What is talent?


Victor Pross

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Johnny,

I bow to your superior wisdom in musical pedagogy.

(Sorry, I can't stop laughing...)

You really should find out who you are talking to before choosing your rhetoric...

Er... Are your students in any major orchestras or in any famous pop acts? (Incidentally, I have plenty in both in South America. Want some names?)

:)

Michael

EDIT - My post crossed with your second post. Before going on about innate talent, I suggest we define it. What is your definition? (I gave mine, or a rough approximation of it earlier in this thread. I am willing to elaborate.)

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All men are not created equally, as a collectivist or egalitarian society would envision. The egalitarian world would necessarily be a world of horror fiction – a world of faceless and identical creatures--devoid of all individuality, variety, uniqueness or special creativity.*(1.1) The horror we feel at these stories is the appreciation that men are not uniform, that the species is uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity, differentiation--in short, inequality.*(1.2) Human beings are born with different capacities, aptitudes, dispositions, talents, temperaments, etc—and at different degrees. The great fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality) is manifest from the long record of human experience. An egalitarian society seeks to realize its goals by totalitarian methods of coercion.*(1.3)

Look at the fantasies at the root of the Marxian utopia of communism. Freed from the imaginary confines of specialization and the division of labor—this being heart of any production above the most primitive level and hence of any civilized society--the idea is that each person in the communist utopia would fully develop all of his powers in every direction. Engels wrote in his Anti-Dühring: “communism would give each individual the opportunity to develop and exercise all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions." And Lenin: "abolition of the division of labor among people...the education, schooling, and training of people with an all-around development and an all-around training, people able to do everything. Communism is marching and must march toward this goal, and will reach it."*(1.4)

Did you read that? “…An all-around development and an all-round training, people able to do everything.” This is where the error begins. I am an individulist. And I say this as one who grants the existence of "innate talents." I do not believe in a society of "equals"--except before the law.

Why is a society of “equals” not possible? For two basic reasons: human beings have free-will and--nature simply does not equally distribute the same gifts across the gene pool. Let’s take a look at this: firstly, to have free-will means some people will choose to be irrational--even if raised in a rational household or in a rational society. Conversely, it also means that some people will choose to be rational and take responsibility for their lives--even if raised in a grotesquely irrational household. This is what free-will is about. Secondly, as for what nature gave us, some people will never become basketball players, such as midgets. Some people will never compose great music, such as tone deaf people, etc, etc.

But the ethical mandate remains the same: We are all individuals who are responsible for our own lives and we are to exercise our free-will and hone and develop what nature has given us in order to nourish and support our own lives. It is true that a primary element of individualism is--individual responsibility. Being responsible is being pro-active, making one's choices consciously and carefully, and accepting accountability for everything one does---or fails to do. A central part of responsibility is productivity. The individualist recognizes that nothing nature gives men is entirely suited to their survival. Human beings must work to transform their environment to meet their needs. This is the essence of production. The individualist takes responsibility for his own production.**(2) So acknowledging the existence of “innate talent” is not an argument against individuality or against becoming the very best we can be. All men are not created equally. We must use what nature gave us, and do so to our very best.

***

NOTE FROM ADMINISTRATOR:

* Plagiarized from "Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature" by Murray N. Rothbard. See here for the initial identification. The original passages read as follows:

(1.1)

The egalitarian world would necessarily be a world of horror fiction – a world of faceless and identical creatures, devoid of all individuality, variety, or special creativity.

(1.2)

The horror we all instinctively feel at these stories is the intuitive recognition that men are not uniform, that the species, mankind, is uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity, differentiation; in short, inequality.

(1.3)

The great fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality) is evident from the long record of human experience; hence, the general recognition of the antihuman nature of a world of coerced uniformity.

