What is talent?

[hbar24]

Maybe a better way of looking at "talent" is to say that those whom we see as being naturally good at something actually have an innate lack of incompetence.

I suck at math, and always have. I tried very hard in school, but could barely manage to be average at math up until junior high, after which I could no longer rise to the level of average. I'm totally incompetent at it. I'm less naturally incompetent at history, I'm only somewhat naturally incompetent at basketball and music, and I'm almost completely lacking in natural incompetence at visual art.

J

Lack or talent is often lack of knowledge except for the physical aspects.

Socrates asked the question, what is truth, about 400 years before Christ. He answered that question to his satisfaction and mine. His purpose was to make his fellow Athenians more able to vote wisely for the civic good. Philosophers throughout history, though, have not been satisfied and sought a more complete definition of truth. Obviously truth is all facts and as such we would never be able to fit them all into our memory, let alone manipulate them. So when Christ said, 'Know the truth,' he meant having an overview that works for most practical purposes.

Do we have such a working knowledge of truth or what works? Many countries do pretty well in solving the basic questions, like peaceful government and hunger. Although we want and need more, the vast majority of questions are not pressing and actually keep us alive and vibrant, involved. That is appropriate as life is a process and not a destination.

However, not everyone agrees as to which questions are more important, so learning to answer for ourselves is useful and exciting, especially since it’s initially so easy to learn that it’s pitiful. First get a question, reduce it to the basic question, empty your mind of all thought and feeling and wait. Not only will the answer come, but you will likely answer many other questions, correct false assumptions and make decisions in an attempt to get those thoughts out of your mind, while you wait.

Why our mind can answer questions: Scientists, using the scientific method, have had great success in the scientific realm and science has great credibility because of it. By applying the scientific method in the social sciences, Herbert Spencer came up with a very credible definition of right and wrong. I thought his reasoning was very good, but we also profit by knowing how to think for ourselves rather than have answers given to us.

Arriving at objective basic truths is fairly easy, but refining the process and discovering new rules may go on forever to keep life interesting. To be objective is basically to remove the worst variable in answering any question, and that is ourselves. We can see that principle at work in low self-esteem. As we think of ourselves, we become self conscious and awkward. Our awkwardness leads to poor performance and more lowering of self esteem, a debilitating downward spiral. Similarly, in asking a question, we cannot consider our opinion, advantage, or even thoughts and feelings on the matter to be objective, impartial. How does that work in practice? The mind seems to be an objective computer that will deliver unbiased answers if we make no assumptions to start with. The brain is objective by nature like a computer. If we don't put garbage in it works fine. The consious mind is not objective. For instance, if we don't like an answer or if it doesn't agree with our pet beliefs, we reject it. We have taken in a lot of data in a lifetime and can spew out fairly accurate information. But, ay the rub. The questions have to be honest and put in without any spin. Even then, unbidend visualizations and thoughts tend to be more accurate. There are many rules which we should notice in the process but we can learn the rules more easily and understand processes better by reading a book on Emotional Intelligence. Reading them can also leads us to think of other resources for quantum gains in effectiveness. Greater results encouraged us to push ahead in an upward spiral and then a staight line. Eventually we put on seven league boots and take giant steps across the land. If you see someone who seemd too happy, ask them, they may know how it works.

Here are a couple or probable reasons. The mind thinks in probablilities and that eliminates the agony of looking at all the possibilitie. Also, Carl Jung determined that the brain, at it's fundamental level, works with pictures and symbols. That allows us to think in concepts larger than ideas, like the library put books first into ten major catagories and then subdivides each category into ten sub catagories. The mind automatically does this, if we don't interfer with it's proper functioning, and this is part of the reason for such relatively quick and surprisingly correct results. The answers are general, though, and usually require refinement, similar to colorizing a black and white movie. In conversation, this lack of detail is perceived as incorrect by the listener, but we can sense and find the corrections necesary to test, prove and elaborate on and explain the concepts. Problems we have worked on our whole life may be answered in days or weeks or are just solved subconsciously without our even being aware of it, such as weight loss if we are overweight. In the process of answering one question other important things are learned on other subjects. I was trying to explain to someone what I thought about something. While explaining I saw the actual process my brain had used to get that thought and in drawing it out on paper realized that I had also figured out the basic formula for quantum mechanics. If that isn't exciting, then I don't know what is, since in some ways I don't know much more than anyone else about either how the brain works or quantum mechanics.

Do you realize how much clear vizualization of a math problem in your head would help in working out the solution in your mind? Here's one that is crazier than that. If psychiatry is right then the average person may be around sixty percent sane andforty percent crazy. I have worked with persons with mental problems and I do believe that they may be frustrated because they know that they are right about some things we call crazy and can't be sane because they cannot accept the forty percent of our insanity. I do believe I could show some enough common ground that they could accept and they could actually become more sane than average or at least greatly helped. One man said that he realized that his thinking had got him into an institution so he reversed his thinking and thought his way back out. Many seem to have good minds with wrong assumptions. Maybe talk therapy will make a comeback.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Victor,

I signed on out of curiosity to see what you might have answered. I only have a few minutes, so this will have to be quick. I can try to come back to it next week.

I think that you aren't understanding the form of answer I'm looking for. What I'm trying to get from you is specifics as to the details of the factors which you think went into your early skill at drawing. Look, you weren't literally "born" knowing how to draw. You weren't born even knowing that there are such things as drawings and the equipment to produce them. And drawing, I think you agree, isn't some unitary skill which is just "in" your nervous system. So what do you think the details are of the factors which combined to produce your having a facility for drawing?

I hope that helps with your understanding what I'm asking for.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Victor,

I signed on out of curiosity to see what you might have answered. I only have a few minutes, so this will have to be quick. I can try to come back to it next week.

