Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)
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: November 22, 2024
Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2025
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Word Count: 879
Image Credits: Photo by Timothy Kassis on Unsplash.
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885
Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*
Abstract
Reuven Kotleras, from a secular-Jewish background between Vienna and Vilnius, excelled academically, earning dual Bachelor’s from MIT and a Ph.D. from Michigan. High intelligence was identified early, confirmed at age four. He highlighted society’s mixed treatment of geniuses, citing da Vinci and Einstein as examples. Kotleras believes genius involves unique insight and distinguishes it from general intelligence. His career spanned teaching, research, and policy roles. He dispelled myths about innate genius, emphasizing the need for skill development. Influenced by Stoic pragmatism, organized complexity, and Mahayana Buddhism, Kotleras finds life’s meaning in discovery, believes in reincarnation, and views love as complex.
Keywords: academic excellence, complex love, discovery and meaning, high intelligence, Mahayana Buddhism, societal treatment of geniuses, Stoic pragmatism.
Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were growing up, what were some of the prominent family stories being told over time?
Reuven Kotleras: There were none, actually.
Jacobsen: Have these stories helped provide a sense of an extended self or a sense of the family legacy?
Kotleras: Not applicable.
Jacobsen: What was the family background, e.g., geography, culture, language, and religion or lack thereof?
Kotleras: If you draw a line on a map from Vienna, Austria, to Vilnius, Lithuania, then all eight great-grandparents were born within 100 miles of this line. All sides of the family immigrated to the United States in the early, middle, or late nineteenth century. Both parents were from Brookline, Massachusetts. The family was secular-Jewish.
Jacobsen: How was the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and an adolescent?
Kotleras: Satisfactory.
Jacobsen: What have been some professional certifications, qualifications, and trainings earned by you?
Kotleras: I earned two Bachelor’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the age of 20, and later a Ph.D. from The University of Michigan. There were also a good number of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships that took me to cities and institutions where I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to be.
Jacobsen: What is the purpose of intelligence tests to you?
Kotleras: To measure Spearman’s g, now often called the “g-factor” and which represents general intelligence.
Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?
Kotleras: Very early. It was suspected by my parents well before age two and confirmed by testing at about age four.
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.
Kotleras: Groups and masses of people like to treat individuals who are not like them in special ways.
Jacobsen: Who seem like the greatest geniuses in history to you?
Kotleras: To choose at random from only the modern era: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin. For the pre-modern eras, one can confidently name Aristotle and Hildegard of Bingen.
Jacobsen: What differentiates a genius from a profoundly intelligent person?
Kotleras: I think the Schopenhauer quotation gets this: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
Jacobsen: Is profound intelligence necessary for genius?
Kotleras: This seems to be the case.
Jacobsen: What have been some work experiences and jobs held by you?
Kotleras: File clerk, photocopy shop drone, office boy, secondary school teacher, graduate teaching assistant, research assistant, professor, researcher, research director, editor, journalist, international affairs analyst, policy analyst, policy advisor.
Jacobsen: Why pursue this particular job path?
Kotleras: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
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?
Kotleras: One of the deleterious myths is that genius is innate and therefore guarantees success, whereas any potential requires development and learning such necessary skill-sets as resilience and adaptability.
Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the God concept or gods idea and philosophy, theology, and religion?
Kotleras: Not to speak of.
Jacobsen: How much does science play into the worldview for you?
Kotleras: A significant part.
Jacobsen: What have been some of the tests taken and scores earned (with standard deviations) for you?
Kotleras: I prefer not to be very detailed. Let’s just say a lower bound of +5 sigma and an upper bound of +7 sigma, with the greatest likelihood somewhere between +6 and +7.
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.
Kotleras: [See reply to previous question.]
Jacobsen: What ethical philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Stoic pragmatism.
Jacobsen: What social philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Organized complexity.
Jacobsen: What economic philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.
Jacobsen: What political philosophy makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Pragmatic realism.
Jacobsen: What metaphysics makes some sense to you, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Madhyamaka.
Jacobsen: What worldview-encompassing philosophical system makes some sense, even the most workable sense to you?
Kotleras: Mahayana Buddhism.
Jacobsen: What provides meaning in life for you?
Kotleras: The pursuit of understanding, the process of discovery, and having a positive influence through sharing new things or new ways of looking at old things.
Jacobsen: Is meaning externally derived, internally generated, both, or something else?
Kotleras: Both.
Jacobsen: Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, why, and what form? If not, why not?
Kotleras: Buddhist reincarnation.
Jacobsen: What do you make of the mystery and transience of life?
Kotleras: I make of it what I can.
Jacobsen: What is love to you?
Kotleras: This is too complicated and context-dependent to explain.
Footnotes
None
Citations
American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1). November 2024; 13(1). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1
American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Jacobsen, S. (2024, November 22). Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)’. In-Sight Publishing. 13(1).
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)’. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 13, n. 1, 2024.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2024. “Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)’.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 13, no. 1 (Winter). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Jacobsen, S. “Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 13, no. 1 (November 2024). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
Harvard: Jacobsen, S. (2024) ‘Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 13(1). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
Harvard (Australian): Jacobsen, S 2024, ‘Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. “Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.13, no. 1, 2024, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Conversation with Reuven Kotleras on Views, Life, and Love (1) [Internet]. 2024 Nov; 13(1). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/kotleras-1.
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