(1.4)

Similarly absurd fantasies are at the root of the Marxian utopia of communism. Freed from the supposed confines of specialization and the division of labor (the heart of any production above the most primitive level and hence of any civilized society), each person in the communist utopia would fully develop all of his powers in every direction.17 As Engels wrote in his
Anti-Dühring
, communism would give "each individual the opportunity to develop and exercise all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions."18 And Lenin looked forward in 1920 to the "abolition of the division of labor among people...the education, schooling, and training of people with
an all-around development
and
an all-around training
, people
able to do everything
. Communism is marching and must march toward this goal, and
will reach it
."19

** Plagiarized from a speech delivered January, 1992 at the MIT Radicals for Capitalism, What is Individualism?, subsection "Philosophic implications of individualism and collectivism - Responsibility vs. the safety-net" by Raymie Stata. The original passage reads as follows:

(2)

A primary element of individualism is individual responsibility. Being responsible is being
pro-active
, making one's choices consciously and carefully, and accepting accountability for everything one does-or fails to do. An integral part of responsibility is productivity. The individualist recognizes that nothing nature gives men is entirely suited to their survival; rather, humans must work to transform their environment to meet their needs. This is the essence of production. The individualist takes responsibility for his own production...

OL extends its deepest apologies to the heirs of Murray Rothbard and to Raymie Stata.

Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly
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I was pulled out of class in the sixties because I was weird and distracted. I had to spend a week with a child shrink. They thought I was a retard, or had some pathology. The battery of tests proved otherwise. It turned out that Mr. and Mrs. Engle had a little "genius" on their hands.
Heh. When I was in kindergarten, the teacher brought in some child expert because they thought I was "slow". After analyzing me, the child expert said I was smarter than the teacher, but just wasn't interested in what the teacher had to say.

(*smile*) I'll bet there are a lot of us out there with those kinds of stories. My mother was mortified because one of the cafeteria ladies thought I was retarded. Turned out I had the highest IQ in the class and got stuck with the "gifted" and "enrichment programs. Sigh. Again, the drama of growing up NT among SJ adults....

Or try

"The Myth of "Perfect Pitch"..... and How to Get "It"

by Kirk Whipple"

http://www.unconservatory.org/perfect_pitch/1.html

One quote from this article that I found relevant to this entire discussion was: "This might be a good time to re-label the word 'talent' as it applies to tonal memory and, in its place substitute the pedagogically correct term 'aptitude.' "

Interestingly, I've found that after having sung in choral groups most of my life, now that I'm firmly in middle age I seem to have developed during the last few months a better sense of pitch memory. I've always had very good relative pitch, and I've always been able to find from memory the "A" on which orchestras tune and middle C, but lately I don't need to have pitch fed to me nearly as often as my choral colleagues, and I often find that just looking at the notes on paper leads me to be able to sing the notes effortlessly, without thinking about it, by some sort of new-found pitch memory. It's really improved my sight-singing greatly! Interesting; it leads me to lend credence to this article, whereas before I always assumed that one either had perfect pitch or one didn't.

Duncan wanted to be a comic artist but I slowly came to realize (as if almost against my will) that this was most likely not to be. I would observe Duncan lovingly read his comic books—fully appreciating pictorial story-telling—but it was marred by a painful longing to emulate the artist’s work. “Don’t give up what you want to do,” I told Duncan on his last day at the school, but my words sounded hallow. He nodded, but he looked so forlorn.

Anyone out there ever hear of neurolinguistic programming (aka NLP)? Among other things, it sorts people by the way they learn into visual, aural, and sensory. Some people learn best by reading or looking at pictures, some people learn best by listening to instructions or hearing music, and some people learn best by sensory experiences. Sometimes when someone can't learn something and they desperately want to learn it, a complete shift in the sense used to teach can help.

One of my heroes is Mary Wanless, a riding teacher who has written some books on "advanced riding for the rest of us", so to speak. She was one of those who was told by the "naturally talented" riders that she simply didn't have innate talent. Many superb riders are poor teachers, and will often tell pupils who pay them major amounts of money for lessons that the student either gets it or doesn't get it, and if they don't get it, they never will. Other such teachers simply put you on a "schoolmaster" horse (one that knows the right and wrong way to do things) and leave you alone to figure things out for yourself. Sometimes the expert riders will tell you that they're doing one thing, whereas if you actually watch them carefully, they're doing something quite different, or they're ALSO doing nine other things simultaneously that they didn't think to tell you about that are required for that one thing to work. After years of frustration with such experiences, Mary set out to deconstruct exactly of what good riding consists, and set out, so to speak, in search of the Holy Grail. And, like Prometheus, she brought the Fire of the Gods down to The Rest of Us. Mary's background in physics gave her the necessary foundation in logical and analytical thinking to do the necessary analysis. I believe that she studied NLP as part of her endeavors. After reading her books, I found out that she was doing a three day clinic in Boston in late 1999. I learned more from her in those 3 days than I had in the past 25 years. I'm not one of those who can figure out equestrian things for myself; I could putter around for decades and keep doing things wrong and simply entrench bad habits more deeply, whereas a few words of explanation can change things INSTANTLY for the better in my riding. I, obviously, am not naturally talented when it comes to the advanced levels of dressage.