I think that you aren't understanding the form of answer I'm looking for. What I'm trying to get from you is specifics as to the details of the factors which you think went into your early skill at drawing. Look, you weren't literally "born" knowing how to draw. You weren't born even knowing that there are such things as drawings and the equipment to produce them. And drawing, I think you agree, isn't some unitary skill which is just "in" your nervous system. So what do you think the details are of the factors which combined to produce your having a facility for drawing?

I hope that helps with your understanding what I'm asking for.

Ellen

___

Ellen,

This is a specific question calling for a specific answer. Now I understand you better. My remarks regarding talent have been sketchy. I have been focusing on what can be observed by one and all—that some children are miles ahead at some specific task and this is what we call ‘talent.’ Based on this alone, the designation of ‘talent’—in its popular usage—is valid. Still, Let me mull it over and get back to you with an answer that has greater detail. This is something to think about for sure.

-Victor

[Danneskjold]

Victor's talent very well could have been early aged development of certain types of muscles that help with fine motor skills that gave him the ability to draw. Now, whether or not he was inclined to have more/better types of that muscle or not is debatable.

I can't see exactly what it is that you guys are looking for. I mean, I have a friend Jack and he has a little brother Mitch. Mitch has a far lower IQ than Jack, far less coordination, and is far bigger. They live in an affluent family, have the same parents, and in gneral have had the same environment. Why do they have different talents?

Also, I have seen studies saying that IQ is based at least 50% off of genetics. How would this factor in? It is undeniable that those with higher IQ are more likely to have talent.

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7669

[Victor Pross]

I can't see exactly what it is that you guys are looking for. I mean, I have a friend Jack and he has a little brother Mitch. Mitch has a far lower IQ than Jack, far less coordination, and is far bigger. They live in an affluent family, have the same parents, and in gneral have had the same environment. Why do they have different talents?

Jeff,

This would be an indication, an instance, of innate talent---'talent' by the popular definition. Most especially if the respective talents were noted in early childhood.

-Victor-

[Brant Gaede]

"Cryptic remarks"

I'll continue to make them. I'm the opposite of MSK in that I can't turn out reams of copy. In any case, my cryptic remarks are both an invitation to figure it out and a commentary on verbosity. My late friend, Petr Beckmann, started his "Fort Freedom" in 1988 or '89. (You can Google most of it.) It wasn't on the Internet; you had to call one of his phone numbers and the initial download on my Kaypro Four computer (which I still own) was 300 baud. Subsequently, I ungraded to 1200 with an external modem. I watched text upload to my computer one line at a time practically like watching an expert typist. There was one poster to the Fort who loved to unload large files and with whom I got into heated debate with over abortion, right-to-life, etc. I've disliked long posts ever since and generally avoid reading them. I mean, get to the point! (I can like long posts if there are a lot of footnotes and the subject is of interest to me or if it's literary.)

It takes all kinds to make an Internet world (or any world) and I am of one kind and others of others. Let's not bore ourselves to death with artificial conformity and stagnation. But whatever river we flow down it's to the ocean. I hope not the Dead Sea!

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Victor's talent very well could have been early aged development of certain types of muscles that help with fine motor skills that gave him the ability to draw. Now, whether or not he was inclined to have more/better types of that muscle or not is debatable.

I can't see exactly what it is that you guys are looking for. I mean, I have a friend Jack and he has a little brother Mitch. Mitch has a far lower IQ than Jack, far less coordination, and is far bigger. They live in an affluent family, have the same parents, and in gneral have had the same environment. Why do they have different talents?

Also, I have seen studies saying that IQ is based at least 50% off of genetics. How would this factor in? It is undeniable that those with higher IQ are more likely to have talent.

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7669

My IQ is only in the mid 130s. My Father's was 189 and my Mother 150. I've always been smarter than either or anyone else in my family. High IQ counts only to a point. My best friend in college told me he had an IQ of 115. He went on to get a PhD in hydrology at the University of Arizona. When he was an undergrad at the same school (very highly regarded nationally) he had the highest GPA in that program to date (1966), in spite of a "B" in chemistry by a prof who loved to flunk students. Watson, who got the Nobel prize for DNA work ("The Double Helix") only had an IQ of about 125. The purported inventor (or co-inventor) of the transistor, William Shockley, had an IQ in the low 130s. (I know this because in the late 1930s my Mother had my sister enrolled in the same nursery school in Manhattan as his daughter and all the parents IQs were part of the common available record to all the parents). This was especially funny as he made a bad public persona of himself with his emphasis on race and IQ in the 1970s. (Btw: my Mother told me with some credibility that of the three Bell Lab scientists who shared the Nobel prize for the invention of the transistor, Shockley was the least deserving, that he shoved himself in as a publicity hound and that Bardeen and Brattain were much more deserving. [That would make him a Peter Keating, albeit of genius.]) My Father had the opposite view, but my Mother's info came off the common gossip of all the women involved. My opinion? I have none, except that Shockley, like my Father, was basically an obnoxious SOB who alienated people he came in contact with even while those people acknowledged how intelligent they were.)

In college (Antioch) my Father produced a work of sheer genius, in the school magazine, called "The Cat Philosophies" which was a metaphor, almost literal, for the Holocaust ten years before it happened. After that, it was all downhill. His frame of reference wasn't reality or what was right, but revenge and power-lusting. He could have been a genius. He was as smart or smarter than Ayn Rand (as are many, btw), but Ayn Rand had hundreds of times more character than my Father. I seem to be the only person I know who IDs the essential nature of character in genius. Genius has a high moral component (at least in some areas). It also has a high chance component. You take a sheer brain like my Father's, much more impressive than mine, and throw in character, and you get genius. He didn't have both, but Ayn Rand did. She also structured her brain in a way that magnified her intelligence. My Father didn't.

As for myself, I hope to use what brains I have while I have them, to accomplish something morally and intellectually significant by way of a book or two or three. I've got another 20 or 30 years to do this considering my longevity genes.

