Genius The Transgression/Chapter Three:Systems and Foundations

"The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds."

-Georg Cantor

A genius' Breakthrough is an amazing and hideous event, and a great accomplishment: those who survive the experience (somewhat) sane and whole should be commended merely for making it through in one piece. But catalyzing is only the beginning of a genius' journey. For weeks or even months, a genius might flail about with nothing but raw Mania and the effects it can engender. Some lonesomes might stay here indefinitely, with a touch of insanity separating them from mere mortals and a gift for understanding machines and pushing them to the limit.

But eventually, most geniuses, even isolated ones, start to recognize patterns and systems. They look past the apparently random shifts of Mania, the equations that dance on the page or behind the computer screen, and find tangles of predictability and repeatability, something they can hold on to: the Axioms of mad science. From there a genius can start to build up a system and a philosophy.