Assume you think just about mathematics. Nothing else at all. All the time. Now, if you get to be not only eccentric compared to others, but this makes other things like interaction with other people and to do other daily issues difficult, you shouldn't be suprised.

It's not because of the math or knowledge. A lot of people working in arts have also had mental problems, even if their artwork has been brilliant. Yet should we then argue that art is dangerous? Are we better off with art?

(Ps. Have you seen Darren Aronofsky's Pi?)

This expression "dangerous knowledge" is like a flag on the peak of a mountain. The unclaimed mountain could be a metaphor for an entire world from a point of view (transpose the flag to the surface of the Moon or Mars).

It might be comparable to "dangerous experience." Why would anyone want to physically go to Mars? They might actually believe they are living in a simulation (remarkable!). From risk-averse life-affirming position, it seems irrational. For a lot of folks life is so absurd as to render the rational as a kind of valuation about what folks believe is rational. When someone says, 'such and such is irrational' is probably a valuation (judgment) never a truth. If rational is x, then...

We presume "philosophy" is worthwhile because of conserved memes (inherited or copied beliefs). Someone once said "an unexamined life is not worth living". This has somehow been conserved in relation to the projected value of the works associated with the man who said "an examined life is not worth living". Many many many men and women ask themselves daily, "is this life worth living." For some it is just a terrible feeling, pain, for what they see is necessary to avoid death. If only they had some "dangerous knowledge" that might undo what they believe is necessary.

If you take a random sample of 100 people and lock them up in solitary confinement for 1 year, what % of those people will have taken their own lives (by what curious speciic means)? What % of those people will have had revelation about the value of some better orientation life? What % will be unchanged, neither positively or negatively affected? If this was law in some society, what behavioral effect might it have in that society?

"Dangerous knowledge!" Whoa! What a meme this is.

Put a box in your child's room that says "Dangerous, do not open!" and see what happens. Put a tree in the garden of Fleabin with a sign that says "This tree is poisonous, do not eat its fruits." You never know until you try, unless you already know because someone has tried.

There are a lot of fairly odd people out there; some of them have brilliant minds, most of them do not. One could cite many examples of very brilliant people who were very social, pleasant people. Bongo drum playing Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist, was apparently quite fun to be around.

Whether information is dangerous depends on... like, what does someone plan to do with it? An environmentalist wanting to know how much carbon monoxide cars produces is dealing with useful, good information. Someone who is suicidal or murderous wanting to know how much CO a given engine produces produces might be looking for "dangerous information".

The method of producing a nuclear or thermonuclear explosion seems to fit into "dangerous information".

Curiosity kills the cat!
That's what I mean more or less.

I value knowledge and I feel willing to sacrifice my time and effort in search of some unplucked fruit from the knowing tree.

Knowledge is valuable insofar as someone posseses it. There's no value in an unknown truth. Yet, if to know something is to lose one's mind and become insane or even die then isn't that the very definition of futility. The fruit has been picked but the person is no longer there to eat it. May be others will enjoy the benefit. That in itself is a worthy goal even though one may have to lose everything.

What sort of knowledge is it, do you think, that "to know it is to lose one's mind"?

And let's be reasonable... how likely is it that you will stumble on gold plated evidence of all of Donald Trump's misdeeds? Or, knowledge of future events that would be intolerable to know -- like the time and date of the long-feared world nuclear war, or when the mass-death virus will break out that will kill 10% of the world's population in a month, and 50% in a year? Or, knowledge of how rich you would now be if you had only bought that lottery ticket 10 years ago?

What sort of knowledge is it, do you think, that "to know it is to lose one's mind"? — Bitter Crank

How about advanced mathematics? If what I say is true then all the geniuses in science and math have been walking a tightrope - precariously balanced on a thin line, with high risk of falling (insanity).

Given your name, TheMadFool, you might be projecting a secret wish, unless you know something that is twisting your noodle into an odd shape. Soon to be TheSaneGenius, I hope.

Most geniuses probably weren't mad. It was the inability of the folks around them to understand them that likely drives psychological illness. What you think others think of you can cause great stress. If everyone withdraws and you lose your social status and income, are threatened with the rack and thumb screws, then yeah, insanity might be quite natural.

A lot of contemporary illness is induced by existential distress (paralyzing fear) and the inability to moderate one's lifestyle (food, physical activity, social needs). Most time is spent working for shit income in the dumb rat race, with little left over to cultivate the self. Society doesn't give a lick about the mad or the so-called unspecialized "normal" apes.

There are a lot of very smart people in science and math (and in other fields). Most of them are not in danger of madness.

