

Marc Roberge is the 2nd Vice President of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, a historian, and a retired teacher. He discusses: growing up; extended self; family background; youth with friends; education; purpose of intelligence tests; high intelligence; extreme reactions to geniuses; greatest geniuses; genius and a profoundly gifted person; necessities for genius or the definition of genius; work experiences and jobs held; job path; myths of the gifted; God; science; tests taken and scores earned; range of the scores; ethical philosophy; political philosophy; metaphysics; worldview; meaning in life; source of meaning; afterlife; life; and love.

Keywords: Cultural skepticism, ethical philosophy, family background, genius definition, intelligence tests, personal struggles, philosophical insights, professional experiences.

Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were growing up, what were some of the prominent family stories being told over time?

Marc Roberge: Scott, if I may, let me begin by commending you for your work here at the very aptly named In-Sight Publishing, as each interview achieves precisely this aim. Also, I’m grateful for, albeit humbled by, your invitation to chat. Thank you. This is a first.

To answer your question, it’s odd that we should begin there since my childhood lacked lore and stories. For one, I was born in 1970, the second of two, 5 years apart, my sister the elder. My father worked construction and was away all week, a theme that would carry through his seventies. My mother worked in the office at a sawmill manufacturer-retailer in the neighboring town, meaning that we children were with sitters and extended family more often than not. When my sister turned 11 or 12, she started taking some of that responsibility. There wasn’t a lot of family time to speak of, from my spotty recollection.

My father was 7 years my mother’s senior, and 31, by my calculation, when I was born. He’d started owning a dairy farm, and whether it went under, or due to pressure from my mother to adopt a more conventional lifestyle (to this day, I don’t know), but they ultimately sold it and moved to a small nearby town. I do know that while they owned the farm, my father had already transitioned into other work, settling on construction, and my mother was, as she likes to tell it, left practically alone to tend to my sister, the animals, and the farm. Nevertheless, my father, I sensed, always resented having sold it, and up to the very last I could denote a mixture of deep nostalgia and regret.

Further complicating the matter was that there seemed to be distinct versions of him — a past life few ever talked about in my company, a public one, and the one only I knew. From what I gleaned over the years, he’d apparently been a bit of a wild man — a story of him getting his scrotum caught on a barbed-wire fence trying to outrun game wardens at night after being spotted poaching fish by flashlight and requiring, apparently, quite a stitch count. Another story of a little speed boat he’d clapped together in the barn and mounted with a far too powerful outboard, zipping along on his maiden voyage along the river bank bordering the farm and, less than a few minutes out, dipping the nose under water, effectively planting it in the bottom beyond retrieval. He flipped the farm tractor into the very same river. Lost one fingertip to a saw. Lost another to a crossbow. 

He raced snow-machines in quarter-mile heats. He drove a rather impractical 4×4 Chevy on a lift kit and beefy A/T tires, which, on weekends, often found its way into sand pits and mud bogs. I couldn’t reach the door handle. He was an outdoorsman — hunting and fishing, some camping, and, for a period, a bit of an adrenaline junkie. When I turned 5 or 6, whether it was discussed or decided all on his own, he got rid of the racing sleds and the truck perhaps a year or two later.

He was the eldest of five, not counting the one that had passed in childbirth, dropping out in 9th or 10th grade, I presume, to help work his father’s farm, which he eventually bought or inherited — again, none of these things were ever discussed. The rest of his siblings all went on to complete their post-secondary education — three school teachers and a dental assistant. My grandfather also held an agricultural college certificate and worked for some time as an inspector or assessor, I believe.

Given my father’s choice of career, he being away all the time, and his siblings residing an hour’s drive or more from our home, visits were few and far between — cordial, somewhat awkward, like a polite congregation of strangers, save for the one quirky uncle who brought light to the mix. I could never shake the feeling my father felt the need to compensate for his lack of education by way of career and financial success.

He never quite broke into the multimillionaire stratum, not that I’m aware, but between his work and side ventures, property flipping and rental units, let’s just say he had no problem plopping down $10k on Christmas gifts. He earned every penny. A true bull of a man, tenacious and goal-oriented. All of it accumulated with sweat beading from his brow. A stronger work ethic or sheer grit I’ve yet to encounter. He was hardly ever phased or stumped unless it had to do with human affairs. I, unfortunately, inherited this last trait, and it plagues me still.

Thus far, we’ve painted an admirable man, one of action, aptitude, courage, and generosity. All of these are true. He was exceptional in many ways. Stamina. Problem-solving. Numbers. Physical strength. In my experience, however, I’ve come to realize that exceptionalism comes at a cost or with concessions. Professional athletes and leading innovators must shelve portions of ‘normal’ life in order to excel — hours at the gym aren’t hours cracking the physics texts, volunteering, or socializing. Exceptionalism is an anomaly.

Now, on to less flattering and perhaps more troubling matters. Sometime around my birthday, I believe I was 7 going on 8. I came home from school, as usual, dawdling along and singing to myself, lost in thought. It was late October or early November, a Friday. I enjoyed school, but I was looking forward to the weekend — a chance to visit the library and stock up on some new books. When I arrived, through the screen door, I spied my father hunched over the kitchen table, crying, my mother and sister holding hands and standing at the door, three suitcases next to them. I noticed the car was running and packed with boxes. When I walked in, I was held back at the door, informed we were moving, and that was that.

