What is talent?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Well ... oh, well. Let me know when u guys figure it out.

Brant,

Your post gave me pause, too, but it was refreshing. At least it was not about anyone accusing another of being dishonest, engaging in rationalism, trying to justify defeatism, saying the other doesn't know what he is talking about, moralizing, hypocrisy, (the whole litany of typical Objectivist forum insults, actually), or bragging about who won what...

At least, so far...

I think...

At least...

Michael

[CNA]

As to Ellen's post into the brain and variables, she is most emphatically correct. Each brain according to studies that have been performed are different from one another to varying degrees even into how they function. I have a passion for medicine and have for probably over a decade now and have studied it quite extensively. I'm only posting to offer something new to this thread, just something new for everyone to wrap their minds around and think about. This branch of study is in its infancy but has yielded tremendous breakthroughs over the short time it has been around. There are still many studies that have to be performed, many tests that have to be run. It is controversial. It is extremely interesting. Well, it is extremely interesting to me as I have a passion for it.

Many organs have specific functions. The brain is no exception. The different lobes have different functions that control certain aspects of the body such as motor function, memory whereas another lobe will play a part in hearing and speech but to varying degrees all may or may not be interconnected, especially when it comes to certain classes of talent such as math or music.

I’ll give a quick run down of the different lobes of the brain. The frontal lobes of each hemisphere are located behind the forehead. Amongst other things, they are partially responsible for language, motor function, judgment, problem solving, impulse control, reasoning, memory, and the ability to plan and fulfill plans. Behind the frontal lobes are the parietal lobes. These lobes are the least understood among the four, but are the principal integrators of sensory information such as taste, pain and temperature. The parietal lobes are also responsible for reading and arithmetic. The occipital lobes lie in the back and are related to visual processing, so much so that injury to an occipital lobe could cause blindness. The temporal lobes are found under the parietal lobe and are responsible for memory, hearing, perception and recognition.

Here is a partial excerpt from an article regarding the studies that have been performed on Einstein’s brain. Unfortunately I closed the window out before bookmarking this site. I've searched for it but haven't been successful but I can furnish a few other links regarding this issue.

What Einstein allowed others to do with his brain while he was still using it makes the specimens he left behind more useful still. Appreciative that there was something special about the way his brain worked, Einstein went out of his way to help fellow scientists unravel the mystery by consenting to an electroencephalograph examination that recorded his brain wave activity. He also consented to interviews in which he explained how he solved problems. His explanation was quite extraordinary. "Words do not seem to play any role," he once said. "[There are] more or less clear images" This observation would provide the critical clue to Sandra F. Witelson, the leader of the McMaster University team that appears to have unlocked the secret of Einstein's brain.

Brain Atlas

As far back as the ancient Greeks, physicians suspected different functions were associated with different parts of the brain. Specifically, they noticed that blows to the back of the skull could cause blindness. This was more scientifically confirmed during World War I by German military surgeons who operated on soldiers with head wounds. Today, there exists a detailed "atlas" that locates the parts of the brain that control different types of activity.

Because different functions reside in different locations Einstein's remarks about visualization were significant to Witelson. At the level at which Einstein explored nature, physics problems are mathematical problems. Looking at the part of Einstein's brain that was involved in mathematical reasoning and comparing it to the same region of more ordinary brains just might provide the long-sought key to his genius.

Witelson knows a good deal about normal brains: She collects them. You know that old movie where Igor walks past a shelf with jars marked "good brains" and "bad brains"? It isn't so far from the truth. Witelson delved into her collection and retrieved the brains of contributors who were both mentally and physically healthy, with IQs from 107 to 125. No dunces here, but no rocket scientists either.

A first-blush comparison showed the brain of the towering genius to be remarkably ordinary. "The gross anatomy of Einstein's brain was within normal limits," says Witelson, "with the exception of his parietal lobes. [Visual and spacial] cognition, mathematical ideation and imagery of movement are mediated predominantly by right and left posterior parietal regions." If you have ever slapped yourself on the side of the head after saying something stupid, you hit the right spot. In Einstein, these regions were 15 percent wider, and were missing a folded structure found in the rest of us.