It all comes down to learning how to teach what one is doing (for the teacher) and to persisting in finding a teacher who can teach YOU what you want to learn (for the student). Those who are good at what they do aren't necessarily the best teachers. (With no offense intended to Victor! This woman spend years and years on her quest.) And if someone really wants to learn something, even without a natural aptitude, with patient teaching, an approach can be found to make at least some improvements -- not necessarily enough improvements to enable that person to make a living at that endeavor, but some improvements. I've always said that I can't draw to save my life. A friend of mine keeps recommending the book "Drawing With the Right Side of Your Brain." Maybe I'll give it a try if I ever find the time. And if I ever take up teaching anything, I'll either try to remember that different students learn differently and try to match my teaching methods to the students, or, if I fail at that, limit my students to those who match my teaching style.

Judith

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Judith,

You hit on a very important item to evaluate for learning: the competence of the teacher. During my music days, it was common knowledge that those who achieved greatness with a strong boost from innate talent were in general poor teachers and those who had to struggle to become what they were ended up being excellent teachers. (My master in conducting, Maestro Eleazar de Carvalho, was one who had to struggle, and he had a list of eminent students running from Seiji Osawa to Loren Maezel. He was a marvelous teacher, although he had a very difficult personality.)

I will go with your equation: aptitude = innate talent. They are synonyms for all practical purposes.

However, there are two considerations. First, I think it is futile to say that "talent" should only be confined to one definition. It is possible to add a new meaning to a word when the popular use is different (like Rand did with selfishness), but I have yet to see anyone subtract a meaning from the general use in a culture at large. "Talent" is commonly used by today's public to denote both innate and developed qualities.

Also, there is a component missing (or at least not very evident) in "aptitude" that should be remembered. All organisms grow from small things near birth into bigger things as they mature. This is a universal organic law. Any trait of a living organism that is innate is biological, so it is organic by nature--and it observes the same organic laws that all other living things, or parts of living things, observe. This means that an inborn aptitude will develop automatically up to a certain extent as the child grows. He doesn't have to do anything except stay alive and stay healthy. Growth takes care of the rest (up to a point).

If this aptitude is not acted on, when a child gets older, all he will have to do is try out the activity where he is a natural and shortly he is doing better than many who have studied for years. (A very drastic case of this is Bill Traylor--see here and here and here--who was an illiterate and born a slave, and who started drawing at 83 for some unknown reason. I came across him looking for late starters and I found his story absolutely charming. People may not like his work, but the strong command of certain formal elements is clearly evident.)

One of the reasons I like the term "innate talent" is because it insinuates this automatic growth while "aptitude" gives me the feeling of something static and fixed.

One of the hardest parts of measuring this is that another growth usually takes place in parallel, volitionally guided growth (learning and practicing).

Steven Shmurak has made some very interesting observations on the work of Sylvan Tomkins about affects, which are the innate building blocks of emotions. A small glimpse of this work can be seen in The Wonderful Way Shmurak Faces Emotion. (This is given more elaborately in a JARS article in the edition that is coming out shortly.)

Talent works like affects. There is the initial aptitude in a "kernel" form that sprouts and grows all by itself. As it grows, the innate and the volitional intermingle to the point where a true mind-body merge results at maturity. Thus most research on innate mental elements like talent (in the innate sense) and affects are confined to the very young as that is practically the only way to isolate them.

Michael

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MSK

I hardly think you are making a strong case for ‘innate’ talents here Michael. If someone can hear, yes, they have an ‘innate’ talent over someone who is deaf when it comes to making music. But even so, deaf people can still create and enjoy music, everyone is well aware that Beethoven did many compositions after he lost his hearing, but having spent most of his life composing music he probably had rich memories of sounds to help him along. But deaf people’s brains still re-work themselves in order to understand and sense music. Remember the brain is extremely plastic and adaptable. See for example:

Brains of deaf people rewire to hear music

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...w-bod111901.php

"These findings suggest that the experience deaf people have when feeling music is similar to the experience other people have when hearing music. The perception of the musical vibrations by the deaf is likely every bit as real as the equivalent sounds, since they are ultimately processed in the same part of the brain," says Dr. Dean Shibata, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington. Shibata presented his findings at the 87th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) here the week of Nov. 26. "The brain is incredibly adaptable. In someone who is deaf, the young brain takes advantage of valuable real estate in the brain by processing vibrations in the part of the brain that would otherwise be used to process sound," Shibata says. [an fMRI showed] Both groups brain activity in the part of the brain that normally processes vibrations. But in addition, the deaf students showed brain activity in a golf ball-sized area, the auditory cortex, otherwise usually only active during auditory stimulation. The people with normal hearing did not show such brain activity.”