We lumbered up to a semi-furnished apartment in a six-plex, and by Monday, I was enrolled in a new school. It was assumed, I guess, that I was too young to understand. They were wrong. I was spun around in a constant fog, and my nerves were shattered. It had been a tremendous shock to the system, and there was nothing to do but to let my body and mind ‘eat it.’ Not only was my father out of the picture, but there were never any of the regular faces around, either family or friends. It was radio silence.

My birthday passed without much ado — no friends or family around, just three of us and a big old elephant in the room. At the time, my father was just starting out and wasn’t quite as prosperous as in later years, but we still lived well. We had a cozy three-bedroom bungalow on a double-lot backed by a few hundred acres of undeveloped land where we were free to roam, play, and build forts. There was a double garage filled with tools and snowmobiles, and even a TERRA-JET (similar to ARGO), with an above-ground pool attached to it via a deck. All of that was gone. That Christmas, we spent at a fireman’s charity function in a local hall, collecting a food hamper, a plastic fireman’s hat and a plush dog. Sitting in a room with several dozen families receiving charity — that was blow number two.

It would be four months before we’d hear from our father. I’d simply assumed he was busy working, but he’d never been away this long. I began to suspect something was amiss. I hadn’t considered that he simply didn’t know where we were. When he showed up unannounced at the apartment door, our mother wasn’t home, and my sister was under strict instructions to open the door for no one, without exception. As he knocked, cried, and pleaded from the other side, and I watched, impotent, as my sister told him he had to leave since she wasn’t allowed to open the door — well, at that moment, I was torn to shreds. Afterwards, I became inconsolable. My mother would wake in the middle of the night to find me huddled behind a dresser, sobbing. I couldn’t eat or function. I was wracked knowing that she had been hiding us, that either our father presented a real or imagined threat, perhaps with the intention to abduct us. I think it may have had more to do with support and marital assets than the children, convinced my father would have been vengeful in that regard, given the way she’d left. I’d always wondered how our meager belongings had made it to the apartment before we arrived. I’d been unaware of anything being boxed or missing prior to that fateful day. After several nights, I was admitted to the hospital for a week to replenish my fluids, nutrients, and get me eating again. When I was released from care, I was informed that I’d no longer be living with my mother and sister but my father. In my mind, this seemed the fairest settlement for the parents, not so for us.

Little did I understand the magnitude of these decisions. My father wasn’t going to alter course, career-wise. Granted, everyone was exceedingly kind and compassionate — I am truly grateful. Nevertheless, not only had I been separated from my mother and sister, but I was now living with family friends, themselves with three children. This was the case until Summer when I would be sent to live with my grandparents, two hours drive away. When September rolled around, I’d live with a widow, kind and capable but in her 70s and taken with a serious nervous condition that made her stride unsteady, her face and arm somewhat spastic. She also had this creepy cat who was a total scrapper, always coming back bloody, and had no litter box because it did its business on the commode as we do, without the decency to shut the door first. This type of carnival fare is pure nightmare fuel for a kid living out of a suitcase in a quasi-foster-care arrangement for roughly five years.

I didn’t realize it at the time, too nomadic for normal friendships, but in hindsight, from a material standpoint, my father provided for an enviably comfortable existence. The flip side is that he was hardly around, and when he was, we were all pretty much dancing to his tune. He did show emotion, sometimes compassion. He could be warm. But generally, like a box of knives. He could be negligent, abusive, intimidating, judgmental, critical, cold, non-communicative, authoritarian, and prone to triggers. Not that the discipline was frequent, and I wasn’t a difficult child, but of a measure I felt disproportionate, punitive as opposed to instructive. To see rage flash across a parent or guardian’s face leaves an indelible mark. To see it brandishing, what today would raise some eyebrows —a belt, spoon, ruler — or soap in the mouth, or a few hours bare-kneed on the floor, or tossing every last toy into garbage bags and dragging them to the curb —as the truck pulls up. 

It was a house without appeal, and the judge had a record for siding with the complainant. My father, I feel, saw any mark against me, real or fabricated, as a personal affront — an attempt on my part to undermine his own hard-won image and standing in the community. His ego was, and perhaps all egos are, precious.

He also enjoyed getting a rise out of others, teasing or frightening them. A blast up ride up a 50-degree sand dune in a jacked-up 4×4 with the front wheels off the ground is scary for a child. He once accidentally discharged a pellet gun into his own calf. I might have been 8 at the time, and we were alone walking back to the vehicle. He started acting, quite convincingly, as though he were about to faint, saying that I’d have to carry him to the truck and drive us back to town, and quickly before he bled out. He was always playing mind games. Fun times.