In my whole life I've only had one god: human intelligence and ability. That has always been the essential attraction to me of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism. There was a brain surgeon I once heard about on television, he operated on children. He had a degenerative disease or condition that made it next impossible for him to function, except in an operating room. For hours he would operate on a child's brain removing a non-malignant tumor that deeply penetrated the child's brain, destroying that life, without a single break in concentration. He has since died and to my shame I can't tell you his name, but I cannot imagine a greater human being.

This is who I am. Nature/nurture means nothing to me. What you are, what you want to be, does.

--Brant

Edited January 1, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Paul Mawdsley]

Victor,

I asked similar questions of Shayne and never received an answer. Although, as usual, I did throw a distracting tangent in there. I too am still trying to wrap my head around the differences between your and his perspectives. Perhaps you wouldn't mind answering my questions.

Do you conceive "talent" as being some sort of innate patterns in consciousness, for processing experience and/or asserting the self, that precede the development of one's mental and physical skills? Is talent something distinct from the existence, performance, and organization of physical structures that produce mental and physical aptitudes which can be developed into skills? Is talent the result of patterns of consciousness we are born with that are applied to our experience and actions and grow as we produce aptitudes and skills?

If the distinction between your view and Shayne's is based on whether or not there are innate patterns of consciousness, then I get it. If it is not, then I am completely lost.

I still think you could both be right but are focussing on different aspects of the same reality. The genetically determined existence, performance, and organization of physical structures that produce mental and physical aptitudes which can be developed into skills may produce specific patterns in the flow of consciousness. Introspectively, we are aware of these patterns in the flow of consciousness and connect them to our aptitudes and the development of our skills. Extrospectively, when we look at things through the lens of science, we see physical structures and connect them to aptitudes and the development of skills. Whichever way we look at it, I don't think there is any disagreement that will and volition play key roles in actualizing one's potential.

In physics, we cannot separate the particle and wave nature of light. Maybe, we can't separate the particle and wave nature of consciousness. Maybe Shayne is focussing on the particles and you are focussing on the waves. Both are real and you both are right. But you do both seem to enjoy butting heads with one another.

Paul

[Victor Pross]

Paul,

You ask: "Do you conceive 'talent' as being some sort of innate patterns in consciousness, for processing experience and/or asserting the self, that precede the development of one's mental and physical skills?"

In short, the answer is yes. The basic ability to do something originates from the brain. I think we can all agree on that. The brain dictates how you make physical, psychological, emotional, and perceptual associations. Some people are born with certain connections that are stronger than others--and I believe a specialization in some of the sciences would vindicate me on this. Ultimately, the brain is like any other muscle: exercise it and it becomes stronger. Ignore it and it withers up. But not everybody is born equally when it comes to our physical structure. The same is true of the human mind.

Let me put it this way: there are numerous ways that human beings are similar—and hundreds of ways in which we are different—different as snow flakes. Would you agree with that?

As it relates to drawing--a person can be born with a natural talent for art and prosper because of it, if he so chooses. That does not mean that there is a “drawing gene”--as someone indicated on this thread attempting an absurdum--it merely means that some people have greater eye-hand coordination than others, that they are able to reproduce images via the use of man-made instruments. If the man-made instruments we have in art--paints and canvas--didn’t exist in their current form, the talent would remain dormant, or else find a new form in some other manifestation.

Now, that doesn't mean that if a person is not artistically inclined that they can't become excellent artists. It just means that they have to cultivate the skill through hard work, determination, and reinforcement—whereas for the “naturally talented” person it comes with such apparent ease. Here, let me give you a concrete illustration:

I remember a time when I had been drawing only using the medium of graphite and was challenged to take to paints. Now, any artist will tell you—like Jonathan—that painting is a separate [but related] skill. In some art schools the students are required to master the art of drawing years before ever tacking to paints. Well, I had already been drawing for a number of years and when I first started to paint I took to it like a fish to water. I amazed myself and it also seemed as if I was possessed. Any artist will tell you what a magnificent feeling it can be. It came to me so naturally.

Paul, let’s put it this way: I see the issue of talent as analogous to left-handed children: Yes, on the conceptual level, the child must know the concept of ‘pencil’ and the purpose of its use, and he must know its relationship to other objects, such as paper. The question that fascinates me, however, is this: why is the child propelled to use his left-hand [or right-hand given most other children]? Is this something that is in the brain, something innate?

The left-handed analogy is useful in two ways in regards to talent: it is innate in the child—hard-wired at birth—and given the scarcity of left-handed children in proportion to right-handed children—so there is a scarcity of innate talent, such that is well advanced and observable in childhood.

I don’t believe there any rational justification for the denial of the observable phenomenon of what is designated as “talent” but only on its exact nature, which may be a field for science rather than philosophy.

As I have said before, but it deserves repeating: “talent” is referred to as a “natural ability” or a “superior, apparently natural ability in the arts or sciences or in the learning or doing of anything.” For me, talent is a “raw material” that can be honed when one consciously decides to become a craftsman of these raw materials.

Paul, my understanding is that you are a physicist, perhaps you can enlighten us? I’m merely a philosophically inclined artist, and if it my answer is short of what you expected, my apologies. My talents are elsewhere. B)

Victor

Edited January 1, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Victor,

I signed on out of curiosity to see what you might have answered. I only have a few minutes, so this will have to be quick. I can try to come back to it next week.

I think that you aren't understanding the form of answer I'm looking for. What I'm trying to get from you is specifics as to the details of the factors which you think went into your early skill at drawing. Look, you weren't literally "born" knowing how to draw. You weren't born even knowing that there are such things as drawings and the equipment to produce them. And drawing, I think you agree, isn't some unitary skill which is just "in" your nervous system. So what do you think the details are of the factors which combined to produce your having a facility for drawing?

I hope that helps with your understanding what I'm asking for.

Ellen

___

Ellen,

I am pretty much covered the subject in a post to Paul, but not to ignore your request, I will condense my reply.