Nobody here is disputing the blind and deaf people have disadvantages over those able to see and hear, but an ‘innate’ talent would be, say for example, being born with ‘perfect pitch’ And if tone deafness was such a strong reality, how is it that languages heavily dependant on tones have no tone deaf people? Have you ever tried to speak Vietnamese? I have spent the last few months learning it and it is a language heavily dependant on tones, the same word uttered at a different pitch means something entirely different. The same word with a high, rising tone, means something different than the same word with a high, then falling tone. The same word spoken at a mid tone means something different than another word spoken at a low tone. If someone was tone deaf and lived in Vietnam or China, they would not be able to communicate or speak. Do you think there are a significant number of people in these nations that are capable of hearing, but can not speak or understand their own spoken language? Perhaps they had more difficulty at first learning it, but the simple fact is that tone deafness is virtually non-existent in these places.

But the major point is that Tone Deafness is irrelevant to this discussion, since it is the wrong side of the distribution, it is arguing about the existing of a limitation below that of the norm, not an advantage over the majority. I hardly think not being deaf is what we are considering to have as ‘innate talent’ in the context of this discussion, since the normal typical state of all humans is that of being able to hear, having that ability should not be considered an ‘innate talent’ over average people any more than being able to see should be considered an innate talent over being blind. In the clear context of this discussion, an innate talent is an advantage over average or typical people, not the state of average or typical people over physiologically deformed ones.

In that regard, the Wikipedia entry (with citations) on “Perfect Pitch” or “Absolute Pitch” is interesting

“Many people have believed that musical ability itself is an inborn talent[18]. Some scientists currently believe absolute pitch may have an underlying genetic basis and are trying to locate genetic correlates[19]; most believe that the acquisition of absolute pitch requires early training during a critical period of development, regardless of whether or not a genetic predisposition toward development exists or not[20]. The "unlearning theory," first proposed by Abraham[21], has recently been revived by developmental psychologists who argue that every person possesses absolute pitch (as a mode of perceptual processing) when they are infants, but that a shift in cognitive processing styles (from local, absolute processing to global, relational processing) causes most people to unlearn it; or, at least, causes children with musical training to discard absolute pitch as they learn to identify musical intervals [22].”

So is perfect pitch something everyone has, but we unlearn it? Is it something a rare few are gifted with at birth? Is it something anyone can develop if they have a normal healthy mind and undertake the right excursive at the right time? Or can anyone, with enough practice, learn to recognize pitches without reference? Looks like the science is still up in there air, but being such an accomplished composer no doubt you have a definitive answer derived from anecdotal personal experience? Perhaps you should submit the personal stories you might have of amazing toddlers born with perfect pitch to a peer reviewed journal, it might settle the question once and for all! Until then, it is absolutely clear, scientifically, that you can not rationally and logically assert with confidence that perfect pitch is an inborn or innate talent, can you? And with the previous plethora of evidence showing the massive capacity and plasticity of a human brain and how utilizing it requires a massive amount of effort and hard work, it seems pretty reasonable to consider any kind of innate talent barely relevent if not a complete outright myth.

Michael F Dickey

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David Burge sells a course for developing perfect pitch, he's been selling it for years in various magazines like Guitar Player and Electronic Keyboard. A long time ago I had my hands on the materials for a while (a friend had bought it and abandoned it) and worked with them a bit, I wanted to see what the approach was; I had already completed ear training and Solfege courses.

Judith was finally the one that brought up the idea of relative pitch, which at the minimum, good musicians pretty much have to have. Interval recognition gets you through most things. Burge's approach involves tone "color" (this is not his innovation, but he methodized it nicely). As I recall it teaches people to hear overtones (you use a little bell set), and associate specific colors. That's what I recall of it. I did later think that it was odd to use a bell set, because the timbre is rich, there's sympathetic tones that can come off the other notes, and such. Trying it with an audio oscillator would be interesting.