He was complicated, my father, and sociable but awkward. I could tell he wasn’t always at ease. Maybe that’s why he worked so much. But he did have his regular stops — his parents, a brother-in-law who worked in real estate and fed him the cherry listings. Otherwise, he mostly worked, and I spent a lot of time alone. He always encouraged talent development and education, above all, and signed me up for baseball one Summer, Cub Scouts another, guitar lessons, and so on. The problem was he just expected me to dovetail seamlessly. He could see I had the wherewithal but couldn’t apprehend that there’d been none of the groundwork. We’d never tossed a ball. We never watched sports. I had none of the mechanics, notions, or rules, and surrounded by peers who did, I felt like a fool. Same with scouts. As for guitar, I was handed an adult acoustic I could barely hold, a classical neck my fingers couldn’t span, and an instructor in his retirement with an impenetrable Italian accent. Each attempt felt like a setup — a preconfigured failure to keep me pegged. From very early on, I couldn’t help but feel like a constant disappointment.

His motives, though they often were,  weren’t always altruistic —  concerned with ‘perception.’ It may be unfair to say but, I think he might have loved me more if I’d been an esteemed professional, someone respectable and accomplished, and a little less of a screw-up. The bar, I assure you, was always high and moveable. He had my hat and played keepsies with it throughout my entire life. He could never relinquish his parental role nor concede, at any time, that we were on equal footing; insisting on maintaining that leverage, rubbing my nose in old business or finding ways to undermine my confidence was his way of ensuring dominance.

My grandparents were staunch Catholics. The evangelical channel was on all the time, thrice weekly Church attendance, nightly rosary, and even a traumatic pilgrimage through the Eastern provinces, stopping at all the religious points of interest along the way — cut short when I relapsed. I wasn’t faring well, and nothing was being done about it. Keep in mind, after that second familial split, I would neither see nor speak to my mother or sister but more than twice a year, a week in the Summer, a day or so at Christmas, from ages 8 through 18. My mother was, in clinical terms, a dead mother. Few, if any, of the extended family helped to provide some consistency. I’m sure they cared. But it still felt like it was being treated as someone else’s problem. My father was, if I were to venture any diagnosis, given to narcissistic tendencies with a mildly sadistic streak.

We can see how that level of fraying all but silenced reminiscences and any positive feelings one has about family — it was all mired in guilt, shame, regret and open wounds. The only specifics I am able to provide beyond this are that we were, with regards to heritage, Norsemen, finding a port along the St-Lawrence during the settlement era, a family of craftsmen (Roberge is, as I understand, a name for ’longship’) and farmers. Intelligence was in the pool. My father could perform complex mental arithmetic faster than I could punch it into a calculator.

Jacobsen: Have these stories helped provide a sense of an extended self or a sense of the family legacy?

Roberge: They might have, had I any that resonated. I see in my cousins, for instance, some grounding and amongst themselves a connection I never managed to plug into. I was uprooted and dancing constantly to adapt to my ever-changing circumstances and environments. Eventually, my father met someone. She had two younger children than me, by 2 and 4 years. She was 11 years his junior, a professional in health care, pretty, from a respected family. They loved each other and made a good pair. I’m sure, not only smitten, he also felt he’d found a trophy, a true ‘how do you like them apples’ to my mother. And he lavished her— building a new home, buying her furs, jewelry, a Cadillac, yearly trips abroad . She was often embarrassed by the luxuries, preferring to be understated. She wasn’t presumptuous in material ways. She was very caring, loving, kind, generous, and I am grateful to her. I am indebted. I’d be remiss however to omit a latent righteousness about her, one that sparked magnesium bright should you happen to strike it. It wasn’t always easy to communicate.

The dynamic had once again shifted. I was now the eldest of three, one of whom had been crushed under a dump truck while riding a tricycle down the sidewalk and required much attention and frequent hospital visits. A robbery. A house fire. Broken limbs. Teenage drama… Let’s just say there was no time for hindsight — we were always very much in the churn of things. Chaos from the get-go. My circle, effectively a zoetrope. We looked good on paper. I always felt adrift, apart, like a refugee, or a ward — beholden, voiceless, impotent.

Jacobsen: What was the family background, e.g., geography, culture, language, and religion or lack thereof?

Roberge: I’d say most of what I know is covered in the first two responses, except for culture, language, and religion. I was profoundly altered by all of this. I’d been a curious, cheerful, sweet child. Following these events, I was suspicious, trusted few, and grew skeptical of the authoritarian line — doubting they’d so much as once questioned their own creeds, morals, or motives. I was a boy, convinced that to survive I would need to become self-reliant, on a mission to be broad in learning and skill. Religion was one of the first things to come under my scrutiny, and though I studied extensively across all denominations and offshoots, I resolved that I’d been lied to and manipulated. As a consequence, I rejected ‘religion’ rather openly but was made to go through the motions, nonetheless, for appearances. Naturally, all three — culture, language, religion — coalesced on my educational doorstep. I attended a French Catholic school. There was no point in suggesting I might want to attend one that was non-denominational or Anglophone. I’d not hear the end of that. So, in very real ways, all of these decisions have a profound impact and added to my growing sense of skepticism.

All decisions of any import were made for me, usually without any consideration. I would finish the school year on a Friday and learn on the Saturday that I was leaving for the Summer to go work with my father. You might assume I’d be happy to have some extra time with him, but he was a boss both at work and at home. It was he and I, 24/7, without a buffer, and me without any independence or means to escape for even an hour, the only privacy to be had, in the washroom, the only time I wasn’t being ordered around was when he slept. It felt like years of taking it on the chin, driven around and into the ground, never a ‘me’ in the mix — just this thing, this brute.