This finding was not entirely surprising. Researchers had seen similar enlargements before. "Both the mathematician Gauss and the physicist Siljestrom [had] extensive development of the inferior parietal regions," says Witelson.

Now as to the other issue of the differences in a baby's brain that has been brought up, there has been very few studies done, imaging, and so forth although with the exception of one study that I have been able to locate. At birth, the brain is still developing but I am sure this will be an area this scientist as well as others will delve into eventually. But as to maturation of the brain as it is still developing at birth, it is under controversy as to when the brain reaches full maturation. Some scientists say it is by the age of 17 or 18 whereas other scientists say it can go from the 20s to the 30s before full maturation is reached.

The one study performed into infants brains with imaging was by the same scientist that is studying Einstein's brain. She has been performing tests on premature babies. These babies were born at around 26 or 28 weeks gestation and she found that certain areas of the baby's brain do not change even when the individual reaches adulthood and full maturation of the brain, meaning they never fully recovered and there was no growth, improvement and some parts of the brain never changed at all which I found to be very interesting for a variety of reasons. No amount of stimulation after birth could produce any significant results in these areas of the brain that were affected. But more studies have to be performed and ultimately will be performed.

Also did some other research into what is considered "normal." According to many reports that I have read and this is being based on the amount of neurological diagnoses every year past and present from neurologists and neuroscientists as well as from post-mortem examination of individuals, many reports estimate that 50 to 75 percent of the population have some degree of abnormality from very minor to acute.

Here are some links into Einstein's brain. Also any other links for the rest that have been talked about in this post, I'm not going to dig the sites up again as I did not bookmark them and I do not have the time to go digging for it again. I've already taken a great chunk out of my time tonight to post this. I do not plan to participate in this thread due to time constraints. But whoever is interested in it, I am sure will put the time and effort into it such as I did.

The Exceptional Brain of Einstein

McMaster University Focus on Health Brain Gain

The Seattle Times Revealing Thoughts on Gender

Wikipedia Albert Einstein's Brain

Angie

Edited January 5, 2007 by CNA

[Victor Pross]

“Wow, this Angie chick really loves us genius guys. Hey, Matus and Shayne, what have you to say? What do you think of the argument and evidence as presented by this hot little package of chemicals known as Angie—or CNA?”

Edited January 5, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Mikee]

Brant,

The communists [perhaps all social engineers] don't regard individuals as "plastic" or "moldable", rather they regard them as expendable. Ayn Rand certainly didn't regard human nature as "plastic". Rather, individuals as moral or immoral.

Otherwise: "WTF??!!"

Angie:

Thanks for the Einstein article. Here is the link:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/he...ne/1280971.html

I used a quote from Einstein in a discussion indicating that his thinking did not happen in words but he translated his idea into words to explain them. My point was we should try to understand the IDEAS behind peoples words rather than picking apart the words themselves. When someone says "That's not what I meant" they are really being truthful and you shouldn't continue to shove their own words down their throat but go on and try to get to the ideas themselves. There are some very good word meisters floating around who have little or nothing original to say, conversely, their are others who have very original ideas but are difficult to understand.

[Brant Gaede]

Careful, "adaptable, improvable, perfectible" is what the communists did to their victims and Ayn Rand's basic mistake shared with them: human beings as plastic and moldable, the Stalinists from the outside in and Rand from the inside out. The basic principle of individualism is to let people be what they want to be as long as no one violates individual rights. The moral principle is just to let people be.

WTF!?

Shayne,

It's so good to be of one voice with you instead of at odds all the time. Let me join you on this: WTF!?

Well ... oh, well. Let me know when u guys figure it out. :logik:

--Brant

I apologize for this post of mine; I should have fleshed it out because taken as written it is incorrect. I don't have time right now, but I'll fix it up later today. "WTF!" is a justified response.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike,

The communists [perhaps all social engineers] don't regard individuals as "plastic" or "moldable", rather they regard them as expendable. Ayn Rand certainly didn't regard human nature as "plastic". Rather, individuals as moral or immoral.

