What is talent?

[sjw]

But you are not cleaning off the eggs. You are holding your breath until someone else does it for you. You are striving for your ends through social manipulation rather than independent self-assertion.

No, I am cleaning off the eggs by pointing out where he misrepresented me. And *you* are getting into the middle of things and declaring me to be wrong to object to his egg-throwing. That makes you a vandal too. It's not "social manipulation" to tell the thugs to stop throwing the eggs.

[Victor Pross]

Anyways, I made it clear that it's not the insults I'm objecting to, it's the misrepresentation. I didn't just think I made it clear--I actually made it clear. But you didn't see it for some reason.

Shayne,

But it’s not just me who is not intellectually satisfied with what you have said. It is Angie and Paul, too, who are making a claim to hear your golden argument. You speak as if I were a lone in my request, and as if I were of insufficient intellect to grasp the complexity of your case. That’s not it all. It would appear that everyone else here--by implication-- is a dolt and not just me. Again and again, you deflect the central issue: the topic of this thread. Please, let’s get back to it. Please!

Victor

[sjw]

You should really go back and read my posts as to whom my criticisms have been directed, which includes not only you but Victor as well and I have judged it accordingly and fairly.

And your point is? My point was that you have no business telling me not to expect fairness from you when you butt in like this. Same goes for Paul.

The fact is, no one in this thread (so far) just wants me to answer, they want me to answer and they want to opine about how ill-mannered I am while ignoring the true problem: Victor's behavior. If some innocent person came in asking what I meant, well then I'd answer them.

[Paul Mawdsley]

This is a waste of time.

[sjw]

But it’s not just me who is not intellectually satisfied with what you have said. It is Angie and Paul, too, who are making a claim to hear your golden argument. You speak as if I were a lone in my request, and as if I were of insufficient intellect to grasp the complexity of your case. That’s not it all. It would appear that everyone else here--by implication-- is a dolt and not just me. Again and again, you deflect the central issue: the topic of this thread. Please, let’s get back to it. Please!

I don't think it's a coincidence that everyone left here can't grasp my case and can't grasp the hypocrisy of criticizing me for my behavior while refusing to judge you for yours.

And look at what you just did. I said I was baffled that you misrepresented me, you then did it AGAIN by implying that I was objecting to insults when I was really objecting to misrepresentation. Instead of facing that and answering it for me so I can understand you, you start pleading with me to get back to the topic (as if it's a sign of virtue to ignore vice). I just don't understand this. Why did you completely misunderstand what I objected to in the first place when I had made it so painfully clear, and why did you not explain yourself when it happened? I mean, if you would just fess up, then I could have sympathy or something. I could be gracious. But you won't admit your screwups. You won't take full responsibility for them.

Edited December 27, 2006 by sjw

[sjw]

I might owe Michael an apology because he asked me to stop with this and I haven't. But he also asked Victor to stop and Victor has refused to and has thereby created an obligation on me to correct his negligent attributions.

I am happy to abide by Michael's wishes if Victor will. I'm also happy to answer Victor's questions and help put this thread back on track, if he will start taking responsibility for his misrepresentations.

[Ellen Stuttle]

If some innocent person came in asking what I meant, well then I'd answer them.

Do I qualify as an "innocent person," having been away from my computer for several days and only now catching up to proceedings on this thread?

Problem from the standpoint of my asking what you meant is that I found what you said in your post #320 succinct and clear. Victor's already quoted it a couple times but I'll quote it again:

ome people are born with muscles that adapt much more quickly to exercise stimulus. It's an inherent natural capacity their muscles have that other people's don't. Likewise, some people's minds have the capacity to learn much more quickly. This is oversimplified somewhat, since muscles can have a capacity to adapt to strength or endurance training; the mind undoubtedly has similar parameters that give rise to differences in ability in different areas--without there being some inborn ability to a specific "talent" for a concrete activity such as drawing or math.

So maybe the question to ask is: What is it that people don't understand about that statement?

Ellen

___

[Paul Mawdsley]

If some innocent person came in asking what I meant, well then I'd answer them.

Do I qualify as an "innocent person," having been away from my computer for several days and only now catching up to proceedings on this thread?

