The genuine polymath is still one in a million

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time.

This could be seen positively or negatively. One way of spinning it is that he was persistent in exploring ideas. Another way, though, is that something -- mythmaking, hype, his art, whatever it is -- has allowed history to ignore the fact that he seemed to have been wrong more often than he was right, along the lines of a broken clock being right twice a day.

In either case, I think there's something to be said for some kind of cultural and social context playing a strong role in how all of this is interpreted. A different person in the wrong place or wrong time might have been interpreted as a crackpot.

> the idea of knowing everything

I don't think that's what defines a polymath, for if it does, then none existed. My view of what makes one a polymath is deep --likely cutting-edge-- expertise in several disciplines.

That being said, I agree with the general sentiment that it is increasingly harder to become a polymath these days, especially in the disciplines with lots of active research. To have an expertise in just one discipline it takes years of education (to catch up with progress) and then a considerable recurrent investment of time to stay up-to-date.

If one is to be a polymath in a varied set of disciplines where overlap is minimal (see Leonardo), one would have to go through the mentioned process of acquiring and maintaining expertise for each discipline. This is different for a polymath in a set of closely-related disciplines, because there's only so much more (compared to being expert in one discipline) one needs to do to be a polymath because there's a lot of overlap. But it is debatable whether that even counts as a polymath, a point raised in:

> Is Judith Butler’s supposed eminence in ‘philosophy, linguistics and politics’ enough to qualify her?

This is the focus of my main keynote presentation topic, On Being a Deep Generalist.

Specialisation came to the fore during the Industrial Revolution and achieved a form of preeminence in the 20th Century that hadn’t existed elsewhere in human history when knowing, at depth, a wide variety of skills and disciplines was either essential for survival or in order to be considered a well-rounded individual.

The internet, not without ongoing battles against vested interests, has solved the discoverability challenge faced with approaching the wealth of knowledge created in the past few centuries. For many of us aspiring polymaths (and I agree with the other comments here that a polymath isn’t someone who knows “everything about everything“, but rather knows “a lot about a lot” or “enough about enough”) the challenge is mental and societal.

We convince ourselves that we must specialize to succeed; most schools and many workplaces promote the same. Yet creativity and insight so often depends on interdisciplinary knowledge and the ability to use our brains to connect novel ideas.

It’s not the right choice for everyone. If you want to be the best in the world (or the top 1%) at something, then specialize. But most of us are more varied than that, which has benefits for us as business owners, or employees, and as humans.

>In fact these days we are all that man or woman; you only need to resort to Wikipedia to realise how outdated the idea of knowing everything — or indeed anything — has become.

The word is polymath, like polyglot. We don't expect a polyglot to speak all languages.

Leonardo won't have known everything either.

When it comes to modern/living polymaths, it's worth mentioning Noam Chomsky. He did groundbreaking work in formal language theory that is fundamental to lots of theory of computation. He basically (re)invented modern linguistics. Then there's the media analysis work of Manufacturing Consent. Then there's the unending political criticism. It's pretty staggering.

We're standing on the shoulders of giants - so many giants in fact, that it's quite possible to spend a lifetime just climbing upward these days. By comparison, in Leonardo's time, a curious mind would almost certainly have to jump laterally to find something to hold its attention.

The same Judith Butler that came up with 'performativity'? Good luck with that spectator!

I dont understand the polymath moniker, it seems to be a British definition that elucidates a role in life that requires multiple high level skills without describing where that applies in modern life. As if it were a position one could attain rather than a useful, purposeful skill.

Tech leads like Jobs described art and science at the highest level as the same thing. He demonstrated in production, high level knowledge in both distinct categories, but would likely never be discussed by the Brits.

Its strange to see someone like Stephen Fry being described as a polymath, when he works as a quiz show host and author. He is paid to learn and recite that learning independent of its application in society.

I prefer the older British term 'expert generalist' as it seems more accurate and discusses people who applied their learning more frequently.

Looks like a case of an attention-grabbing headline not written by the article author. The book review itself seems to argue that the idea of polymathy can no longer be applied at all today.

Not so much "genuine", but rather celebrity polymath. There are plenty of polymaths who have no interest in fame and fortune, and simply keep to themselves.

While the definition of polymath is somewhat contested and arbitrary, my opinion is that the defining trait of polymathy is insatiable curiosity and a desire to invent things and solve problems, real or imaginary. I do not know how common this base set of traits is, and how variable it is in magnitude, but I suspect it is higher than 1 in 100. When you add in some combination of raw IQ, financial circumstance, educational circumstance, ambition, work ethic, and leadership skills, then you end up a more impactful polymath ranging from the software engineer who builds interesting things and blogs/researches various topics in her spare time to Elon Musk to Von Neumann.

I see many smart naysayer's on HN who argue "this would never work" or "this is considered bad practice" without offering some alternative idea. In fact, this is probably the most common type of comment. While they are usually correct, this is the exact opposite of how a polymath thinks. Polymaths have a confidence in their own ideas and a desire to explore and build a mental model for themselves before taking the tribal wisdom at face value. Thinking via first principles comes innately to these types.

The "problem" is how long it takes to get up to speed in various fields, now that most have decades or centuries of depth.

Accelerated learning tech will open the polymath doors again.

If that’s the case there’s about eight of them in New York City.