I see talent as analogous to left-handed children: on the conceptual level, the child must know the concept of ‘pencil’ and the purpose of its use, and he must know its relationship to other objects, such as paper. This is acquired knowledge. The question I have, however, is this: why is the child propelled to use his left-hand--or right-hand? Is this something that is in the brain, something innate? Why that specific hand? And why is the child so much more apt with that hand? The tendency to use the left hand is the “acorn”—so to speak. What that child will do with that left hand is where conceptual knowledge takes over, a honing of some skill.

No, there is no “drawing gene” for people who display a talent for drawing. It merely means that some people have greater eye-hand coordination than others, that they are able to reproduce images via the use of man-made instruments. It is their talent. If the man-made instruments we have in art—such as paints and canvas, etc--didn’t exist in their current form, the talent would remain quiescent, or else find some other manifestation, such as having a sharper aim at archery or whatever.

-Victor

Edited January 1, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Dragonfly]

I think an important element in the ability to draw and to paint is what I'd call the ability to look with a "reductionist view" at the world. Normally the process of constructing a 3-d view of the world on the basis of our sensations is so automatic that we have the illusion that we have an "immediate" perception of the world around us. But for drawing and painting we need to break into that processing system and be able to reduce the "Gestalt" to a pattern of colors and/or lines. Now probably most people can learn to do that to some extent, but the ease whith which we can do that will differ greatly from one person to another; some people never get it, while it comes naturally to other people. This is of course just one of the many aspects of the artistic talent, but I think it's an important one.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul, my understanding is that you are a physicist, perhaps you can enlighten us?

Victor,

I am not a physicist, except, perhaps in an alternate universe of the many worlds view of quantum physics. Dragonfly and Charles are the resident physicists here. I am more of a tradesman or a craftsman. I have a talent for intuitively seeing the structures and dynamics beneath the surface of things and building things to a high self-imposed standard. I apply this to building models of existence. I am now learning how to put these models into words.

I have reason to be very interested in the causal details of theoretical physics. I am also interested in the causal details of psychology (including individual and social dynamics), biology, evolution, cosmology, epistemology, ethics, and politics. Bottom line: I want to know why things behave as they do. Don't ask me for credentials. I have a lowly Specialized Honours BA in psychology from Y.U. Something I consider to be a rather insignificant achievement except in the discipline it required to study information that took me away from my true interests. The most valuable parts of my experience were meeting my wife, taking John Ridpath's course on the history of western philosophy, and discovering the web-to-node concept of causation in a course on Post Modern philosophy.

I cannot speak from authority. My only credentials are my ideas themselves.

Paul

[Paul Mawdsley]

Ooops! Duplicate. Really, I'm not that interested in seeing my picture. I have solipsistic tendencies not narcissistic ones.

Edited January 1, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You're beautiful anyway, Paul.

I don't mind seeing your picture twice.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

I am pretty much covered the subject in a post to Paul, but not to ignore your request, I will condense my reply.

Thank you, Victor. Your reply to me and of course your longer reply to Paul as well are very much more informative as to the specifics of what you're talking about when you speak of "talent." Now let's see if any of those whom you think of as the "no-talent" people have any strong objections to the general tenor of what you wrote. My expectation is that, with the possible exception of Michael Dickey, they won't have such objections, though they might have quibbles over minor details.

While I'm on-line, I'll take the opportunity to say that I'm going to be scarce in list-land for about the next month or so. I have a project to which I need to buckle down and get about finishing now the New Year has come and the year-end partying is behind. But please don't interpret silence as loss of interest in the subject. The subject is one which interests me, primarily because of its relevance to mind/brain issues.

Ellen

___

[sjw]

Thank you, Victor. Your reply to me and of course your longer reply to Paul as well are very much more informative as to the specifics of what you're talking about when you speak of "talent." Now let's see if any of those whom you think of as the "no-talent" people have any strong objections to the general tenor of what you wrote. My expectation is that, with the possible exception of Michael Dickey, they won't have such objections, though they might have quibbles over minor details.

How big is a quibble? ;)

I don't have major heartburn over the position Victor has evolved into holding since it's getting closer to mine. I don't think it's very precise though and I still think it bears flaws. E.g. there's this tendency of all the "talent" people to presume to know why some particular individual failed at something: lack of "talent". They equate the volitional with "but I tried really really hard and couldn't do it" when the volitional does not merely pertain to trying hard, but to being sensitive enough to adapt, to "see outside the box".

So many people when they fail introspect and see only: I tried really really hard. And probably they did. But any neanderthal can "try really hard" to lift a bus with his bare hands and fail over and over (and probably injure himself in the process). There's nothing moral about that. A moral human being would sit and think for a while, and then invent a lever. I don't think the "talent" people are really very conscious of this factor. It's like those people Ayn Rand talked about in her "Art of Non-Fiction" that write a few good novels and then can't do it anymore. They never discovered why they were good, so they fail to nurture their "talent" and eventually they run dry.

[Danneskjold]

Are we talking about whether talent is innate or not or whether what we do with it is innate or not? That seems to be the direction we are moving in.

My IQ is only in the mid 130s. My Father's was 189 and my Mother 150. I've always been smarter than either or anyone else in my family. High IQ counts only to a point. My best friend in college told me he had an IQ of 115. He went on to get a PhD in hydrology at the University of Arizona. When he was an undergrad at the same school (very highly regarded nationally) he had the highest GPA in that program to date (1966), in spite of a "B" in chemistry by a prof who loved to flunk students. Watson, who got the Nobel prize for DNA work ("The Double Helix") only had an IQ of about 125. The purported inventor (or co-inventor) of the transistor, William Shockley, had an IQ in the low 130s. (I know this because in the late 1930s my Mother had my sister enrolled in the same nursery school in Manhattan as his daughter and all the parents IQs were part of the common available record to all the parents). This was especially funny as he made a bad public persona of himself with his emphasis on race and IQ in the 1970s. (Btw: my Mother told me with some credibility that of the three Bell Lab scientists who shared the Nobel prize for the invention of the transistor, Shockley was the least deserving, that he shoved himself in as a publicity hound and that Bardeen and Brattain were much more deserving. [That would make him a Peter Keating, albeit of genius.]) My Father had the opposite view, but my Mother's info came off the common gossip of all the women involved. My opinion? I have none, except that Shockley, like my Father, was basically an obnoxious SOB who alienated people he came in contact with even while those people acknowledged how intelligent they were.)