Some people do "go mad", to use the technical term. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are in between. Why do people "go mad"? Some people have severe conflicts between what they want to do in life and what they are able to do. They feel very thwarted. Some people have very unreasonable (or very high) expectations that are repeatedly disappointed. Some people have learned very maladaptive styles of thinking and behavior which practically guarantees a life of stress.

Some people, not a large percentage -- probably less than 2% or 3% of the whole population--are born with or develop personality, mood, and behavioral disorders which can be quite severe. Severe depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are 3 examples. These disorders affect the sub-par, average, and very bright all the same.

The "Mad Scientist" is a popular meme. It makes for good fiction, but mad scientists are actually pretty rare. What's much more common is Boring Scientists. They, as luck would have it, are all over the place. There os am ode that scientists do not know how to behave like most people do. The image is that they are in another world, head in the clouds, etc. Your average humanities student/graduate/professor is as likely to have problems living in the real world as scientists do.

You know what the normal curve looks like. All of us are on that curve, somewhere. On any given facet of behavior, most of us are in the middle, whether we are geniuses or morons.

If what I say is true then all the geniuses in science and math have been walking a tightrope - precariously balanced on a thin line, with high risk of falling (insanity). — TheMadFool

I say you are wrong.

All geniuses aren't walking a tightrope, and mathematicians don't have a high risk of falling insane. There will be for sure at least one very gifted mathematician who isn't insane or hasn't a high risk of falling insane, hence by logical reasoning your argument is false.

The term 'genius' in popular terminology has a mix of a positive and negative aspects in it. That's why President Brainfart in his mentall illness had to declare himself a very stable genius. Yes, you might feel a bit worried if the person having the nuclear launch codes is a genius. A 'genius' can be very unpredictable.

The idea is that as people are on such an edge of knowledge and beyond what 'ordinary' people can fathom, that they have the risk of losing it. This view emerges from the idea that 'smart' or 'mathematically gifted' people are some kind of a different breed from others. Although stereotypes may have an inkling of truth in them, they are still stereotypes.

Well, let me try at this from another angle. Some of the, what I call ''good stuff'', really difficult concepts in subjects like philosophy, math, science, etc. are beyond the mental reach of ordinary folks. I consider myself an average Joe and find things like Cantor's infinity and Godel's incompleteness theorems very difficult to understand. Now, this is my impression of Cantor and Godel because I know these concepts make sense except I don't understand them.

The reason behind the inability of ordinary peopls to comprehend abstruse concepts is they can't follow the logical arguments that prove them.

In fact, there really is no difficulty here - every concept or theory in any field is arrived at one step at a time from very basic assumptions e.g. we can say that the three basic laws of thought (identity, excluded middle, non contradiction) are the fountain of ALL knowledge. Everything we know follows from these three laws. If we could group 3 laws of thought together in one statement as A then we could in fact say something like:

1. A
Therefore
2. The theory of relativitty

Or

1. A
Therefore
2. God doesn't exist

You get the picture

But, of course, if I were to make the above arguments to an audience they'll think me insane because I haven't connected the dots for them and so it sounds crazy.

Another example to illustrate my point would be a person, say in 2nd millenium BC, who pronounced to his friends that man can fly. To his friends he's a lunatic but to us he is a visionary genius. Why the difference in opinion. We understand the steps in his reasoning (aerodynamics) but his friends don't.

So, it seems to me that the difference between madness and genius depends on the intelligence and knowledge of the audience.

Even if a genius is normal unlike my examples (Cantor and Godel), the audience percieves him/her as mad.

Mad people are those who go blindly through life, working 40 hours a week in some menial job, fully invested into this 'life' of materiality. So much so, that no question of enigma remains, no hint of awe. These great swathes of dull, anaesthetised people who live as if they are already dead. That is mad. It is not knowledge they possess, but a dangerous forbidding of knowledge.

So, it seems to me that the difference between madness and genius depends on the intelligence and knowledge of the audience. — TheMadFool

I think this is a good starting point. I also think it's a label that gets thrown around from a collective, to what is an unaccepted (by said collective) difference

Well, let me try at this from another angle. Some of the, what I call ''good stuff'', really difficult concepts in subjects like philosophy, math, science, etc. are beyond the mental reach of ordinary folks. — TheMadFool

Or even the science crowd, usually. Never overestimate the intelligence of academic people. You see, thinking out of the box is as difficult for them as it is for other people.

One favorite example of mine is that the late Stephen Hawking argued that Isaac Newton could have been explained that his theory had a flaw. And because Newton, presumably, was such a genius, he would have understood this Hawking argued. Yeah right, as if Newton was a personality would have taken it easily that his theory is false and one has to have relativity. And what would be the argument here? Some weird contraption called the Michelson-Morley experiment? At least Thomas Kuhn got something right in his ideas of scientific paradigms.