Jacobsen: How was the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and an adolescent?

Roberge: Early on, before the divorce, things seemed fine. After I started popping on and off the radar, their bonds strengthened as my alienation deepened, by slight increments, since I was slipping, as it were, from their narratives. Meanwhile, I was alone a lot and spent my time reading, drawing, experimenting, and so on. I developed a palette for the solitary and cerebral, whereas they were steeped in ‘normal’ activity. The rift only grew from there. For reasons I can’t quite explain, I still fared well socially and was rarely shunned, bullied a few times but grew into my own, and I had a few close friends with whom I hung out regularly. I smooched a few girls, all of them quite pretty, decent and lovely, and I suppose I struck the odd fancy, but I was a mess and didn’t realize how bad. Invariably, none of these trysts were serious, lasted, nor ended well, all on account of me. So, in reality, I was actually failing miserably and feeling it, but I was faking it as best as I could. Again, being dragged off in the Summer and plopped back down when school started, a more prolonged iteration of the fostering of prior years, wasn’t helping. Nothing was working out. I was chronically stressed, inflamed, suffering from migraines, insomnia, bruxism, psoriasis.

Jacobsen: What professional certifications, qualifications, and training have you earned?

Roberge: Brimming with potential but inconsistent, I’d generally make the top three, later top 10th. The vicissitudes were never along subject lines but personal phases or periods. I graduated from H.S. with an 89, and I am a valedictorian, etc. Having never really been afforded a voice, those choices I’d made were often criticized, and I wasn’t sure what to pursue. I applied to four universities, each with a different program: engineering, architecture, accounting, and literature. I was accepted by all but discouraged by my father towards architecture, the prospect of mining or numbers for thirty years unappealing; I defaulted to the last with a mind on a PhD and professorship.

Problem was, my father made too much money for me to qualify for loans, and he was helpful, to a degree, but I had to work construction to keep myself afloat. As one of these sidelines turned profitable, by my third year and exhausted from doing both, I decided to take a year off and either make a go of it or bank enough to see me through another year or two of scholarship.

As it turns out, I’d been used and lied to by my business partner and drawn into bankruptcy. Not a great start for a 23-year-old. My then-on-and-off girlfriend and I got pregnant, and two months after losing it all, we welcomed a child into the world in pitiable circumstances, echoing that Christmas long ago. Not a year later, I learned my girlfriend had been stepping out for nearly the entire duration of our courtship. My brother in law died in a vehicle collision on his  way to work. Rug-pull after rug-pull. Bankruptcy, separation — nothing was breaking right in spite of how hard I worked. I scrambled out of that mire with a new business partner and, within two years, had turned things around, managing to finish off my degree and a B.Ed, just in case. Shortly thereafter, he died of lymphoma at 33. Not my first loss, but it hit hard. The next year, I began teaching. I met a lovely woman with two incredible children, and for nearly twenty years, although not without its challenges, a pleasant contrast to the first twenty. It wouldn’t last.

Nevertheless, over the course of a lifetime, I’ve acquired proficiency in several trades, operated a variety of machinery and equipment, run businesses and organized events, built my own house, earned a B.A. in English/French Literature, a B.Ed Level 3, completed a year towards a College Business Diploma, Cisco CNAP certification, Working at heights, Laser Safety Officer (qualification to maintain our Makerspace CO2 laser). In short, nothing of note or significant merit, but rather things I simply needed at the time.

Jacobsen: What is the purpose of intelligence tests to you?

Roberge: Let’s start with agreeing that, barring a better instrument or metric, standardized testing has, over its roughly 100-year course, proven incredibly consistent and perhaps one of the more studied/critiqued areas of intelligence. I feel this, along with a battery of other assessments and interviews, should be integral to educational intake, profiling and follow-up. As it stands, we only do them when things are going terribly wrong, the exceptionality impossible to overlook.We need to be more proactive and preemptive on that front. Gnothi seauton — know thyself. I.Q. factors are included, as well as coordination, height, strength, etc. Each is a metric, but for arbitrary reasons, some are singled out as impolite to speak of. It’s a number. A predictive one, to a degree. It does point to something seemingly intangible called ‘g,’ but, in simple terms, we can speak to the number of neurons, density, the robustness of these networks, how they are organized, and so on. Ultimately, it’s a matter of intensity and frequency,  subjectively anyway, since FMRI scans show what we might expect from a bodybuilder lifting weights, which is that the actual activity or load on the muscle is less, given its efficiency. 

It has been useful in sussing 2E conditions and disparities via sub index analysis, providing insight on that front. It offers clues to possible underlying conditions, such as those related to working memory or reasoning. It can serve to monitor therapeutic protocols or provide a prognosis of the rate of functioning over time. It is predictive of academic and career success, health, longevity, and quality of life. Personally, the number range was a foothold on a cliff face. It helped me figure out why I felt out of step.

Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?