It is quite obvious that what people do with talent is not innate. Those are our choices. However, IQ does have a bearing on what you are able to achieve. So if IQ effects your what you can achieve, IQ is effected by genetics, then genetics also have a bearing on what you can achieve. That's not tabula rasa.

[Matus1976]

Hello all, sorry for the delay in my response, I had an extremely busy holiday break and some dates with a beautiful intelligent Brazilian girl =) so this discussion was demoted in priority. Anyway...

Victor said:

some people, given their physical structure, are better and more apt at playing sports

Of course, but it is also very important to note that some alleged physical advantages are not all that advantageous. As the short basketball player example clearly shows, height isn’t everything in basketball. In fact one of the best basketball players in my high school was only 5’ tall. As the biological laws of scaling show, strength to weight ratios increase as size decreases (because the volume, and thus mass of an object increases with the cube of a linear dimension) thus smaller people are stronger compared to their own body weight, and thus can jump higher, turn faster, and change directions quicker.

But the further point that this claim attempts to make, is that since there are physical differences in body structures and those physical differences can manifest certain advantages and disadvantages, that the same must be true, and the *extent* must be true in regards to the brain. No one has submitted any evidence suggesting as much. How much difference is there from one stomach to the next? I see a lot of people pointing at physical difference like height, but never physical similarities, like the numbers of fingers that people have. We are far more alike than not alike, so pointing to physical differences undermines the very argument you are trying to make.

Victor, I agree with your basic premise, yes people are different, and some people can have some physiological differences in their brain, at birth, that make them possibly better at one thing or another. I think we strongly disagree on the extent to which this is relevant and the extent of those differences. Yes some people are light skinned and others are dark skinned, but we all have skin. Some are tall and some are short, yet almost all of us have ten fingers.

The problem comes from trying to isolate and identify the extent to which ‘natural’ talents play a role in our lives. The evidence I have submitted, numerous large scale studies, show unequivocally that in the grand scheme of things, in relation to the greatest achievers of human history and modern experts and leaders in any given field, come from demanding lifelong practice and refining of skills, not from some in born genetic dictionary that gives them leaps and bounds ahead of others. The biggest limiter to greatness and achievement is lazyness, not the brain equivalent of being 4 feet tall.

Additionally, if one were to consider someone’s current state of ability, at say drawing, music, being a doctor, etc, at any given point in time it is partly due to innate talent and partly due to the result of practice and study, right? To me, the role that innate ability plays at birth and at extremely young ages is very high, but the older one gets the more one’s current ability must be attributed to practice and effort, and not to innate ability. Yes we may see very young children that are amazingly good at something, but to remain amazingly good and *better* than everyone else at it they MUST practice and develop their skills.

To Angie’s points, how exactly can we isolate the effect of practice and effort from innate ability? You must eliminate all practice and refinement from the equation, and the only possible way one could do this is to look at the very young. If you take an adult, and give them a new skill to learn, how well the learn it will depend on things like what they have learned that is similar, what their attitude toward learning is, what methods they have adopted over the course of their life to learn things, etc. If we were to graph the resultant ability of someone as caused by their innate talent vs the result of effort and other things they have learned that end up relating in some manner to this, then to me the graph would be very high on the side of innate talent as the age approaches zero, but drops exponentially rapidly as we get to, say, 4 or 5 years old where it drops to say 5-10% of the total, and then it declines linearly. The contribution of effort, practice, and skills developed that end up being related starts at 0 and climbs rapidly until even at a very young age it is responsible for more than 90% of developed ability, at which point it continues asymptotically as age increases approaching 100%.

I think SJW’s post, 369,

“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.”

is well stated. I would add to Paul’s follow up question

“where does Talent fit in here”

The answer that it fits in at a very young age, but as you get older, it plays a rapidly less important role, especially when it is compared to every thing else you do and how you become adept at doing those things. As a simple example, a kid who runs around and plays alot is going to appear to have more ‘natural talent’ at any sport that involves running and changing direction quickly. But he will also appear to have more ‘natural talent’ at anything that requires coordination and balance.

Brant said:

“Better to just nurture your nature.”

I think this is terrible advice. What this means is to search for whatever you have some ‘innate’ talent at, and then develop it. Why? Because you will be better than average people at it. Is that every a psychologically good reason to develop a skill? MERELY because you think you will be better at it then other people? An attitude like this also implicitly attributes a much greater proportion of ability to innate talent than it does to hard work and effort. What you should do is completely disregard ‘natural’ talent and just look for and develop things you *enjoy* doing intrinsically.

After reading through the discussion that has taken place since I last contributed, I agree with Shane’s insistence on distinguishing innate ‘talent’ from innate ‘capacity’ although I do not think capacity is the best word for what I am thinking. I should not have been using ‘innate talent’ because to me a ‘talent’ is a manifested ability. You can not have a natural talent, you can not be born with the ability to play an instrument, etc, but that is not what is meant by most people’s use of the idea. But you can be born predisposition toward being better at someone, due to the innate physiological differences among human brains. HOWEVER, the extent to which these things matter is relevant only at very young ages, after that, practice and devoted effort takes precedence. And the extent to which the innate capacity of human brains differ (what most of the ‘pro talent’ groups seem to mean) is much more limited (as evidence by the numerous large scale studies I have cited which show that the most important factor in expertise is a particular kind of demanding practice) than the extent to which random external physical attributes differ.