Problem from the standpoint of my asking what you meant is that I found what you said in your post #320 succinct and clear. Victor's already quoted it a couple times but I'll quote it again:

ome people are born with muscles that adapt much more quickly to exercise stimulus. It's an inherent natural capacity their muscles have that other people's don't. Likewise, some people's minds have the capacity to learn much more quickly. This is oversimplified somewhat, since muscles can have a capacity to adapt to strength or endurance training; the mind undoubtedly has similar parameters that give rise to differences in ability in different areas--without there being some inborn ability to a specific "talent" for a concrete activity such as drawing or math.

So maybe the question to ask is: What is it that people don't understand about that statement?

Ellen,

This is where I was coming from when I wrote:

Do you conceive "talent" as being some sort of innate patterns of consciousness that precede the development of one's mental and physical skills? Conceived this way, I would have a problem with the concept of talent also. This is very different to a concept of talent that views one's mental/physical capacities as having such a distribution and orientation to create heightened aptitudes in certain activities. The former assumes a mystical ghost in the machine that causes the individual to behave and develop skills along a predetermined spectrum. The latter assumes a human being to be an entity with a particular mental/physical identity, that will acquire skills according to that identity in the context of will and volition.

I was looking to discern the difference in definitions that may be at the root of the rift. I never did get a response though. I am still struggling to understand why we should not assume the existence of something called talent. I tend to agree with Michael. The issue must lie in the definitions, or rather, intuitive visualizations.

Paul

Edited December 27, 2006 by Paul Mawdsley

[Rich Engle]

I keep following this thread, and, I do agree with MSK that a lot of this has to do with definition of terms.

Also, I think it is very true that no one here is motivated to make personal attacks. If anything, the scuffles look more like misunderstandings, communication bumps.

I see all the people writing on this thread and for my money no one carries any hidden purposes like that.

Sometimes it's easy to take things wrong because as much as we'd like to say words are exact, writing is not always.

[Paul Mawdsley]

There is an awful lot of misinterpreting of motives. Social intuition misguided and run amok.

[Rich Engle]

There is an awful lot of misinterpreting of motives. Social intuition misguided and run amok.

Uh, yeah.. much more succinctly put.

So all that needs done is to believe that.

rde

Yeah, I said "believe." I coulda really gone out there and said "have faith."

[Dragonfly]

This discussion has degenerated into a word game. There is no doubt that talent for some kind of activity exists in the meaning “innate endowment or ability for that activity” (this is a common meaning, see for example here ). It is also obvious that “ability” here means the potential, not the actual, a talent has to be developed to realize the potential. In general we say that someone has talent for a certain activity if he can reach a certain level of proficiency in that activity more easily than the average person or if he can with the same effort reach a higher level of proficiency than the average person.

As a little boy I was fond of playing football (that’s soccer for you Americans). But already at a young age I discovered that other boys had much more talent for it than I had, the way they could dribble with the bal or keep it in the air with head and foot made me envious, but no matter how long I tried, it was hopeless, I kept stumbling and losing the ball. It was only much later that I discovered that I did have some talent for playing tennis. It turned out that I could master the technique much better than that of football and that in a relatively short time. Now the question remains what exactly is the reason for that difference in talent for both sports. Just like many other talents it’s probably not a question of a “football gene” or a “tennis gene”, but a very complex set of physical and mental factors that determine together the possibilities you have.

Just while it is such a complex of factors, talent is seldom just a binary variable; almost always it comes in many gradations, from complete lack of any talent to the highly gifted. Sometimes the differences are very obvious; anyone who has ever been involved with musical training knows how much music students can differ in talent. Some may study for many, many years to master a difficult concerto or other composition, and then suddenly a twelve year old boy plays that same concerto better than the other one ever will do, while he has only studied a fraction of the time that the other one has spent on his study (not to mention all those people who will never be able to play that composition at all, even if they study their whole lifetime).

Just as in Victor’s case my talent for drawing was already obvious at an early age. At the elementary school I was already the best, and when I was in high school, I started to paint and soon became better at it than the teacher. I never worked hard on it, it just came naturally to me: in my whole life I’ve never made more than a few dozen paintings (and I hope to live long enough to resume the activity one day when I have more time, I know I still have to improve a lot, the better you get, the higher your standards become). I know artists who are struggling their whole life to develop their technique and who still can’t get beyond a certain level. And that is the point: you’ll have to work for every activity you want to master, whether it is physical, artistic or, scientific, but there is no doubt that hard work is not enough, without inborn talent you won’t get there, and some people can with relatively little work reach reach much higher levels than others who work extremely hard at the same task. The difference is innate and it is called talent. That Rand had some weird ideas about talent is no reason to follow her. What about this howler by Rand: "I'd prefer that people raise their IQ from 110 to 150. It can be done." Yeah, sure.