Actually the whole purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat was to perfect human beings by breeding the "wrong" ideas out of them to the point that a dictatorship was no longer necessary. To that extent people were considered "plastic" and "moldable." But as you stated, individuals were also expendable.

On Rand, she actually did think proper morality molded people (albeit through their own choice in adopting the morality), even to the point of claiming that proper thinking could increase IQ. Her claim was about the "perfectibility" of man and this was one of her major beefs with religion. She also thought improper thinking could irreparably damage a person after a time, making him permanently immoral. Although she defended the sanctity of the individual, she certainly found her friends expendable.

My point was we should try to understand the IDEAS behind peoples words rather than picking apart the words themselves. When someone says "That's not what I meant" they are really being truthful and you shouldn't continue to shove their own words down their throat but go on and try to get to the ideas themselves.

Amen.

That attitude is a conscious choice.

Michael

[Matus1976]

I completely understand Shane’s frustration in this conversation, I feel like my position is getting perpetually mis-represented.

For starters, MSK’s quoted links on “aptitude”, well that is a very poor definition of “Aptitude” on that Wikipedia link, dictionary.com has the word including both acquired and innate abilities. From my understanding and usage aptitude (as in an aptitude test) never bothers to separate the two. So to further that point, identifying and defining what different types of aptitude (e.g. verbal, numerical, spatial, etc) someone has doesn’t prove that they are overwhelmingly innate any more than identifying the different types of muscles a body build has proves that he was born with bulging muscles. But identifying the various areas people have aptitude (ability, rather innate or developed) in does emphasize something important to keep in mind, someone could have a strong aptitude in one or a few areas that have been developed by something they have done over and over again, whether a child playing with blocks, staring out the window, or continually following lines in the floor with his finger, and that areas of aptitude that were developed from that will play well into other seemingly un related areas, making the child appear remarkable advanced compared to other children who did not engage in such activity. This is something that is probably often mistaken for ‘innate’ talent.

As for an organization which measures your aptitudes and then uses that to help people choose a career, I hardly doubt using personality profiles, hand writing analysis, or astrology to do so would be any less successful as long as those people being tested *believe* the test is useful and accurate. You would need to do a double blind study where some people are randomly assigned to the area they are tested to have ‘aptitude’ in and others are intentionally not assigned to those areas, then they are tracked and compared over a long time frame. Knowing some of the complexities of human psychology and how easily we are able to fool ourselves I hardly think this qualifies as scientific evidence.

MSK wrote

“I could do what you just did. I could just as easily ask from the other end, making the same mistake, "How do you trace it to environmental and chosen factors and eradicate everything you are born with?"”

You can do it by comparing the logical consequences of the two. If innate differences are significant, only certain people could becomes experts and greats in particular certain fields, and most people who tried would fail miserably, even with the proper kind of practice and training. If they are not significant, than virtually anyone could with the right kind of training and practice become and expert at virtually anything. The fact that the latter case is true, as again, is obvious from the numerous articles and papers I have cited, proves that if innate differences play any role at all it is very limited.

SJW said, after Dragonfly cited some incredible feats of memory

“That would make the event much less a miracle since Mozart was already familiar with difficult composing techniques at that age. He would have recognized and memorized the quite simple harmonic and formal patterns of the Miserere at the first performance and would have used the second one to correct the details.)"”

Indeed, if you examine this question in scientific detail you will learn how these amazing feats are accomplished. Peoples minds don’t record these tunes like an MP3 player and play them back, they compare it to known patterns they have integrated and then remember only the specific differences. The following are from the Scientific American Issue “The Expert Mind”

“This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called apperception, can be seen in experts in other fields as well. Just as a master can recall all the moves in a game he has played, so can an accomplished musician often reconstruct the score to a sonata heard just once. And just as the chess master often finds the best move in a flash, an expert physician can sometimes make an accurate diagnosis within moments of laying eyes on a patient”

“Experiements indicate that the memory of chess masters is tuned to typical game positions. In 13 studies from 1973 – 1996 players at various skill levels were shown positions from actual games and positions from randomly shifting pieces. After observing the positions for 10 seconds or less, players were asked to reconstruct them from memory. The results showed that chess masters and grand masters were significantly better at recalling the positions from actual games but only marginally better than novices at recalling random positions. This finely tuned long term memory appears to be crucial to chess expertise.”