I was a little suprised that the absolute vs. relative pitch distinction wasn't brought out sooner, given the pedagogy and such... B)

Edited by Rich Engle
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Mat76

Given my experience as a drawing instructor, I have come across many different types of experiences—such as the one given above. How do you account for a boy like Duncan? He had the heart and will to draw but couldn’t. I don’t think this reflects poorly on me as a teacher because many of my students had vastly improved in their drawings—many of them less enthusiastic than Duncan. Poor Duncan simply did not have the raw material—the talent—to draw. I still want to know how you account for children who exhibit the makings of extraordinary talents before the hundreds of hours are given to them to hone that raw material. This is what we speak of when we think of raw talent. Some have it, and others don’t.

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Er... Are your students in any major orchestras or in any famous pop acts? (Incidentally, I have plenty in both in South America. Want some names?)

M, What names? I'm curious. Spill it! :)

V

Edited by Victor Pross
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How do you account for a boy like Duncan?

Victor, maybe before asking such a question you should actually find out what happened to Duncan. How long was he your student, a few months? So because in a few months of trying he did not become a good artist you extrapolate that out to a lifetime of failure? I tried for months to cut 1/4" steel with an oxyacetelene torch before finally one day I was able to do it with great profeiciency.

Additionaly, why is it that I am on the defensive? How is it that I account for Duncan? How is it that you account for the plethora of people referenced in those articles I posted, which both referenced large studies themselves, of experts and genuises being made, and not born. How do you account for the Father who made 3 chess grandmasters out of his 3 daughters? Did all three just happen to have been born with that 'gift'?

I keep referencing large empirical studies, all I am getting from you and MSK are appeals to personal anecdotes. It seems you have a lot more work to do to prove that innate talent is a fundamental component of becoming an expert or genuis at something for your position to be rationally accepted as an accurate description of reality, given the overwhelming majority of experts and genuises came to their abilities through immense hard work over a great deal of time.

I could not ever make any rational guesses as to the cuase of Duncan's inability or implied perpetual failure nor of Brad's amazing ability at a young age without a full psyhological profile and history of each person. Maybe Brad was beaten by his step dad and was called a fag by neighborhood kids for wanting to be 'an artist' Maybe he enjoyed and developed some other skill that had a direct impact on being able to draw well, developing in representative spatial relationship skill and hand eye coordination skill will help in learning to draw. Maybe his mother was trying to force him to become an artist and he actually hated doing it (as is often the case with child prodigies)

Michael

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I was a little suprised that the absolute vs. relative pitch distinction wasn't brought out sooner, given the pedagogy and such... B)

I am not an expert on music and it wasnt until I read into the subject that I even understood the distinction, but it is an excellent point to be reminded of. Presuming 'perfect pitch' is an innate talent (which my previous quote from Wiki suggests is still hotly debated among scientists) it certainly is not necessary to have it to be a musical genuis, as that same wikipedia article points out, many musical greats did not have 'perfect pitch'

It is seems that almost everyone asserts that relative pitch can be developed and learned by virtually anyone who isnt outright deaf, and in that vein even deaf people may be able to develop it with practice as the other article I posted shows the same part of the brain is used to process kinesthetically sensed vibrations in deaf people as auditory ones in hearing abled people.

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The story goes that I was drawing with crayons before I could walk (my mother's testimony). I don't have any of those drawings but I have (or had until it was lost in a move, several years ago) a cut-out picture of a blue tugboat on a blue sea against a pink sky my mother dated from when I was three. My memories tend to go back pretty far into early childhood and I remember making that picture. Though I got a certain level of support from my mother (she let me use her own scissors when I was still very young because the round edged scissors I was using just couldn't produce the intricate cuts I was aiming for), she was no art teacher.

Neither of my parents gave me much encouragement, really; certainly not consistently. My mother was an alcoholic who would just as soon take a picture I drew next door to show it off to our neighbors as tear it from my hands and rip it to pieces right in front of me screaming at me to leave her the fuck alone. My closeted bisexual father feared that my every drawing was proof that I would grow up gay and responded to my pride in my accomplishments as an omen of impending personal doom. One summer they sent me to some old neighbor lady's oil painting "class" she held in her back yard where I learned nothing and wowed everyone. My few experiences with art instructors--the neighbor lady when I was in grade school, a high school teacher, a college professor--have all been marked by the teacher's weird envy and resentment and my own learning nothing. My father pushed me in the direction of academic performance and looked upon my art as a somewhat remarkable but freakish talent like tying knots with your tongue.

