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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

Bingo.

The sad truth is that most "Objectivists" are very much mired in various aspects of the status quo. E.g., ARI Objectivists tend to have not gotten over authoritarian/dogmatist hang-ups. TOC and other Objectivists tend to have not gotten over their subjectivist/Kantian/pragmatist/egalitarian hang-ups. Which when you think about it, isn't all that surprising. It's not inevitable that the situation should be so, but given the history of the Objectivist movement, it is no surprise that that's what it's come down to. Shayne

I already said I was going to agree to disagree with you about who's saying what. Shayne

Michael D.: Great post, as usual. Michael K.: I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree about what the real subject of this thread has been. I think the other subject you want to discuss is a great one, but should be based on the premise that normal people can achieve great things if they so choose. Shayne

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. Shayne

Victor, in your previous post you dish out a disgustingly evasive insult of me but not to my face. Now you want to talk to me. Make up your mind. Maybe you're not a hypocrite. Maybe you're just a coward. In either case, I don't see the point of responding to you.

Rich: No offense taken even though your characterization of me as regarding Rand as an oracle is quite off base. I totally disagree with your (and Victor's) suggested approach of banning all "ethical" issues from discussion in this thread. It is definitely on topic to indicate what consequences flow from one view vs. another. Your views on "greatness" mean two things: First, that a "normal" man shouldn't bother trying to achieve "great" things (I use quotes because neither of these terms have been well defined); Second, that if someone does achieve great things, they don't deserve all the moral credit. E.g., you'd claim that Rand's superlative achievements did not flow primarily from her integrity and productivity, but from some genetic "gift of nature". Further, the whole point of figuring out our nature here is to determine what we ought to do. The subject is inherently ethical. Shayne

So the issue of whether or not a normal human being can by their own efforts achieve greatness** is not a real issue? I wonder if you've been reading this thread. That's the central point of contention here. And contra Victor, it does have implications in ethics. Specifically, the ethics of giving Ayn Rand and others their just due. This came up in another thread. I said Ayn Rand was a hero because of her work ethic and her integrity. Someone else brought up genetics in that context. The motive was unstated, but obvious. Shayne **Which doesn't mean being "famous" or "rich". In a legitimate evaluation, Tesla would surely beat out Edison even though most Americans don't even know what Tesla did for them.

Why do you say "folks" when you mean to talk to one person? And since when is an impressive feat proof of inborn talent? We spent a few hours here and there teaching our kid how to read and do a little math and he skips a grade. Something tells me that culturally, our level of expecations about what children are capable of is pretty low. Shayne

Now that's rich. I point out specifically where you attributed a position contrary to what I actually said to me and object to you claiming I was evading the facts, and without flinching or apologizing you turn around and make this generalized and unsubstantiated claim about me on the same things. Incredible. Shayne

We need a word to refer to the alleged inborn ability to perform certain concrete skills. And we need a word to refer to the fact that we are all ultimately limited by nature. I call the former "talent" and the latter "capacity". I have no heartburn with claiming someone has a "talent for basketball", but when they really mean "inborn talent for basketball", I do. I'd agree with saying he had certain capacities he utilized to his utmost, such as being tall, or some as-yet-unconceptualized mental capacities, from which he developed his "talent". Talent is mostly man-made. It's like all other man-made things: starting from raw materials (in this case, capacities), man remakes the world in his image, in this case, himself in the image of his own ideal. Shayne

You're right that "capacity" is a radically different concept than "talent". Michael K. and Victor seem to be comfortable equating them somehow, but I totally disagree with that. "Talent" refers to something far more concrete, like a talent for writing, or a talent for music, or basketball; "capacity" refers to non-man-made and more abstract potentials for action and growth. Shayne

I didn't claim to misunderstand your post. I claimed that you ignored mine when you accused me of evading the fact that we differ in capacities--ridiculous when I was the first one here to use that term to refer to that fact. Shayne

This is an eloquent demonstration of the problem. You regard a complex abstract conclusion as a "fact". Rand had a concept for people who characteristically make that error. Maybe it's not politically correct to name it. Shayne

What's amazing is that *I* was the one that stressed the concept of CAPACITIES and now you guys are taking the credit. Shayne

This point of yours is just absolutely ridiculous. I have stated over and over again that there are indeed inborn capacities (something the mental retardation makes clear but the child prodigy case does not, there you are just being circular again). This kind of distortion of my position makes me disinclined to address any of your other points: before I respond to your points, maybe you'd better actually try to read what points I've made. Shayne

