Can crazy people be smart?

Question

The mentally insane..

Answer 1

Actually most of them are smarter than normal people, the problem is that they use their smart part to make terrible plans as killing, robberys, kidnapps, etc. they will never use their smartness to do something good, actually most of the genius people or unique has mental problems, the main problem is that their crazyness ends killing them.

Answer 2

That depends on how you define insane and how you define smart.

I've worked with those with mental illness, and they vary from being not so intelligent to being incredibly so. Much like everyone else.

There does appear to be a link between certain mental illness and creativity and outstanding thinking.

At the low points during my depression, I've thought about things and come up with some amazing ideas. I don't think the depression caused this, but I think the experiences I went through helped to expand my thinking capabilities.

As far as intellect goes, I'm intelligent. Naturally gifted but various factors prevented me achieving my full potential - most notably is the crippling depression.

Yes, crazy people can be smart.

Answer 3

The human mind is an amazing machine. Many geniuses have some form of mental illness. John Nash, the famous mathmetician (portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" by Russell Crowe) suffers from schizophrenia.

Many famous authors and artists also suffered from some form of mental illness. Vincent Van Gogh suffered from depression, as well as Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Also, many people with autism have intelligence that borders on and often is genius.

Answer 4

Ted Kozinski (sp?), AKA the Una-bomber is a paranoid schizophrenic, and is also a math genius.

Yes, they can be.

Others have mentioned Nash (Beautiful Mind movie was about him).

And Rain Man was based on real phenomena -- autistic people who can "see" large numbers, remember extraordinary amounts of stuff, can do things like tell you what day of the week April 12, 1637 fell on, and other stuff.

Which is not to say that ALL people with serious mental health problems are smart.

Answer 5

Yes, extremely intelligent. I hope you walk away from this question knowing that "crazy" people are sometimes around you, but they take their medications to relax whatever illness bothers them.

Some criminally insane people have eluded police authorities for years. Some have bombed mailboxes. Some have organized major airline takeovers that flew into populated skyscrapers in New York City.

You may have heard of some of these examples, but the organization and execution is there, these people have killing on their minds and they will come up with a plan to do it and to get away.

I'm talking about serial killers, the unibomber, and the terrorists that struck the trade center, if you don't remember the examples that I listed.....

Answer 6

First, "insane" is just a court term used to determine whether or not a person is competent to aid in his/her own defense.

Yes, there are mentally challanged people who can be extremely gifted in one or more areas. There are also very intelligent people who have a "breakdown"--which does not necessarily mean that they have lost all of the knowledge they've acquired over the years.

Answer 7

they are usually very intellegent. especially the criminally insane that is how they get away with a lot of crimes and a lot of the time the only reason that they get caught is because the wanted to be. as far as mentally ill of course they can be very smart too. as a matter of fact most bi polar people are known for their intellect and their creativity. hope this helps

Answer 8

Yes.

The wildly creative genius often walks a fine line, as many of humankind's greatest minds have edged into the darkness of mental illness. Now a new study shows that creative people tend to share more personality traits with the mentally ill than they do with the middle-of-the-road masses.

Answer 9

Yes - have you ever noticed that some of the smartest people are often a little bit crazy? Im not talking about the really fargone ones in asylums or anything but usually if you meet someone really intelligent they'll often be a little quirky or 'off'. I think that the more you know the scarier it is.

Answer 10

Just like there is a fine line between love and hate,,,same applies to clever and stupid,,,usually the overly intelligent are not smart about other things,,so yes crazy ppl can also be smart

Answer 11

Here's a true story so you be the judge:
A man was driving down a country road when all of a sudden one of the wheels fell off his car. He pulled over to the side of the road to survey his problem.
He went and picked up the wheel from where it had fallen off and as he was walking back to the car he saw a high fence with a sign:

County Asylum for the Insane

On the inside of the fence a nice looking man was watching him walk back to his car. As he drew up near to him the man said:
"Wheel fell off, eh?"
The man with the car replied: "Yeah, here's the wheel, and it's OK, but I can't put it back on because the lug nuts fell off somewhere back on the road."

The man behind the fence smiled. He said:
"Well, why don't you just take one nut off each of the other 3 wheels, then you will have three to put that wheel back on with."
The man with the car said:
"Hey, that's pretty smart...thank you!" "By the way, what's a smart guy like you doing in a place like that?
The man behind the fence replied:

"I'm in here because I'm crazy, not because I'm stupid!"