Roberge: I was 48, following an attempt on myself and placed on leave from work. I bounced around the health system for two years, four therapists and two psychiatrists, before eventually obtaining a proper diagnosis and correct medications. That whole time, I was running on two or three hours of sleep, consuming a few hundred calories per day, down sixty pounds from my standing 210, sweating through my sheets and sick to my stomach every night, teetering on the precipice — it was a hellish period, and I was often tempted to get it over with. For me, the sun hadn’t sunk but gone out, and I couldn’t see it ever returning. I can’t say it has, but at least now my eyes are scanning the horizon. I’d wish that on no one.

Jacobsen: When you think of the ways in which the geniuses of the past have either been mocked, vilified, and condemned if not killed, or praised, flattered, platformed, and revered, what seems like the reason for the extreme reactions to and treatment of geniuses? Many alive today seem camera shy — many, not all.

Roberge: Oh my! That’s a tall one. I find the term genius problematic, and I don’t consider myself adjacent in league. I can only speculate, focusing rather on the more generic form of what is effectively a rejection of the individual. There is us, and there’s them. This is primitive encoding. What is strange, unknown, uncertain, beyond one’s comprehension, inspires fear. It is unsettling, uncomfortable, and often embarrassing to be confronted by phenomena of an exceptional or indescribable nature. How do you argue, debate, or even attempt to comprehend something so far out of your experience? Add to this the roughly 70/30 extrovert/introvert split and what may be inferred with regards to social, mental, and physical predispositions; there is inherent in us a chirality towards tradition/the past/the tried and true, or away from it — innovators bring about change, traditionalists resist. The madness of the crowd drives them to extremes, as with Socrates, Bruno, Galileo, et al. Christ broke with tradition, and he was dealt the same fate. Part of the crowd now, part of the crowd then. People forget that all traditions were once innovations. I understand the disconnect.

Jacobsen: Who seems like the greatest geniuses in history to you?

Roberge: Children, probably. Everything, to them, is a question mark. How we assess genius is subjective, there is room for disagreement. I am biased toward the rebels and eccentrics in literature and social commentary, Bukowski, De Quincy, Rimbaud, Sartre, Camus, Orwell, Brontë, and Hesse; the list is long. Philosophy and science, Heraclitus, Aurelius, Socrates, Archimedes, Euclid, Da Vinci, Maxwell, Newton, Bohr, Planck — again, not so easy to whittle down. Had I to select, say 5, under duress — Shakespeare has few peers in committing to a page or stage the full tapestry of human emotion and relations. His portrayals are as relevant today as ever they were. Da Vinci not as a singular model of the ‘Renaissance Man’ but for the distinction of being exceptional among a host of other polymaths. Tesla — decades or more ahead of the curve. Given the time and resources, he would have had tenfold the impact. Sidis, I think, was an important loss to the intellectual community — his book The Animate and Inanimate held some compelling arguments, especially regarding entropy. He also stands as a cautionary tale. Mendeleev and Darwin. It’s like Pringles — I can’t stop at one.

Jacobsen: What differentiates a genius from a profoundly intelligent person?

Roberge: There is a genius in all — a thumbprint uniqueness to each person’s thought process, associations, attunement, experience and problem-solving that harbor the potential for ideas and innovations no other might ‘lock onto.’ There is a mixture of these, serendipity, context, and motivations beyond our ken, conspiring to inspire. Naturally, the highly intelligent are, presumably, more learned or broad in interest. As a result, they have additional arrows in their quiver with which to hit their target — but not always. If genius means anything at all, it is likely predicated on spatial reasoning, bilateral processing and a talent for sussing patterns where none seem apparent. Wordsworth spoke of spots in time — significant and saturated imprints strewn like stars across the night sky and genius is the eye that gathers them into constellations.

Jacobsen: Is profound intelligence necessary for genius?

Roberge: Apologies. I got ahead of this in my last response, but not necessarily.

Jacobsen: What have been some of your work experiences and jobs?

Roberge: Construction laborer, carpenter, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, entrepreneurship (Landscape Construction and Retail, Restaurant Management, Website Design and Small Business online marketing, P.C. and smartphone repair, event organizer, educator (STEM, Media — film/photo/audio/animation/graphic design, Robotics/Electronics, Makerspace, gifted program, Cisco networking). A lot of other things as well. Forced into early retirement as I’m no longer able to sustain more than an hour or two of effort or focus at a time, I’ve kept myself as sharp as possible, reading copiously when I am able, teaching myself new programming languages, conceptualizing some devices, improving my technique in art and music, sorting out my thoughts in writing, exploring emerging technologies, and devoting quite a lot of time to the neurodiverse community.

Jacobsen: Why pursue this particular job path?

Roberge: It had far less to do with choice than the lack thereof — circumstances often prevailing; I took what was available and did what was necessary to keep us afloat.

Jacobsen: What are some of the more important aspects of the idea of the gifted and geniuses? Those myths that pervade the cultures of the world. What are those myths? What truths dispel them?