Victor I'm not going to get into who said what here. Plenty of people here are alleging that talent is inborn. I'm answering your question by pointing out that there is no evidence for that claim, and that there is tons of evidence that what people refer to by "talent" is really just hard work. In the face of no evidence for one conclusion and piles of it for the other, I have to wonder at the motives for someone who is "merely asking questions." I like your sarcasm about having "truth" in my "back pocket". Poetic. You suggest that I claim that nature has no role to play. Well I already said otherwise when I talked about capacities. So you're missing my point. You ask about "aptitude". It probably means for me the same thing it means for you. The difference is, I regard a person's aptitude is plastic, as open to change by them. If they had no aptitude for math, they could have if they applied themselves. You regard aptitude as fixed. There is a sense here in which you just can't speak for someone else. If someone claims to have really tried and just can't do it because they don't have the inborn capacity, well what can you say. I can't prove they didn't try even if I wanted to. I can recognize that it's an easy excuse, and tell the person that it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it's their business not mine. If you guys want to think that you have these inborn limits, OK. I think it's a bad idea to think of yourself that way, but it's your life. What I do know is that all my experience with my own mind and body points to adaptability. WIth regard to the mind, this is particularly so after studying Objectivism; places I was "stuck" before for various errors I was making opened up to me. E.g., if you believe that God reveals important truths, it's easy to claim that some guy came up with a particular mathematical result from being "inspired" rather than doing the necessary work to figure out how you could do it with your own mind. I have a few anecdotes I'll share. Once I started to realize the right method of inducing truth in mathematics, I went back to some areas that were always a mystery to me as to how the guy came up with it. Information theory was one area that I validated for myself. What I figured was that what they were showing us was actually backwards from the way the original guy must have discovered it. They gave us the results first and showed us how to apply them; in truth it was the applications that Shannon used, inductively, to get the results. Another was the Pythagorean theorem. I'd never seen a proof of this, they always just gave us the formula (better teachers will prove it but not all). One weekend I sat down for a few hours and figured out the geometrical method of proving this. It started with recognizing that the squares can be related to areas, and then working from that mostly experimentally to figure out if there's a convenient geometrical representation of the equation. Things like this made me realize that "genius" is probably largely a measure of effort unencumbered by bad premises, and in any case, it's better to regard the universe as knowable and open to you than not. Shayne

Not knowing Michael, I would not presume that he wasn't great. I don't know what he does outside of this forum. Why would you? And even if he wasn't great, I wouldn't presume to know his personal history, which would be the only way to understand what a given individual ended up achieving and why. So why would you? I'd guess it's the same kind of habits of presumption that make you assume that talent has such a great role. Shayne

Since you're using Rand's definition I assumed you intended to address the same topic. Her definition is intended to apply to all life, not just conscious life. Again, Binswanger analyzes her definition intensely in his book. Shayne

Surely you're aware of the onus of proof principle at least in name? Because you're flagrantly violating it. There's piles and piles of evidence pointing to the fact that we are self-made in skills and abilities, and no evidence that it's inborn. The logical conclusion to draw is clear. I don't object to you wild speculations, but that's all they are. I do object to you saying that no one's made a substantive argument. It's your side that's made absolutely zero fact-based arguments. I thought I made it clear why I was incredulous. Indeed, the rest of your paragraph here makes me even more so. Shayne

Ad hominem. What you are detecting is not a "defensive position" but incredulity at the arbitrary assertions being made by the "talent" people. Your entire position is totally fabricated, without one iota of evidence. There's nothing about it to even refute so far. You've essentially just said "In my experience, people are born with the ability to play music". The only way to respond to that is with either the politically-correct "Interesting perspective" or incredulity at the fact that you think you're following a process of reason here. Shayne

There are also studies that demonstrate how the physical structure of the brain is modified by the individual's own choices. And anyways, you can't have an legitimate study of "people with high innate musical ability" unless you've already demonstrated "innate musical ability". I asked for facts and you gave me circular logic. Looking for something that's not there is a form of evading reality not adhering to it. http://www.cordair.com/carlyle/selfmademan.php Shayne

That used to seem to be the case, but one can't claim that anymore. E.g., Tracinski already essentially accused Peikoff of argument from intimidation ("intellectual bullying" if I recall). Shayne

You would probably like reading Harry Binswanger's "Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts." I'll give you one critique: Point 2 is wrong. Most of the actions we take are involuntary (the class of vegetative actions; Binswanger discusses the hierarchy here). Shayne