You may see people who are 200% taller than other people, but their brains are not 200% more dense, nor do they have a 200% grater brain to body weigh ratio. You do not see people with 200% more fingers or 200% more lungs than other people. Of all the physical attributes humans possess, only the most superficial ones vary to any significant degree. Yet these superficial ones are the ones most obvious to us, and so we naturally extend this context of differentiation onto all aspects of the body, even though as I have stated it very obviously doesn’t apply.

Ellen wrote:

without scare quotes and in which she clearly did mean "innate capacity or predisposition."

It is not “clear” from the AS quote on Francisco that is what she meant, it is just as easy to read and interpret that passage to mean that Francisco was amazingly adept at learning things and accomplishing things, none of these require him to have a special innate ability that far exceeds mere mortal men. Given the content of Rand’s previous comments on the subject, your interpretation of what she meant is clearly not rationally consistent with her explicit statement of her position. So either she was irrational and contradicted herself, or you are mis-interpreting a statement that is partly vague. I am inclined to consider the latter more likely given the circumstances. Had she said “Francisco was born better at everything than everyone else” it would be a different story, but she didn’t say anything like that. “as if” is not the same thing as “is”

There are five components here

1) Innate capacity (a genetic predisposition giving one a potential advantage)

2) Starting early

3) A particular method of exacting practice and continual self challenging

4) Continually and perpetually practice

5) Motivation or Joy at what one is doing

Only with all four of these components is it likely that you will be the best in the world, better than any human who has ever existed. Without that innate capacity, you may not be the best in the world, but you can be pretty damn good at it, especially if you start at a very young age. But even without that innate capacity and starting at a very young age, you can *still* be very good at something, though perhaps not the best in the whole of the world, nevertheless the numerous studies I have cited show without any doubt that it is the latter 3 that play the most important role. Someone with an innate capacity and who starts early, but never continues to practice and never strives with that particular kind of practice will never amount to anything. And the older you get, the longer you live, the less the first two are relevant. A person who has all four, but not the fifth, that is intrinsically enjoying and desiring to do what they want to do, will always be limited in what they will accomplish compared to someone who does have that. Forcing someone into a field they might have a genetic advantage at will not guarantee them the independent joy they get from that task and as such will always limit their potential. I think this last point is an important one to remember when we are talking about churning out brilliant mathematicians or brilliant anything’s with the right nurturing. It’s probably safe to say that a good majority of the population contain element 1) which will relate to some field or another, and it is equally safe to say that the vast majority of the population do not engage in 3) and 4) to any significant degree.

Matus

[sjw]

I agree with everything Matus wrote except for one thing: He said that the effects of differences in innate capacity diminish over time. I think that is true only when limits are not being consistently pushed. Which I'd venture to guess accounts for 99.9+% of human beings.

I'd also underscore the distinction he made: "talent" refers to observable differences. It necessarily incorporates the products of innate capacity, effort, method, and motivation. "Talent" is the consequence of these, not a cause. The "talent" people observe this product and then attribute most of it to a single cause: innate talent. Matus and I take a causal, scientific perspective and break the observed behavior (the excellence of action that people call "talent") into its products.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Back to Jonathan's observation: if will power and rational effort alone were enough, then anybody can become a great artist, a scientific genius, etc.

Life just doesn't work that way. And it never will.

We need all the components, including the innate ones (and especially attitudes like independence of thinking). Just because some limits can be overcome with a different approach than one used before, that does not mean that all limits can be. There would be no world records if that were true.

I appreciate the attitude of valuing the mind and will, and I agree that the syndrome of laziness or complacency being blamed on lack of natural talent is often observable. I agree that at some times what can appear as a natural limitation can actually be an incorrect method of learning. But no attitude on earth will ever substitute proper identification of reality. They are two different things. One can never cancel the other and the attempt to do that is certainly not "scientific."

Here is an answer to Ellen on the acorn thing. The part that develops automatically as the child grows (and what is innate) is what I call "facility for learning" a specific skill or even "capacity for learning" it. The actual learning comes from experience--observing, imitating, making connections and doing, but there are definitely observable degrees of facility in children--and even adults. Of course, once something is learned, it can be done, so the crux of "innate talent" is almost exclusively confined to the learning part. The facility for learning automatically increases as the child grows, and this is not due to experience. It is a facility that grows in efficacy just like a child grows taller as he gets older. (This develops parallel to the accrual of experience and wider knowledge, but separately from it.) Some kids learn stuff easier than other kids. Some adults learn stuff easier than other adults.

I strongly suspect (I will not say "it is" because I have not read any tests about this) that if you take two kids, for instance, one who finds it extremely easy to learn math and one who finds it hard, then neither of them develop this skill, you will find that as adults, the first will still find it much easier than the second to learn math. That is the innate part. (This does not mean that the person who is slower cannot learn. That is another issue.)

I also strongly suspect that should both wish to develop the skill, they both acquire the same independence of spirit, use the same rational methods for learning, have the same materials available to study and apply the same effort, the one with more facility will learn more as time goes along and, thus, be more likely to achieve more.

There is also a creative element that develops more easily in some children than in others.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Brant said:

“Better to just nurture your nature.”

I think this is terrible advice. What this means is to search for whatever you have some ‘innate’ talent at, and then develop it. Why? Because you will be better than average people at it. Is that every a psychologically good reason to develop a skill? MERELY because you think you will be better at it then other people? An attitude like this also implicitly attributes a much greater proportion of ability to innate talent than it does to hard work and effort. What you should do is completely disregard ‘natural’ talent and just look for and develop things you *enjoy* doing intrinsically.