As hinted above, my childhood was overshadowed by my parents' personal troubles and I chose drawing as my escape and my salvation. It's made my life as an adult professional artist (when I've even been able to call myself that) very difficult as I've had to learn--am still learning--that my creative power is a marketable skill and not a simple necessity of living, like eating and breathing (very hard to sell what you think of as "breathing").

There's an interesting analysis of the developmental process of drawing in childhood in the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The book suggests that children first draw in symbols--the perfect almonds shaped eyes, the stick figures, the blue strip across the top edge of the picture to indicate "sky." As a child's mind develops, her perception grows beyond these symbols which leads to great dissatisfaction with her drawings until she gives up, telling herself, "I can't draw." I seem to have circumvented this model in part by simply making my symbols more and more complex as I grew up.

Even as a gradeschooler I was obsessed with stylization. I remember choosing artists, notably cartoonists that I was particularly fond of (Albert Uderzo of Asterix and Obelix fame, Walt Kelly creator of Pogo, Maurice Sendak) and copying their styles. How would Uderzo draw Santa Clause? How would Walt Kelly draw the characters from Star Trek? I was always creating little worlds of characters in some particular style and working out how their world looked so it was all "of a piece." There was always some new style for me to crack so I never got frustrated with my limits. I remember often thinking as I drew, how much better I would be in five years, say. I remember wishing that I could go forward in time and bring back that ability to the present so I could be even better after those five years passed. From a young age I was aware of my drawing ability as something I was developing and perfecting over time.

Where'd all this come from? For me, drawing is something that simply worked. It was something that I could wow people with seemingly from the word go. And it was something that never lost my interest. Something that I kept with in spite of constant discouragement from the people in my environment. For a lot of years I tried to focus my attention in other directions, but I always came back to drawing (and sculpting and painting), always returned to what I experienced as the native language of my soul.

Thanks Victor for starting this topic and sharing your reminiscences with the rest of us. It's given me a lot to think about.

-Kevin

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I keep referencing large empirical studies, all I am getting from you and MSK are appeals to personal anecdotes.

Bingo.

I am imparting these stories in the hopes that they not only entertain [there is nothing wrong with that] but also that they should give pause to thought--as they did for me. We draw conclusions from our experiences. I do. Don’t you?

Rich and Kevin--Bingo, gentlemen!

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Presuming 'perfect pitch' is an innate talent (which my previous quote from Wiki suggests is still hotly debated among scientists) it certainly is not necessary to have it to be a musical genuis, as that same wikipedia article points out, many musical greats did not have 'perfect pitch'

Looks like about 1 in 2000 people have perfect/absolute pitch. Of musicians, maybe 15%.

Actually, having known a number who do, it's interesting to note that some of them suffer from having it--out of tune instruments and ensembles and such seem to really get under the skin.

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So we don't want any personal life experiences involved in discussions. Heaven forbid!

Man you guys are sloppy readers. He didn't say anecdotes were bad or uninteresting or irrelevant. He said that that's *all* you guys have been providing.

Incredible. What's also incredible has been how you guys abuse the anecdotes. E.g., Victor takes for granted that he's a good teacher and a good judge of whether someone's really trying or not. That's a "fact" for him. Even though it's entirely possible that Victor is a lousy teacher and a lousy judge of potential. And it's entirely possible that it's Victor's fault that the kid got discouraged, all because Victor has this "talent is innate, and kid, you just don't have it" attitude that I'm sure the poor child felt at some level.

Shayne

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Sloppy? How engaging of you! :nuke:

And here I thought we were just having a discussion, as people enjoy doing. The research was good to bring in, was that not said? But that's pretty much all that was provided. If we have discussions in the future, should we just all go out and pull empirical studies and post links all over the place? That sounds like blisteringly good fun! Yes!

I like MSK's topics better, for sure. On the other hand, why not discuss what has emerged between what research was provided, and what personal life experience was provided? You know, the whole thing where we know that science shows us what "is," but not what it "means."