“Beginners could not recall more than a very few details of positions, even after having examined it for 30 seconds, whereas grandmasters could usually get it perfectly, even if they had perused it for only a few seconds. The difference tracks a particular form of memory, specific to the kind of chess positions that commonly occur in play. The specific tests must be the result of training, because grandmasters do no better than others in general tests of memory. Similar tests prove the same thing in bridge players, computer programmers (who can reconstruct masses of computer code) and musicians (who can recall long snatches of music)

The article then goes on to explain how this type of memory works, called chunking, is it basically a form of memorizing which uses compression algorithms that relate to the vast amount of stored knowledge at the experts disposal. Instead of memorizing every single chess position, a grand master might say “fianchetteoed bhishop in the casteled kingside” together with “blockaded kings Indian style pawn chain” and thereby by cram an entire chess board in play into his memory by memorizing the pattern as it relates to all the moves and organizations he has memorized throughout his thousands of house of study and practice. It is an amazing feat, but it is not magical nor attributed to a fundamentally different method or capability of memorization. The article goes on, but I think the point is made. The same method is used for all experts and geniuses in every field yet tested. So no, amazing feats of memory do not discount the primarily developed ability position, since everyone who tries can develop these skills, but it must require entering lots of information into the long term memory which must be done by many hours of particular study.

Brant said:

“I personally think human intelligence is grossly underdeveloped irrespective of genes for genius, whatever those are. The size of the human brain is limited pretty much by what can get through the birth canal. So if the human brain is big enough for Mozart to be a genius, why not many more such geniuses, especially considering how many more people there are now in the world?”

I too agree with you here Brant. If you stop and think about how much time you could actually devote to effortful study compared with how much time you actually do, it becomes painfully obvious why you (I speak of you in a self evaluation manner, not you per se) are not an expert or genius at something. Most people go home from work, relax, watch some TV, maybe read a magazine, chat with their significant other, have dinner, go to bed. The plethora of idle minds in the world are the greatest untapped resource ever to have existed. I try to spend more and more of my time in effortful study of some kind, but it is as difficult sometimes as physical endurance training and I know I am probably operating at only 20% of my capacity, and I am interested in too many things to focus on only one. I think most people hover around 10%, Doctors and professional athelets probably more like 30 – 40%, while experts and geniuses, like Einstein probably reach 80% or more. The truly rare great genusies of history, the Tesla’s, Mozarts, Da Vinicni’s, Newtons, etc. pretty much abandoned all normal aspects of life, marriage, relationships, etc, and made their lives centered around their effortful study and productivity, probably achieved 90-95% of their potential capacity.

Victor said:

“I can see that a general agreement has been reached in that people are different, and some people can have some physiological differences in their brain, at birth, that make them better at one thing or another. It is this physiological difference” that makes “some people better” at one thing or another is what we call talent”

I think we are working toward a mutual understanding but have been deviating lately (like MSK’s response to SJW’s agreement with Brants comments) But that agreement is not what you profess in this statement. I acknowledge that physiological differences exist, but they are NOT significant in what makes some people better than others at something, effortful study is the primary cause of that. Physiological differences exist and contribute to differences, but the effect is very minimal, most notable only at early ages, and practically irrelevant at later ages. The fact that scientific studies have shown that virtually anyone can become good at virtually anything proves that point.