Actually Newton was quite a mediocre science-official (as the president of the Royal Society), which post he was elevated after his breakthrough work.

Mad people are those who go blindly through life, working 40 hours a week in some menial job, fully invested into this 'life' of materiality. So much so, that no question of enigma remains, no hint of awe. These great swathes of dull, anaesthetised people who live as if they are already dead. That is mad. It is not knowledge they possess, but a dangerous forbidding of knowledge. — emancipate

Is it somehow more noble to work 20 or 60 hours per week?

who said anything about nobility? The subject is madness. I'm merely describing the typical lifestyle of the masses, which includes an average working week of 40 hours.

No, you didn't merely describe: your post was quite clearly laden with value judgments about "the masses," employing descriptors such as "blindly," "menial," and materiality, not to mention calling them "dull" and "anesthetized."

I pointed out that the charge of madness comes from those who lead an unexamined life. Worse than unexamined, ignorant. It is this collective ignorance that decides what should be denoted sane.

Yes the masses are ignorant. Make of that what you will. Hint: its more of a brute fact, than a value judgement.

I see. So, you don't see anything of note in this. That's ok but I want to ask you, is there a breaking point for the mind. I myself have been quite literally driven mad by the stresses of life but that's a case of something being done to the mind and not an effect of something the mind is doing. I've heard people warn others to not overthink as if there's such a limit to cogitation beyond which it may be harmful. Yes, nothing is all good - everything has pros and cons, I know but, what is the harm being suggested by ''don't overthink''?

I pointed out that the charge of madness comes from those who lead an unexamined life. Worse than unexamined, ignorant. It is this collective ignorance that decides what should be denoted sane. — emancipate

That's interesting. You're pointing the accusing finger back at the accuser. However, this isn't the type of madness I'm referring to. The madness of the ''masses'' can be remedied, improved, corrected, guided. After all wasn't Socrates from the masses?

The insanity I'm referring to could be better described as psychosis - untractable delusions, hallucinations, etc. Such people have no recourse to pointing the finger of madness back at the masses like philosophers do. They are mad and that's that.

What do you think, are geniuses with profound ideas hiding underneath the clinically insane? I guess we could ask the same question about the masses and the answer would be ''yes''.

Is it that the deeper you think the more the chances of insanity?

Is there such a thing as dangerous knowledge?

Are we better off not knowing some things? — TheMadFool

This is close to the fiction of cosmic horror, but no, I don't think so.

I think that the further away from the truth you are the more shocking the truth is for you. If someone has a mental meltdown because of knowledge, it's because they weren't even close to the knowledge in the first place and the distance between their understanding and the truth is what created the trauma.

No, there's no such thing as dangerous knowledge, there's only danger in indoctrination into the illusion that becomes the danger to the truth when revealed. The knowledge itself is not the danger, it's the human stupidity that is.

I think that the further away from the truth you are the more shocking the truth is for you — Christoffer

Would one be shocked into believing that the bearer of the truth was mad?

If someone has a mental meltdown because of knowledge, it's because they weren't even close to the knowledge in the first place and the distance between their understanding and the truth is what created the trauma. — Christoffer

The examples I provided (Cantor and Godel) were of people who knew the truth. They discovered truths/knowledge that presumably drove them insane.

No, there's no such thing as dangerous knowledge, there's only danger in indoctrination into the illusion that becomes the danger to the truth when revealed. The knowledge itself is not the danger, it's the human stupidity that is. — Christoffer

What is your opinion on the two examples I cited?

I see. So, you don't see anything of note in this. — TheMadFool

That's not actually my point.

It was that being obsessively concentrated on any issue might drive to mental problems. Hence the reference to artists going mad. Especially they can use alcohol or drugs to get "inspiration" and profound emotions to describe. The issue itself, mathematics, science or art, isn't dangerous.

I've heard people warn others to not overthink as if there's such a limit to cogitation beyond which it may be harmful. — TheMadFool

Here it's not a limit of cognitation, but a limit of overthinking... being focused on one thing. The limit of cognition is quite easy to find and isn't so damning: one just doesn't get something. I'm sure you as I know the feeling.

Sometimes when you study truly hard and do thinking for a prolonged time, it's better to take time off and do something totally else. Have a good sleep and in the morning it's all better as you can focus better. Now I'm not a psychologist or know the field much, but I would guess this problem of overthinking is more of a problem of obsessive behaviour, which itself can have bad consequences.