[sjw]

Do I qualify as an "innocent person," having been away from my computer for several days and only now catching up to proceedings on this thread?

Yes. I didn't notice you pretending to remain above the fray while you join in by slinging criticisms around, nor casting around ignorant criticisms of me without having understood the actual course of events that led this thread downhill.

[Victor Pross]

"...that is the point: you’ll have to work for every activity you want to master, whether it is physical, artistic or, scientific, but there is no doubt that hard work is not enough, without inborn talent you won’t get there, and some people can with relatively little work reach reach much higher levels than others who work extremely hard at the same task."

Dragonfly,

It’s nice to see a new voice contributing to this thread.

The above quote hits the heart of it. I have been already saying it...in so many different words. A casual glance at reality validates what you say here. It just seems like this is a hard pill for some people to swallow.

Victor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly!!!!!

Michael

[sjw]

This discussion has degenerated into a word game.

You missed the part of the discussion where one side was arguing for tabula rasa and the other side was arguing against it. That (and many other things) indicates that this is not a mere "word game".

[sjw]

As a little boy I was fond of playing football (that’s soccer for you Americans). But already at a young age I discovered that other boys had much more talent for it than I had, the way they could dribble with the bal or keep it in the air with head and foot made me envious, but no matter how long I tried, it was hopeless, I kept stumbling and losing the ball. It was only much later that I discovered that I did have some talent for playing tennis. It turned out that I could master the technique much better than that of football and that in a relatively short time. Now the question remains what exactly is the reason for that difference in talent for both sports. Just like many other talents it’s probably not a question of a “football gene” or a “tennis gene”, but a very complex set of physical and mental factors that determine together the possibilities you have.

When I was a kid I experienced the same thing with regard to basketball. No matter how much I "practiced" it seemed, I was a horrible shot. Then, years later as an adult, after I tried it again, as a kind of experiment: after reading Ayn Rand, my self-confidence shot up, and I thought that I could do almost anything I set my mind to. I knew I had been hopelessly horrible at shooting a basketball and wondered whether I could be a fair shot. Instead of "practicing" like I'd done before (which meant: shooting over and over), I brought a deeper mental approach. I paid close attention to mental aspects of shooting that I was oblivious to before. I didn't just shoot over and over, I analyzed what I was doing and thought about what method I could use to improve fastest. Lo and behold, in a short time I was shooting far better than I'd ever done as a kid.

The difference was not age. My genes didn't magically change. It was wisdom. I had learned that method was key in all difficult human endeavors, a better method can yield far superior results. If you know that then if you want to do something hard you set about trying to discover the best way. If you don't then you brand yourself "not born with the talent for that" and you quit and stay in your comfort zone.

I ran the same experiment years later with drawing. Again, I was hopeless at it as a kid. But I took a more conscious approach to it, learned a little bit of method, and came to a result I was happy with. My drawings weren't great, and I didn't try for more than a few months. But I'd learned enough to know that I could learn to draw reasonably well, if I so desired.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

I agree with you and I have had some similar experiences. I do have the observation that there are individual-specific limitations as to how far a person can go and how easily he can learn specific things. That is why one person can break a world record in competitive efforts and another cannot, even though both strive to their best abilities. I also agree with Dragonfly who mentioned that the issue of talent involves a lot of complexities and nothing as specific or simple as a "basketball gene" for example.

To be fair, I know you were not advocating biological egalitarianism. That was very clear to me. But on the other hand, I don't really see anyone trying to advocate the comfort benefits of branding themselves as limited in talent. There is an insinuation that is easy to get from your wording that some people were picking up on. It seemed you were accusing them of trying to get away with justifying complacency, although you never did that. I happen to agree that complacency is a psychological trap that should be avoided in thinking about talent and that some people are prone to fall into it. So it is a good thing to mention this aspect.