“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”

Talent also commonly just means ability, so I don’t think it’s a good word to use to represent only innate differences that give someone an advantage. A talent is a manifested ability, if I say “I am talented” it usually means I can do something well, irregardless of *why* I can do it well. But the fact that some people have greater hand eye coordination, and that you call that talent, does not prove innate talent exists or if it does is a significant contributor to that. You seem to be implying that my position ends up implying that all people must be equally talented, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am sure that for much of your young life you were moving your hand around and looking at it with your eyes, developing that hand eye coordination. You may have had a particular hobby or interest (like tracing cracks in the floor with your finger) that you don’t even remember now that fine tuned you for hand eye coordination and aptitudes related to drawing. It’s really way too over simplistic too look at a person that is good at something and automatically attribute that to ‘innate talent’ considering it glosses over the whole of their lives actions, interests, hobbies, and developed skills.

Angie said:

“As to Ellen's post into the brain and variables, she is most emphatically correct. Each brain according to studies that have been performed are different from one another to varying degrees even into how they function.”

Of course brains are different. We are different people, with different interests, and different abilities. But pointing to studies that show brains are different does not prove why they are different and it is not rationally to jump to the conclusion that they are different because they were born that way. We would need to see clear MRI’s for very young children to have an idea of that, but as you said, brains are still developing for many years afterwards, so that wouldn’t provide very much conclusive evidence either. Aside from locking children in an stimulation free black box and then doing MRI’s after the brains stops developing, we can never isolate all the differences that have come from actions and interests from innate differences.

“A first-blush comparison showed the brain of the towering genius to be remarkably ordinary. "The gross anatomy of Einstein's brain was within normal limits," says Witelson, "with the exception of his parietal lobes. (Visual and spacial) cognition, mathematical ideation and imagery of movement are mediated predominantly by right and left posterior parietal regions." In Einstein, these regions were 15 percent wider, and were missing a folded structure found in the rest of us.”

So, was Einstein a brilliant genius *because* these regions were 15 percent wider, or were they 15% wider *because* he was a genius, that is, did they grow and develop differently because he spent much of his waking life studying physics and mathematics? It’s easy to confuse cause and effect in the instances, but if you have ever read about Einstein’s life you would know how incredibly unfair and insulting it would be to say “Well that’s great Al, good job on that relativity thing and all, but really you’re just lucky because you were born with the visual and special area of your brain 15% wider” We know very well that the human body is physiologically very plastic, as I emphasized with the story about the best rock climber in the world today, who as a growing child literally played in trees with her pet monkey, and thus directed her physiological structure so that her arms and fingers are longer and stronger proportionally that most people on the planet. She can do 2 finger pull-ups. Why do we gloss so easily over the developmental plasticity of the body and ignore any possible developmental plasticity of the brain?

The evidence that so far has been presented to downplay the developed abilities side of the equation is very limited. They seem to be one of the following

1) an example of an individual who has accomplished something incredible

- this is not applicable because nothing about our position contradicts the ability to accomplish great and amazing things

2) an example of an individual who has done this at a very young age

- these examples constitute something of interest, but they can also be explained by the fact that every one of these people spent immense amounts of time and practice refining their abilities, even at that very young age. The Indian boy genius had performed thousands or medical diagnoses on people in his neighborhood from referencing all of the medical books he had read. Note this would be highly illegal in this country and indeed most westernized ones.

3) Personal anecdotes of people trying something and ‘not getting it’ no matter how hard they try, while others ‘get it’ effortlessly

- this can just as easily be attributed the complex and inter-related developed aptitudes people have that might superficially seem unrelated but manifest themselves in other unrelated endeavors to the bemusement of other people who have not undertaken a complex psychological historical study of the individual exhibiting talent.

4) People have physical differences and thus their brains must have physical differences (obvious) however those differences are probably present and variable to the same degree as the differences we see in other traits (height, skin tone, finger prints, etc) and thus probably make up for many of the resulting differences in abilities

- This is an incorrect generalization to make, that human mind variability exists to the same degree that other physical traits do. Many physical attributes are much more similar, yet their similarity is not extended casual to inferences about the brain. How much do brains differ? And does it significantly contribute to genius or expertise? As Angie said comparisons of brains of the young are very few, and even so the brain still develops and changes for some time afterward. The simple observable fact that virtually anyone can become good or great at anything they choose to focus their life on *proves* the limited influence that innate differences have.

