ANSWERS: 3
  • possible, but highly, highly, HIGHLY unlikely. almost impossible, but that 0.0000000000000001% chance is there...... sort of...
  • I believe it’s possible but it must be extremely rare, as mentioned above. We often contemplate intellectual personalities like Einstein or Newton as geniuses, due mainly to their inhuman mathematical skills, yet one must not forget that intelligence (or cleverness) goes far beyond logic: Beethoven, for instance, was “musical smart”, and athletes like Michael Jordan and Maurice Greene are somehow bodily and physically smart, just to name a few. Howard Gardner, world renowned psychologist, states in his theory that there are nine types of intelligence, often summarized into 7 types, which were, if I recall correctly: logical intelligence, physical intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, and naturalist intelligence. So in this regard, it might be possible, though highly improbable, that some individual, let’s say David Webb, possess genius-like logical, physical, linguistic and spatial intelligences all at once. The IQ test more specifically measures logical (mathematical) and partly spatial intelligences. If Picasso had an almightily creativity, if Plato and Socrates were some kind of existential geniuses, it doesn’t mean that they would have succeeded comfortably at the IQ test. So when you hear people bragging that they are geniuses because they got, let’s say, 140 at the IQ test, it is but partly true. Unfortunately, logical intelligence (though IQ test) is the only type of intelligence that I know of, that is being compiled in statistical database. For instance, people with 130+ IQ are said to represent 2.2% of the society whereas 90-109 IQ’s correspond to approximately 50%. If we had these kinds of data for all types of intelligence (or at least for physical, linguistic and logical intelligence), I believe it would be possible to actually get a good picture of the probability that some guy like David Webb exist up there. And even then, it’s not only about intelligence, it’s also about experience. A guy like Jason Bourne needs not to be only physically, linguistically and logistically bright; he must also have major experience in fields such as international relations, forensic science, and military. I have strong convictions in the potential of human being and I still think that there might be some, but very few, like Jason Bourne.
  • That skill level and "presence of mind" is acquirable by some, but actually acquired by few. These things require a pretty much single-minded dedication of purpose, near the level of athletes training to compete in the Olympics. Being naturally gifted don't hurt none neither.The old Neijia masters trained a minimum of six hours every day, in addition to whatever else their lives required. You will find few with that resolve today.

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