Michael

[sjw]

To be fair, I know you were not advocating biological egalitarianism. That was very clear to me. But on the other hand, I don't really see anyone trying to advocate the comfort benefits of branding themselves as limited in talent. There is an insinuation that is easy to get from your wording that some people were picking up on. It seemed you were accusing them of trying to get away with justifying complacency, although you never did that. I happen to agree that complacency is a psychological trap that should be avoided in thinking about talent and that some people are prone to fall into it. So it is a good thing to mention this aspect.

There are two things that are essential to mention on this topic. The first is the most obvious, and hardly controversial in any context, the common culture is quite aware of it: we are all born with different potentials. This follows from the law of identity combined with day to day observations that we differ in just about every concrete measure. Who disagrees with this? Pretty much no one. But that's what the other side has I think been harping on. Indeed, I've been drawn by Victor as the strawman who disagrees with this trivially obvious point even though I don't.

The most interesting and useful point here is the one I made: that actualizing your potential can be tricky and take a lot of conscious effort, that you might feel like you've hit a brick wall because of your natural endowments when really the brick wall is your premises. That is not to argue against the fact that one can ignore one's own nature and truly beat your head against the wall, trying to achieve something you never will, but I don't think that is the typical case. Most people give up too soon and for the wrong reasons rather than try too hard. Most people who feel like they can't do something would probably be able to do it quite well if they were shown or discovered the right method.

Edited December 27, 2006 by sjw

[Rich Engle]

A lot of times people think they want something but they don't. Or, let's just say they stop after they figure out how much struggle it takes. They value not having all that struggle over the want.

rde

"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering." -- J.G. Bennett

[Paul Mawdsley]

There are two things that are essential to mention on this topic. The first is the most obvious, and hardly controversial in any context, the common culture is quite aware of it: we are all born with different potentials. This follows from the law of identity combined with day to day observations that we differ in just about every concrete measure. Who disagrees with this? Pretty much no one. But that's what the other side has I think been harping on. Indeed, I've been drawn by Victor as the strawman who disagrees with this trivially obvious point even though I don't.

The most interesting and useful point here is the one I made: that actualizing your potential can be tricky and take a lot of conscious effort, that you might feel like you've hit a brick wall because of your natural endowments when really the brick wall is your premises. That is not to argue against the fact that one can ignore one's own nature and truly beat your head against the wall, trying to achieve something you never will, but I don't think that is the typical case. Most people give up too soon and for the wrong reasons rather than try too hard. Most people who feel like they can't do something would probably be able to do it quite well if they were shown or discovered the right method.

Where does "talent" fit or not fit in here?

btw-- Dragonfly, good to see you. I have wondered what your take would be on these things.

Paul

[Victor Pross]

Shayne: “There are two things that are essential to mention on this topic. The first is the most obvious, and hardly controversial in any context, the common culture is quite aware of it: we are all born with different potentials.[italics mine] This follows from the law of identity combined with day to day observations that we differ in just about every concrete measure.”

Yes, this is right. This obvious phenomenon that we are born with where there are different potentials---hints at the concept called INNATE TALENT. So now that you have identified it, let’s attach a name to it. I did.

-Victor

[Brant Gaede]

Nature/nurture. It's amazing how strong feelings are about this compared to how little is actually known. Better to just nurture your nature.

--Brant

[Kat]

Better to just nurture your nature.

Bingo.

This big Mexican standoff over semantics... Shayne's "inherent capacity" and Victor's "innate talent" seems to just be a lot of hair splitting. The terms still have yet to be defined. It sounds to me like you are almost talking about the same thing yet talking past each other. Can you explain the difference between innate talent and inherent capacity as well as give your definitions of tabula rasa?

Of course, people are not literally born knowing that which is learned, but some individuals catch on and learn certain skills extremely quickly and this generally referred to as inborn talent. There truly are some amazing people out there.

Gentlemen, your definitions, please.

Kat

[sjw]

This big Mexican standoff over semantics... Shayne's "inherent capacity" and Victor's "innate talent" seems to just be a lot of hair splitting.

Since one of Victor's points was that he disagreed with Rand about talent, and she meant talent as "innate skill", then there's your definition. It's not hairsplitting; either this innate concrete skill (for drawing say) exists or it doesn't. But if Victor would like to retreat by redefining talent to mean my "innate capacity" where that means some very generalized attributes of the brain, akin to attributes of muscles that determine responses to strength or endurance training that's fine by me, but then you should exclusively accuse him of playing the semantic games, not me.