Roberge: Myths abound, as do delusions. The mythical is, as the word implies, expunging from our public conscience the all too human factors, frailties and flaws. Einstein did something genial, perhaps of mythical proportion to some, but also made some rather questionable life choices we rarely speak of. It’s easy to hone in on the discoveries while overlooking the years of work that go into dislodging them or the countless failures before achieving success. I think that this idea that things just randomly manifest and are fully formed is a caricaturization. Eureka, like the cart, comes after the horse. I might have a handful of these every day, but intuition only points the way — you still have to walk the path, often to discover it’s a dead-end. I have a lifetime of these, yet none are robust enough to withstand my own skepticism. Another is that those of a certain I.Q. are susceptible to mental health struggles, socially inept, frail, stuffy — all of the tropes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority are well-adjusted, rounded and balanced individuals, equally at home on the ball field or in the boardroom, leading ‘normal’ lives. Some are arrogant, solipsistic, suffer from mental health struggles. Others are congenial, funny, gracious, and so on. Everyone falls victim to logical fallacy and cognitive bias at some point, and drunk on our own Kool-Aid. It’s a hodge-podge. People are people. So, none are  infallible nor as fallible as one might assume. They do, all of them, think differently from the average person. This is no myth. Similar to a pro-level hockey player forced to play in the Minor or Junior league, one or two competitive grades off. It’s not an issue of better or lesser, but a question of fitness. If you want the best for and from people, you have to place them in the appropriate context. It was Einstein again, wasn’t it, who said that we can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb? What is germane to the 2SD+ demographic is that, by dint of their rarity, society is adapted to the norm and ill-provides for them.

Still, we all heed the call of Maslow’s hierarchy, and the need for belonging and connection is fulfilled elsewhere, perhaps in academia, advanced R&D, I.Q. societies, or associating with the support community around neurodiversity. At least there are some, if far too few, means to congregate and connect. Trekkies have their thing, comic book readers have their ComiCons, Cinefiles their Festivals, gun owners their shooting ranges and clubs — why should we be different? At best, some of us may actually be endeavoring to do some good and provide some benefit to society; at worst, we are a doing puzzles and debating nonsense. Regardless, we are far from fringe and rather benign. Keep in mind that while these communities are prosocial environments bespoke to N.D.s, divergence does mean that we are independent and nonconformist to varying extents. A herd of cats, basically, but eerily smart ones. The same tensions do tend to arise in these circles as with any other grouping.

The usual culprit stems from  that stance that leaves no wiggle room, no space for debate, as there is nothing to concede from that vantage. The thing is settled, and everyone else is misinformed or incorrect. After twenty years of paying down your mortgage, standing there with a clear title in your hands, it’s understandable if you’re not amenable to letting people live there rent-free or remove you from the premises. That’s kind of the situation there, part sunken-cost & double-down, part ‘say what you will talk all you want, I don’t care because I’m not budging.’ We run into that everywhere, but what is specific to this demographic is their sparring prowess.

Any who cast shade on exceptionality, giftedness, IQ, and the rest may be well reminded of their medications, health care providers, engineers, designers, architects, etc., as they certainly don’t call on just anyone to solve these types of problems. Still, you are correct to point out this disconnect.

Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the God concept or God’s idea and philosophy, theology, and religion?

Roberge: Here’s the thing. We use words that have no meaning, none inherent at least. Our lexicon could stand a pruning and overhaul to solve a more fundamental issue — clear and concise communication. There is currently far too much flex and latitude, circular references, self-references, speciousness, connotations, denotations, and obfuscations. It is an unwieldy bit of kit that lands us in heaps of trouble. I can’t subscribe to anything fully when at its core lies an axiom or a word without description — like perfection, or ideal, or truth. Furthermore, of all five questions, ‘Why?’ is the one many are chasing, and I’ve been down that rabbit hole. Let me save you the hassle. The answer to ‘why?’ is another ‘why?’, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Causality, per se, I suspect is a ‘human lens.’ It isn’t necessarily part of the ‘system,’ if you will, only a ‘gut feeling’ that everything is motivated and obeys certain ‘laws’ we feel are ‘universal.’ The motive, I suppose, is the boundary I cannot penetrate. There’s a lot to figure out yet and it’s too early in the game to make a call. Regardless of what the math or the heart may say, it has to make sense. It is wonderful to consider all of the possibilities, follow our intuitions, and engage our emotions and imagination. It is harmful to self, relations, and progress to allow oneself no margin for concession or error while acknowledging elsewhere we are only human and make mistakes — somewhat contradictory.

In short, I don’t know what God is, or whose. It’s a name lacking a face and description — a true unsub. I know what ‘a god’ is. I know of thousands. Many themes repeated, some borrowed, others were outright stolen, fragments of questionable pedigree, organized by an agendized committee, and again, and so on. We make mistakes and assumptions. We leap to conclusions. We fear uncertainty. We are baffled and bedazzled by the mystery. We cling to each other, to hope, to the illusion of certainty and security. We’d be paralyzed otherwise. With all of these dubious stages of evidence gathering, handling, analysis, discovery and interpretation, spanning thousands of years, that alone is a significant margin of error. Tampering will have poisoned the well. Most of the texts are quite beautiful and inspiring. There is wisdom and insight in them. They have poetry or prose that is exceedingly powerful and employ the levers of imagery and song to great effect. I’ve read extensively, as I alluded to before. For a long while, I attempted to reconcile these contradictions, but I simply couldn’t.

