A hypothesis about the neurophysiological features of the thinking of talented beings.

(I specifically wrote “beings”, not “people”, because all living beings are different in their ability to solve problems, that is, they are intellectually diverse).

Yesterday evening, a funny thought flashed ghostly in my head, which this morning began to develop rapidly, turning into a fully mature, full-fledged and ready for an independent life newborn.

The idea seems to be the most ordinary: The brain, and therefore the thinking, of a child is different from the brain and thinking of an adult.

Triviality, banality…?

Question: HOW IS IT different?

I will not list the well-known boring truths about the lack of critical thinking, lack of knowledge and everything else …

I will focus on one HUGE ADVANTAGE of children’s thinking over adults:

A SMALL NUMBER OF DOMINANT NEURAL CHAINS, that is, a small number of DOGMA hammered into the head from childhood and thus maintaining their autocratic rule over all further ways of thinking until death. Children don’t have many of them, and adults have a brain overcrowded of them.

Dominant neural circuits (usually run-of-the-mill patterns) have one extremely important quality: They are able to BLOCK any “DISSIDENT” chains that are just trying to arise. The autocratic chains of standard herd thinking immediately kill them, quickly and mercilessly!

Again, the idea is not new and well-known.

Now it’s like a leap to another topic, but in fact, a continuation of the one that started.

What are talented people (now I’m talking about people, because they will be discussed later)?

These are people who think IN an ORIGINAL WAY, NOT IN A CLICHED WAY, NOT IN AN ORDINARY HERD!

What is ORIGINAL THINKING?

As I’ve written more than once, this is “UNEXPECTED SANITY.”

Two qualities are equally necessary for an original idea:

It should be unexpected, that is, not stagnant, routine and ordinary.

For all its strangeness, it must be ADEQUATE to reality and sanity.

I gave visual examples of the difference between a real original idea and the ravings of a madman:

A pyramid with a sharp peak of SURPRISE, standing on a broad foundation of SANITY, and an inverted pyramid placed on top, which does not have the slightest stability and immediately collapses on its crazy creator.

So, the thinking of talented people is both original and at the same time quite sound!

Returning to the children. Their thinking, due to the small amount of dogma that blocks everything, is often UNEXPECTED, although not sound enough, because another necessary part of thinking is not yet sufficiently developed – its criticality!

(WHICH IS NOT DOGMATISM, A substitute for criticality!!! Dogmatism is as far from criticality as maniac psychopathy is from sanity! Dogmatism is much closer to maniacality due to its obsessive and stupid autocracy, unsupported by anything other than himself, rather than simple sanity.)

And here’s the thought that started this note:

Aren’t talented people “stuck in childhood” thinkers?

Einstein once half-jokingly and half-seriously said about himself that he was “mentally retarded”!

Such a great scientist and man and suddenly “mentally retarded”???

Einstein explained his idea: Children think about space and time, then adults label these concepts with certain template labels, children put these labeled concepts on mental shelves and STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM,

And, behold, Einstein HAS NOT STOPPED!

HE STAYED IN CHILDHOOD!!

So, talented people are people who, from childhood, have kept their children’s brains not stupidly dogmatic, clogged with dominants forbidding any dissent, but remained “mentally retarded” in a wonderful, unconventional childhood! From their “adulthood” of thinking, they acquired the necessary acute criticality (the QUALITY OF SANITY) and from their childhood, a flight of dissent free from dogma thoughts (UNEXPECTED THINKING)!

A brilliant and precisely balanced combination of qualities!

That’s how extraordinary original thinking emerged – “UNEXPECTED SANITY”!

Does it look fantastic?

What if Esprit is right in his fantasy?!

Bibliography: K.I. Chukovsky “From two to five”

3 VIII 2026