Matus

That's not what it means, except to you. I admit, since it was not a statement that I elaborated on I have a hard time complaining about someone else's elaboration, but I never anticipated such social-metaphysical wrongheadedness to be attributed to me.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

I feel that I owe a response to Michael Dickey, given my not having found (what I read of) what he said earlier clear. I agree with much of what he said in his post #468, though with quibbles. (How big is a quibble?, Shayne asked. Well...we shall see...)

MD, since you signed your post "Matus," I'll address you by that name.

Victor said:

some people, given their physical structure, are better and more apt at playing sports

Of course, but it is also very important to note that some alleged physical advantages are not all that advantageous. [....]

But the further point that this claim attempts to make, is that since there are physical differences in body structures and those physical differences can manifest certain advantages and disadvantages, that the same must be true, and the *extent* must be true in regards to the brain. No one has submitted any evidence suggesting as much. How much difference is there from one stomach to the next? I see a lot of people pointing at physical difference like height, but never physical similarities, like the numbers of fingers that people have. We are far more alike than not alike, so pointing to physical differences undermines the very argument you are trying to make.

The question "How much difference is there from one stomach to the next?" reverts to a viewpoint you've iterated several times, that there isn't much difference in internal organs from one person to another. Matus, I don't know what your standards of "difference" are, but I wonder where you're getting your information on the subject of differences in internal organs. I've known a large number of medical people in my life, and I've done a fair amount of studying medical subjects myself. What I glean from both verbal and written sources is that no two person's internal organs are identical. Stomachs, e.g., can differ in size, in shape, in placement, in blood supply connections and flows, in hormonal sensitivities and outputs, in histology, and in other details. No, you don't get the scale differences in size which can be found in height. But size isn't the only parameter of difference.

As to the extent of variation there might be in the brain, this is something which just isn't known at the current time, especially in variations which might be related to various mental abilities. For instance, what are the variations in number, depth, contours of the sulci, the fissures between convolutions of the cerebrum? What are the differences in percentages of various transmitter chemicals? Are there differences in reactiveness to various homones? What are the anatomical differences at birth (and later) in pathways between various parts of the brain? Etc. It's much harder to get this sort of information about the brain than about other organs, and there's still a great deal we don't know about details of physical variation. And we know still less about the precise relationship between the physical characteristics of the brain and mental processes. We're largely guessing in the dark here, thus far.

The problem comes from trying to isolate and identify the extent to which ‘natural’ talents play a role in our lives. The evidence I have submitted, numerous large scale studies, show unequivocally that in the grand scheme of things, in relation to the greatest achievers of human history and modern experts and leaders in any given field, come from demanding lifelong practice and refining of skills, not from some in born genetic dictionary that gives them leaps and bounds ahead of others. The biggest limiter to greatness and achievement is lazyness, not the brain equivalent of being 4 feet tall.

In regard to application being the most important factor to achievement, I agree. "Natural" talent isn't going to get a person very far if the person doesn't use the talent. And I agree that becoming an "expert," whether a person starts out as a "natural" or not, requires work. I think that in the earlier debate there was a lot of miscommunication between you and others because you kept focusing on expertise whereas others were focusing on what one has at the starting gate. However, I wouldn't say that "lazyness" is "the biggest limiter to greatness and achievement," as if there's a moral flaw involved in the case of anyone who hasn't made significant achievements. There are a whole lot of other possibilities.

Additionally, if one were to consider someone’s current state of ability, at say drawing, music, being a doctor, etc, at any given point in time it is partly due to innate talent and partly due to the result of practice and study, right? To me, the role that innate ability plays at birth and at extremely young ages is very high, but the older one gets the more one’s current ability must be attributed to practice and effort, and not to innate ability. Yes we may see very young children that are amazingly good at something, but to remain amazingly good and *better* than everyone else at it they MUST practice and develop their skills.

I agree that "to remain amazingly good and *better* than everyone else," people "MUST practice and develop their skills." However, I think it's an open question as to how much of a role innate ability continues to play in differences in performance as people age. (And I think that the answer could partly differ with different areas of endeavor. For instance, I suspect that someone who starts out ahead in ease of learning at music or math will stay ahead in ease of learning with age, provided the person does also work at the skill. MSK, in post #470, suggested a possible way of testing this. It would be difficult to test.)

To Angie’s points, how exactly can we isolate the effect of practice and effort from innate ability? You must eliminate all practice and refinement from the equation, and the only possible way one could do this is to look at the very young. If you take an adult, and give them a new skill to learn, how well the learn it will depend on things like what they have learned that is similar, what their attitude toward learning is, what methods they have adopted over the course of their life to learn things, etc. If we were to graph the resultant ability of someone as caused by their innate talent vs the result of effort and other things they have learned that end up relating in some manner to this, then to me the graph would be very high on the side of innate talent as the age approaches zero, but drops exponentially rapidly as we get to, say, 4 or 5 years old where it drops to say 5-10% of the total, and then it declines linearly. The contribution of effort, practice, and skills developed that end up being related starts at 0 and climbs rapidly until even at a very young age it is responsible for more than 90% of developed ability, at which point it continues asymptotically as age increases approaching 100%.

That's a good summary. I find it plausible in regard to many forms of mental aptitude, though I question that it would apply to all, as I indicated above.

Re your comments to Brant, he's already answered. I was surprised at your interpretation of his remarks. But then I've known Brant in list-land for many years and thus would never have interpreted him the way you did.

After reading through the discussion that has taken place since I last contributed, I agree with Shane’s insistence on distinguishing innate ‘talent’ from innate ‘capacity’ although I do not think capacity is the best word for what I am thinking. I should not have been using ‘innate talent’ because to me a ‘talent’ is a manifested ability.

I, too, think that "innate capacity" is a better word choice than "innate talent." But the fact is that both the word "capacity" and the word "talent" are used with varying meanings in varying contexts, so sensitivity to how either word is being used by a particular person in a particular context remains necessary to interpreting meaning.