I’ve followed attempts to quantify or elaborate a ‘God’ formula to explain the universe, consciousness, life, and creator. That’s well above my weight class. From where I’m sitting, I’m aware of myself and ‘others’ as persistent anomalies; that all that exists, known or unknown, is in flux and fleeting, a question of relativities and scale. Nevertheless, I am a prisoner of my senses and my biology, conscious of my subconscious and ego and that primitive twin encased within. I understand that everything is fundamentally an expression of energy, and immaterial. In other words, while not without questions, I don’t accept that we’ve yet developed the ability or technology to ‘perceive’ that of which we haven’t conceived. Sort of like asking if chairs were ’invented’?

Basically, I don’t subscribe to what has been presented thus far, but I do not discount the possibility. I lean into the mystery.

Jacobsen: How much does science play into the worldview for you?

Roberge: It is of great importance to me. Imagination, intuition, puzzles in my mind are constant preoccupations. I don’t have much formal education in the sciences but have read several hundred texts and am able to grasp the concepts, even if I can’t always work out the long form. I ‘get it’ and am able to abstract from there, albeit I would never have the audacity to cough up a thesis — I’d be trounced. 

As with anything, I allow for a margin of error or confidence, if you prefer. The same human factors need to be accounted for, the reminder that nothing is ever quite ‘settled,’ even in science, regardless if the it is twenty decimals out, nothing breaks clean. This entire thing is fractal, a matter of scale, boundaries, phases, and liminality — without coordination. The atom was once a firewall. Next came the event horizon and quanta. Everywhere, a horizon, a new boundary, smaller, wider, farther. Another one beyond those. Relativity insists on a frame of reference, without which scale is indistinguishable from distance and a dimension collapses. We don’t know what we don’t know. So we need to keep looking. That’s where my mind is, trying out different combinations, thinking if I keep fiddling with the knob, I may get lucky and crack the code accidentally. Wishful thinking, I know. I’m casually current on emerging/burgeoning technologies and am fascinated with chemistry, evolution, neuroscience, physics, product design, kinetic sculpture, geometry, and more. Overall, it is quite significant.

Jacobsen: What have been some of the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations) for you?

Roberge: All of them were on a 15SD scale. The WAIS-IV was administered in a clinic while I was in distress and not properly medicated. On this, I scored an FSIQ of 145 and GAI of >151, or > 99.97th. Given the disparity between WMI and GAI, in the 1.5 to 2SD range, the GAI prevails, while the FSIQ is overall more representative of my global cognition at the time due to the 2E drag. This is what pointed us to a diagnosis of ADD and B.D., which finally helped to explain the inconsistency, the highs and lows, and struggles. I’d always been curious about the ISPE, ever since 1993 when I happened upon ‘Thinking On The Edge’ from Agamemnon Press and devoured its essays. Surely, I was delusional to even entertain such a thought. Turns out, not so much, as December marks my fourth anniversary as a member. Their M4.0 designed by Dr. Grove was the next one I challenged, a pass/fail with no score. I challenged the KIT 2.0 and scored 158, 162 on the GENE II Verbal. All told, I’ve submitted a dozen or so, generally varying in score from 142 to 162, the majority in the 150–156 range. I did those to verify the original score. I have a pile in progress, but I only do them now to provide designers samples for norming.

Jacobsen: What is the range of the scores for you? The scores earned on alternative intelligence tests tend to produce a wide smattering of data points rather than clusters, typically.

Roberge: Again, using WAIS as a reference, the others simply were a means of establishing an effective range. Rather than add noise, it helped defined the upper and lower of the ‘my’ norm.

Jacobsen: What ethical philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: On ethics, I’d say I’m a humanist first, drawing the distinction between ‘right action’ and ‘moral action’ given the latter is a subset. I’ve given most a chance, from the pre-socratic onward, through St. Augustine and Bruno, Hegel, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and many voices in between, such as Russell, Wallace, Searle, etc. Ethics, as I interpret, is concerned with relations and public behaviors. If you were shipwrecked, alone on a distant planet with no hope of recovery, what is ethics then? What does it resemble, if it exists at all? To my mind, ethics nor morals are contextual. So, striving for something universal, seek first to do no harm. That covers a lot of ground. Trespass could be substituted.

Jacobsen: What social philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: John Searle offers some critical insights into institutions, meritocracy, and the like. Beaudrillard and DeBord. Russell, Huxley, Orwell. In a post-modern world, many have lit the way, but it doesn’t bring us the whole distance. Otherwise, I’d merely be regurgitating a list of names and uttering poorly paraphrased ideas. I suppose I resonate with those looking past and through, not at, what is happening. Jim Morrison, in his interviews, proved himself a rather astute observer. They’re everywhere, you just have to find them. So far, no luck though. I’ve not come across a philosophy for change that isn’t somehow regressive.

