<p>i just got done watching good will hunting and was wondering if there are really people out there like that in the world…perhaps looming around the boards of CC…i know for sure i’m not!</p>
<p>Hahaha. That’s one of my most favorite movies.</p>
<p>Will Hunting is a highly intelligent person. I don’t know exactly the details of his intelligence but I can see that he is good with mathematics, science, history, literature, and possibly some others. Yes, there are people who can learn things by just reading them, but I don’t know about a lot of people who can prove highly advanced math proofs that only a few in the world can.</p>
<p>The math proof (the second one that Prof. Lambeau catches him solving) in the beginning of the movie actually isn’t very hard in reality. See: <a href=“Application Center - Maplesoft”>Application Center - Maplesoft;
<p>There are a few people like Will out there, albeit not to his extreme. They’re known as polymaths… it means that they’re good at just about every subject. Music, math, science, literature, history, you name it. Personally, I know only one person whom I hold in that regard.</p>
<p>Ya, Good Will Hunting is an amazing movie. I loved it. Isn’t the second proof the one that is really hard? The one that Will lights on fire and Lambeau grabs it and tries to put it out.</p>
<p>I know a few people like this. Most people at Harvard are more like Minnie Driver’s character. But my con law professor was summa cum laude in math as a Harvard College undergrad before becoming an international superstar in law (which is essentially a field of the humanities). One of my transfer classmates was brilliant that way, too – she immigrated to the U.S. at sixteen, immediately began making a 4.0 in community college in her what was her fourth or fifth foreign language (English) and ended up at Harvard as an 18-year-old junior. She amazed us at the orientation party by meeting 54 other new transfers and effortlessly remembering every word of the conversations she had with each of us…our full names, where we transferred from, our major, what we disliked about our old school, where we grew up…EVERYTHING. She majored in psychology, but I really think she ought to go into politics.</p>
<p>This is going to be slightly off-topic, but I have a different take on the movie GWH, and my take is that while the movie has several arcs (the development of emotional maturity of Will Hunting to match his prodigious intelligence, the bonding of Will and Sean Maguire in a positive father/son role to combat the abusive relationships the two had with their real fathers, the budding relationship between WH and Skylar), to me, the most important arc is the misalignment between Will’s talent and the society that he is in.</p>
<p>What do I mean? Consider this. Will’s talent is in intellectual pursuits, specifically the ability to learn things extremely quickly, with the extra twist of being a mathematics genius. The problem is, that talent is not highly valued in the milieu that he grows up in (South Boston) and not tremendously valued in society at large. Not to sound curt and unappreciative, but the movie implies that Will Hunting may be the most brilliant mathematician alive today, and yet, there are only a handful of people in the world who can discern that fact, and even less that truly care. This is why he is consigned to a life of violence and manual labor while he is young - his environment offered him no way to utilize his talents and his social culture does not consider it to be valuable.</p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. What if Will’s talent wasn’t in mathematics or intellectual pursuits, but rather in sports? For example, instead of being the most brilliant math prodigy alive today, what if his great talent was hitting a baseball , throwing a football, shooting hoops, or hitting a tennis ball? What if his great talent was in music? Or acting? You know and I know that he would have been a world-famous multi-millionaire superstar. Think about it. LeBron James is estimated to be worth over $200 million from his basketball contract and his endorsements, and not only is he not even 20 years old yet, he isn’t even the best basketball player in the world yet (although he might be in the future). Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are estimated to have built net worths of at least $100 million before they turned 20. Heck, you don’t even have to have a whole lot of talent to become wealthy in the entertainment field. Britney may not be a great singer, but at least she can dance. The Spice Girls have no talent and yet they are each worth over $25 million dollars, for no discernable talent that I can detect. </p>
<p>Hence, Will Hunting has the 'blessed misfortune" of having a supreme talent in something that society doesn’t really care much about. Let’s face it. A guy like that is never going to make the kind of money that LeBron James or Britney Spears can make. He’s never going to be world-famous the way sports stars and movie stars are. Go to the man on the street and have him name 10 famous mathematicians. He probably won’t be able to do it. Then ask him to name 10 famous athletes. Most guys will be able to name far more than 10. That just goes to show you the sad reality that society cares more about pop culture and entertainment than it does about intellectual pursuits. </p>
<p>The point is, if math geniuses were looked at in awe and were as paid as well as sports stars, rock stars, or movie stars, then Will Hunting would have become extremely rich and famous very quickly and wouldn’t be stuck mopping floors at MIT at night. He’s the best mathematician in the world, and yet his rewards are miniscule compared to if he was the best movie star in the world or the best baseball player in the world. Then again, if the rewards were commensurate, then there wouldn’t be a movie (or at least, the movie would be entirely different).</p>
<p>sakky, you offer good points with the focus society has on different types of talents, however, you’re assuming that the main usage of Will’s talent is for money or fame. I know that if I had this incredible gift, I’d use it more for the sake of promoting education or just getting far in life with being able to learn things very quickly. I know that Will does not want that gift due to his lifestyle and the importance society deems his knowledge. However, assuming he did want the gift, what says that he would indeed exploit it only for getting rich or famous?</p>
<p>Clearly the only advantage of Will’s gift is for impressing girls like Skylar. He even says during a dialogue with Professor Lambeau that he doesn’t want to “spend his whole life explaining **** to people,” which shows that he doesn’t wish to utilize his intelligence with math at least. However, there’s evidence that he does in fact enjoy his gift sometimes. Why else would he finish very difficult math proofs and spend time alone learning things like Organic Chemistry in his free time? He must like something about his lifestyle, but I don’t think he’s in it for money or fame.</p>
<p>my pops who was a mechanical engineering major in college and eventually got his phd in applied mathematics took the mcats out of sheer curiosity and scored a 38…craziness</p>
<p>sakky you make strong point about athletes/intellectuals…however i would think its safe to assume that the worlds greatest thinker (einstein) is far better known and undisputed than say the worlds greatest athlete (?) or entertainer (?)</p>
<p>Mine Is Different - I wouldn’t be so sure. In fact, I would be more than willing to bet that Michael Jordan is far more well-known than Albert Einstein, although that may have something to due with his merchandise, too.</p>
<p>z5sharp, I agree that WH is not really in it for money and fame. But one of the other subarcs of the movie is about the power of friendship and your social environment and specifically how you will do things because people who are close to you want you to do it. You may remember how much WH enjoyed baseball (recall the scene where Matt Damon and Robin Williams are reminiscing about the famous Carlton Fisk World Series homerun). You may also recall that ultimately, WH decides he is going to pursue his intellectual gifts by taking that job with the math thinktank. Why does he ultimately choose to do this? Well, many reasons, but one reason is that Chucky (Ben Affleck) basically convinces Will to do so, saying that it would be a waste of Will’s talent to spend the rest of his life doing construction. </p>
<p>Hence, I could surmise that if Will’s great talent was not in mathematics, but in sports or music, he would pursue his talent, if for nothing else, than at least to get the approval of his friends. </p>
<p>I would also have to learn towards what patches said - and say that Michael Jordan (or perhaps Pele or Anna Kournikova or whoever) may well be better known than Einstein was. At least we can say indisputably that those athletes or entertainers made far far far more money than Einstein ever did.</p>