The comments about Victor's (potential, let's not be sloppy) incompetence as a teacher of drawing, well... *sigh*...

Based on how he communicates, and his work, I'd imagine he can give a pretty decent lesson.

I spent 18 years of my life teaching guitar for a living. I saw things just like Victor did. But, maybe I was a shitty teacher, and this, and that... 18 years of shit shoveling (of course, there's the ones that ended up in Berklee, CIM, various grad schools, recording schools...)!

God, it got bitter in here early. Why?

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Shayne,

Why wouldn’t I pass the estimation upon myself as being a good teacher? Or as a good artist? I am at a complete loss to understand what’s wrong with this. What do you do for a living? Are you good at it?

Speaking of poor reading skills, if you read the Brad and Duncan story again—this time focusing real hard—you will see that it was experiences such at those that gave pause to thought to the question of innate talent, and I never said, “Sorry, kid, you just don’t have it.” I was still struggling with these questions, as I do today. You know, I wish “the truth” was as axiomatic to me as it is to you. I’ll give you an ‘E’ for effort when it comes to actually reading my posts.

Victor

Edited by Victor Pross
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Why wouldn’t I pass the estimation upon myself as being a good teacher? Or as a good artist? I am at a complete loss to understand what’s wrong with this.

To say "I'm a good teacher so it must be the kid's genes" is a recipe for self-delusion. So you don't have any blind spots when it comes to teaching, and you just axiomatically know it. No need to question *yourself*, it must be something outside of yourself that explains why you failed.

Speaking of poor reading skills, if you read the Brad and Duncan story again—this time focusing real hard—you will see that it was experiences such at those that gave pause to thought to the question of innate talent, and I never said, “Sorry, kid, you just don’t have it.” I was still struggling with these questions, as I do today. You know, I wish “the truth” was as axiomatic to me as it is to you. I’ll give you an ‘E’ for effort when it comes to actually reading my posts.

Again with the sloppy reading and thinking. *I never said you said he didn't have it*. I said you have that attitude, and it probably rubbed off on the poor kid. And your "I wish the truth was as axiomatic" crap--I'll bet you say that everytime you bump into somebody who has the audacity to know something you don't. You come in here pretending to ask questions, and then when someone answers you, you aren't happy because they know something you don't so you start insulting them.

Shayne

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Shayne, honestly-- talk about attitude. What's with the angry edge?

And, you're assuming an attitude in Victor, based very loosely on comments he made about his thoughts at the time.

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Shayne, honestly-- talk about attitude. What's with the angry edge?

And, you're assuming an attitude in Victor, based very loosely on comments he made about his thoughts at the time.

It was Victor who started with the slimy insults. He richly deserves the angry edge from me.

Shayne

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It was Victor who started with the slimy insults.

How do you figure?

And even if it were so, what that would mean is that your response was like-kinded to something you don't endorse.

It can't possibly make a person feel better.

Since you are trying to keep it tight, what about where I pointed out the assumption you made about Victor's supposed "attitude" with the student? Scarely empirical, no?

Very confusing.

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Me? Insults? Started it? No. I think the angry thrust is that they see the question of “innate talent” clashing with Rand’s position of Tabula Rasa, [but I don’t] and it’s this clash that has propelled me [and others] into the villainous role of “an enemy of Objectivism,” I’ll bet. What else could account for the vitriolic posts when the sprit here should be one of exploration? That’s what I was trying to do by relating my personal experiences that gave pause to thought concerning these questions. But I am so sorry that I haven’t come equipped with some dubious egg-head reports straight from the ivory tower. I like to do my own thinking. :)

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That’s what I was trying to do by relating my personal experiences that gave pause to thought concerning these questions.

That's the kind of thing I got here for, and for most of the same reasons.

But I guess once a couple of research projects got trotted out, conclusive proof had been had, and, really Victor, there is no need for discussion. Your Question Has Been Answered! Yes! :w00t:

Go In Peace, Victor-- never to be troubled again by this question! :question:

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Michael D,

You are doing an amazing amount of going around the subject without actually talking about fundamentals.

It would be better if you thought of innate talent as a starting point for further learning rather than the finished skill. But let us grant your premise, that all infants are born biologically equal in mental capacity. So they grow a little and now we put a group of them into a classroom to teach them music.