You may see people who are 200% taller than other people, but their brains are not 200% more dense, nor do they have a 200% grater brain to body weigh ratio. You do not see people with 200% more fingers or 200% more lungs than other people. Of all the physical attributes humans possess, only the most superficial ones vary to any significant degree.

See my comments above about variability of internal organs. I think you're thinking too narrowly of the possible parameters of difference. Size percentages are far from the only possible differences. E.g., no two sets of fingerprints are identical; no two sets of teeth are identical; no two patterns of retinal arteries and veins are identical. Any of these three characteristics can be used to ID a specific person. Medical specialists have told me that likewise they've never seen two identical specimens of any internal organ of which they have extensive knowledge.

And, a factual question: "200% taller than other people"? Say someone is 3 feet tall, 200% taller would be 9 ft. Did you mean what you wrote? (I'm assuming that you're comparing adults.)

Ellen wrote:

without scare quotes and in which she clearly did mean "innate capacity or predisposition."

It is not “clear” from the AS quote on Francisco that is what she meant, it is just as easy to read and interpret that passage to mean that Francisco was amazingly adept at learning things and accomplishing things, none of these require him to have a special innate ability that far exceeds mere mortal men.

I think that you have to try hard to get a meaning other than "innate ability" from the passage about Francisco.

Given the content of Rand’s previous comments on the subject, your interpretation of what she meant is clearly not rationally consistent with her explicit statement of her position. So either she was irrational and contradicted herself, or you are mis-interpreting a statement that is partly vague. I am inclined to consider the latter more likely given the circumstances. Had she said “Francisco was born better at everything than everyone else” it would be a different story, but she didn’t say anything like that. “as if” is not the same thing as “is”

The "previous comments" I expect you mean are those about writers being made not born. I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that those were later comments chronologically. I think that what she said in the two contexts isn't consistent (and there are other contexts as well in which she seems to be thinking in terms of innate ability). However, it is not necessarily irrational for a person to contradict herself. It could, you know, be an oversight, an error, or even a change of viewpoint. I was not accusing Rand of immorality in saying that her comments are inconsistent. I was merely identifying that they are, as I read then in any event, inconsistent.

There are five components here

1) Innate capacity (a genetic predisposition giving one a potential advantage)

2) Starting early

3) A particular method of exacting practice and continual self challenging

4) Continually and perpetually practice

5) Motivation or Joy at what one is doing

I think your breakdown of factors is good, and that your analysis was clear. I was pleased to see you talking about factor (5). In your previous posts something which kept bothering me was your emphasis on excruciating effort. It sounded to me as if you thought of achievement as a grueling ordeal, as if you weren't allowing for it's being fun. I'm glad to see you saying that having fun in an activity is important to being good at it.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

But the fact is that both the word "capacity" and the word "talent" are used with varying meanings in varying contexts, so sensitivity to how either word is being used by a particular person in a particular context remains necessary to interpreting meaning.

Amen.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

See my comments above about variability of internal organs. I think you're thinking too narrowly of the possible parameters of difference. Size percentages are far from the only possible differences. E.g., no two sets of fingerprints are identical; no two sets of teeth are identical; no two patterns of retinal arteries and veins are identical. Any of these three characteristics can be used to ID a specific person. Medical specialists have told me that likewise they've never seen two identical specimens of any internal organ of which they have extensive knowledge.

Further, numbers in themselves don't mean much. Genetically, the difference between humans and chimpanzees is only 2%, but that doesn't imply that this small difference is not important and that its effects are negligible.

[sjw]

Back to Jonathan's observation: if will power and rational effort alone were enough, then anybody can become a great artist, a scientific genius, etc.

Life just doesn't work that way. And it never will.

Any person with a normal brain and normal health and normal circumstances can indeed become great at virtually anything they want to. Barring tragedy or accident, that is the potential we are all born with. Becoming the "best" is of course not guaranteed. But life indeed does work that way. That's the vision Ayn Rand put forth in Atlas and in other comments she made, that is the Objectivist view, and it is the truth.

I don't believe this merely because Ayn Rand said it. I believe it based on a wide variety of experiences in my own life. I interpret those experiences according to my own judgment of course. Like when I was horrible at golf and then spent a year or so practicing consistently and became a reasonably good golfer, it was by my own standards. I went from being an unreliable clutz to being comfortable and having a fairly reliable shot. Or when I changed my approach to cycling and became more powerful at 35 than I had been at 20, and could beat some local, young pros in a race up the mountain. Or when I read the various works of historic geniuses and reconstructed for myself what steps they must have taken to reach their brilliant insights. Or in my own field when I worked on my own creations. In my judgment, I have personally observed a capacity to be great in some area if I put enough intensity and time in. The world is knowable and the method we can use to know it is knowable. Becoming a good knower (a scientist) is not a magical process. It's learnable by any normal human being and they can become great at it. I'm now too old to become great in any sport, but based on my experience I don't doubt that I could have been a professional athlete if I had cared to when I was young.

By your view, either I am a deluded genius or I am deluded imbecile. By your view, Ayn Rand was a deluded genius (she regarded herself as not mainly born with extreme intelligence, but mainly honest). If you don't regard yourself as superior to Rand at judging the nature of human potential, I wonder at the pretense at you telling a genius that your evaluation of her from afar is more accurate at discerning why she was so good than her own introspection told her.

Really, I think most of the "talent" people have a complex of some sort. I think they are trying to make excuses for themselves. Or for other people. Their perspective is a load of nonsense. As Matus points out, their nonsense is not backed up by scientific evidence. Nor is it backed up by Ayn Rand's life and observations and writings. And it's not backed up by any of my experience either. I'm quite sure they feel they are right. If they apply their ideas to themselves, I suppose they feel congenitally incompetent at some area or other. That's not how I feel. I have been able to do anything I want to well. Maybe they feel that they haven't been able to. It is interesting that all their stories concern other people failing, not themselves. Perhaps they know how that would come across.