Jacobsen: What economic philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: The government pretends it’s in the business of business, but more entrepreneurial incompetence and financial irresponsibility would be hard to find elsewhere. Every system known has been tried. None is flawless; several are downright egregious. In this modern age, I think there are opportunities to explore:  an independent clearing house for proposals, with a referendum-style voting apparatus, improved civic education and engagement through incentives, for example. If concerns over loss of jobs because of  A.I. or bots, then let the condition of use be a salary-tax equivalent. Capitalism and consumerism are bedfellows. If one stops putting out, the marriage falls apart. To me, that’s not long-term feasible. Call it socialism+, capitalism light or a hybrid, but if COVID taught us anything, it’s that there are many more ways to do business, earn a living, and have a strong economy than the tired and often obsolete methods of old. Sustainable, over the long haul, that’s the goal, right? 

Jacobsen: What political philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: Lobbies, PACs, $1000/plate functions — the money’s got to go. We must disentangle the whole snarl and return it to its seat as the people’s podium. Fin. It can’t be that among 40M, or 350M, 1B, the best we can trot out are a handful of aged-out actors and spit-shined swindlers? It’s sheer lunacy. This anti-intellectual sentiment and pandering to the lowest common denominator has a predictable trajectory — steep decline and greater social entropy. First and foremost is that we have to strike a balance between reason and emotion and clean up our discourse. The kids are watching, let’s act accordingly.

We need to play to everyone’s strengths, the thinkers hashing out the hard problems, the fiscally astute manning the purse strings, the visionaries providing the waypoints, the deal-makers greasing the wheels, the engineers/architects/trades making it happen, everyone else keeping things moving. We’ve more pressing concerns, and international collaboration is both necessary and key to our survival. Enough with the squabbles, brinkmanship, sword rattling and the rest. When do we learn? When do we figure it out? When it’s too late?

Jacobsen: What metaphysics makes some sense to you, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: I’m not qualified, I don’t think. It doesn’t compute for me. Either it’s integral or unknowable, and that which is integral, whilst not known, I don’t know to be super- or meta-, simply undiscovered or unexplained. Every mystery solved demotes it in rank. Meta is overarching, encompassing, but also part of; thus, Gödel would point us to incompleteness. There are clues everywhere. A question of stitching it all together. There are things in focus now distracting from what undergirds even that, but I’ll end on that for fear I’m wandering out of my depth.

Jacobsen: What worldview-encompassing philosophical system makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?

Roberge: All citizens should not be compelled or coerced to feel or show pride; they should be genuine and a result of a sense of ownership and transparent democracy. Novel approaches to civic engagement and stakeholder-managed resources and assets are needed. We need to quit churning out landfill fodder, burning fossil fuel to make these things, tote them around the globe, only to bury them. I can defend its use, not its abuse.  I don’t know of any such philosophy, although there definitely could and should be. 

Jacobsen: What provides meaning in life for you?

Roberge: My wife and kids. They keep me in check, invested, and have taught me what ‘unconditional’ looks like. Curiosity is definitely up there. I’m a junkie. Being of service. Barring that, holding space for people or ideas.

Jacobsen: Is meaning externally derived, internally generated, both, or something else?

Roberge: It is derived from one’s lived experience, unresolved issues, unrequited needs, and so forth. Everything seeps into the mix. What rises from that loam is an arbitrary waypoint — it gets us moving.

Jacobsen: Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, why, and what form? If not, why not?

Roberge: No. Not in the way described to me. Not as a persistent ‘I’. Whatever ‘I’ am is a construct — memories, biology, neuroanatomy. A solid smack to the noggin, and I wake up as someone else. Without our memories, who are we? Far more compelling is the evidence of an emergent property than a pre-existing condition. I am a product and oftentimes passenger, not necessarily an agent, of this body. A newborn has no ‘self’ and isn’t differentiated. Everything is an amalgam to them, and there is no recognition of ‘other’ until several months later. We like to think we have a consistent core but often curse ourselves, saying things like ‘that’s so out of character!’ And that’s my point; the world’s a stage and we, the players in bit parts, tremble before the darkened hall to utter our senseless lines.’ We don’t even know if there’s anyone in the audience.

Jacobsen: What do you make of the mystery and transience of life?

Roberge: It is what makes it worthwhile — that it is golden, rare, precious and fleeting. Immortality holds no appeal for me. 

Jacobsen: What is love to you?

Roberge: Love is acceptance, possibly the noblest face of compassion. People that’ll suffer you, warts and all, especially when you’ve little to offer in return other than the same — they ‘love’ you. Love that turns hot and cold, or with strings, or fine print, …, that’s the fictional kind. You know it’s love when you don’t feel yourself altered in their company — come as you are. Both ways, of course.

This has been a thought provoking and stimulating experience. Thank you Scott! I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Bibliography

None

Footnotes

None

Citations

American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Jacobsen S.  Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. September 2024; 13(1). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge

American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Jacobsen, S. (2024, September 15).  Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. In-Sight Publishing. 13(1).

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S.  Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 13, n. 1, 2024.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2024. “ Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 13, no. 1 (Winter). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge.

Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Jacobsen, S “ Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 13, no. 1 (September 2024).http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. (2024) ‘ Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 13(1). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge>.

Harvard (Australian): Jacobsen, S 2024, ‘ Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge>.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. “ Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.13, no. 1, 2024, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Scott J.  Conversation with Marc Roberge on Views and Life: 2nd VP/Historian/PR, #2477, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry [Internet]. 2024 Sep; 13(1). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/roberge.

License & Copyright

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.