Reality unfortunately asserts itself and some of the kids have a huge amount of facility while other just don't get it. (I would say that some have innate talent while others are tone deaf, but you don't like those terms.) We have to maintain that there is no such thing as these differences, but there is a course program to be followed. Some kids do the stuff immediately and others take a very, very long time. What do we do?

Well, we dumb down.

We repeat and repeat and repeat and explain and explain and explain and practice and practice and practice until the slow kids catch up, thus we torture the fast kids by condemning them to work at the level and speed of the slow kids. If you separate them, you are admitting that the differences exist, which you do not. So there is no need to separate them. They are equal, right? Or do you propose to separate them but maintain a contradiction (innate talent does not exist, i.e., there cannot be any differences in innate talent, yet there are innate differences observed) because separating them is practical at the moment?

But by refusing to recognize innate talent differences, you end up sacrificing the good for the bad.

That's a horrible way to teach children and it certainly is not an Objectivist virtue. Yet that is the practical result of your premise.

If you really need to rescue Rand's words about "tabula rasa," think about innate talent being something like the format of a hard disk on a computer. The format itself is not information about the world (the "content"). It is only information about itself. But without it, there is no way to input more information. And obviously one format will allow more information to be stored than another. (Thanks to Kat for that example.)

On the plasticity of the mind, of course it is a wonderful organ and can do amazing things. Nobody at all has ever said differently here. For some strange reason, you keep arguing as if people did not agree with that.

We are only beginning to understand the potential of the mind/brain. For example, I am fascinated by a concept called "neural pathways." The best way to illustrate this concept in terms that are easily proven is by looking at the ability to wiggle ears. Most people cannot do it and cannot learn it by explanation, instruction, practice, etc. Yet if an electric current is applied to the appropriate muscles and the ears jerk correctly, the person never forgets after that and can wiggle his ears at will. A neural pathway is formed. This is one instance where the mind has a potential, but not a normal means of getting it to work through simply training the muscles from an inner impulse (volition).

On perfect versus relative pitch, I am sometimes surprised by scientists who leave out a very important and obvious consideration: the tempered scale. I will not go into that right now, but if you don't know what that is, it would be a good idea to look it up and chew on it for a while. It will allow you to dismiss some experiments outright. Also, try to listen to some recordings of Renaissance music where they do not use the tempered scale. It sounds out of tune to our ears. This part is obviously from learning. So any experiment that tries to study innate ability of people who have learned the tempered scale have already poorly isolated their material.

Now about anecdotal arguments, nobody here suggests that an anecdote replaces a controlled experiment, yet personal experience is the fundamental basis of induction. I started mentioning some anecdotes because my credentials were questioned. (Someone asked me if I knew what I was doing. It has been a few years since I left the professional music field, but I think I do.) I submit that a trained professional (especially a competent one) has a vast amount of empirical material to study to arrive at principles--much more information than an armchair intellectual thinking about how things ought to be and deducing his "oughts" from proclamations by Ayn Rand.

That is the value of anecdotes: (1) to establish an idea of credentials of the person, and (2) to present some experiences used as basis for induced principles. Anecdotes do not replace science. But, strictly speaking from an Objectivist epistemology basis, anecdotes precede and give rise to science (when principles have been induced).

Do you have a way to arrive at sound conclusions without any experience in reality? I have yet to discover one.

Also, there is that little Objectivist phrase, "when you encounter a contradiction, check your premises." Victor, for example, is a trained professional. He encountered a contradiction to the "tabula rasa--no innate talent" principle with the little boy who could not draw well. He had some options: (1) blank it out and keep the principle, (2) decide against all his observed evidence that the boy was choosing incorrectly or was not applying himself and keep the principle, (3) decide that the boy was a freak of nature and keep the principle, (4) arrive at the conclusion that he himself was delusional and did not really observe what he observed and keep the principle, (5) arrive at the conclusion that he was a poor teacher, despite successful teaching of all the other kids, and keep the principle, (6) check the principle.

In his case, he checked the principle. I would have done that too. As an anecdote, I give Victor's experience a whole lot more weight than the experience of an amateur or armchair intellectual because he was a trained professional, thus he had a huge amount of observations to draw on and teaching strategies available to try out at the time.

I personally choose to listen to my betters (experts) and learn. That is how I acquired my own expertise. I certainly do not try to teach others what I do not know (and I frequently observe people doing this). But then again, my knowledge comes from observing facts as they are, not as what I feel they should be. It's a value choice.

Michael

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