5) The brains of really smart people are shown to be physiologically different than other ‘normal’ people

- This to me is a very obvious logical conclusion to the fact that our brains are physical entities and change, just as our muscles do, according to our input, stimuli, thought processes, etc. Pointing to different structures in a genius brain and attributing that to an innate difference they are born with is as fallacious as pointing to a body builders bulging muscles and insisting they were born with them. Brains, just like muscles, grow and change with use, and atrophy with lack of use.

Did I miss any?

[sjw]

Wow Matus, great post and wrapup for this thread.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Wow Matus, great post and wrapup for this thread.

I agree. Great post! Not quite wrapped up though. I still think both sides are making points worth integrating. Matus' posts definitely bring things down to earth.

Paul

Edited January 5, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Danneskjold]

Just to clarify, we are arguing that innate abilities are generally insignificant not that they don't exist?

[CNA]

Wow Matus, great post and wrapup for this thread.

I agree. Great post! Not quite wrapped up though. I still think both sides are making points worth integrating. Matus' posts definitely bring things down to earth.

Paul

I agree on both points. Great post, Matus !! But as Paul said, not quit wrapped up though. One main one being is for other studies to be performed, test, and so forth. It is inconclusive but is still fascinating. And I have NOT come to a conclusion regarding it due to not enough tests having been performed but nonetheless it is interesting. Another area that needs to be addressed is neurology and the studies that have been performed there as well with respect to improvements in the brain and skills such as speech and so forth when there IS a noted abnormality which has been documented in many many individuals.

I most emphatically agree that most anyone can improve their skills to varying degrees even to the point of greatness. But for anyone to state that "anyone" can become "great" through hardwork is a bit much. Before making such a statement, they really need to do quite a bit of research into brain abnormalities, deficiencies, tests that have been performed, and so on. I've been involved with OT, speech therapy, behaviorial specialists, psychologists, neurologists for quite a few years now that have worked with individuals that have some degree of brain abnormality. Have seen much in the way of improvements as well as individuals that have had extensive therapy over a great majority of their lives, in some cases 30 to 40 years of extensive therapy, but have had very little changes and improvements. But these are to varying degrees of abnormalities of course. But my point being is difficult to claim that "anyone" can become "great" without having researched neurology and brain abnormalities in individuals.

Obviously this is now a question of medicine to ultimately prove innate talent/ability/capacity or however you want to classify it. Many definitions that have been used on this thread are very similar even used by the neurologists and neuroscientists with respect to innate ability. I have not read many places so far with regard to neurologists and scientists alike that have talked about innate capacities. The definitions are closely linked and you'll find many people using the words with the same definition due to their being closely linked.

But I agree that the post was wonderful but as Paul said it is not quite wrapped though as there are a few areas that still need to be explored and furthered.

Angie

[Victor Pross]

Wow Matus, great post and wrapup for this thread.

It is not conclusive that innate talent doesn't exist. Yet, there’s Shayne in his cheer leading role encouraging anyone who is even minutely of a contrarian position--as if it were a competition. :geek:

Edited January 5, 2007 by Victor Pross

[sjw]

It is not conclusive that innate talent doesn't exist. Yet, there’s Shayne in his cheer leading role encouraging anyone one who is even minutely of contrarian position--as if it were a competition.

I wasn't the only one "cheerleading" Matus for his tidy summary of all the bogus arguments that have appeared in this long-winded thread. You're just a sore loser.

PS to CNA: No one ever said that people with damaged brains can will themselves into greatness. Maybe Matus should add an item number 6 to include the incessant creation of strawman arguments of every sort by the talent people.

[Victor Pross]

It is not conclusive that innate talent doesn't exist. Yet, there’s Shayne in his cheer leading role encouraging anyone one who is even minutely of contrarian position--as if it were a competition.

I wasn't the only one "cheerleading" Matus for his tidy summary of all the bogus arguments that have appeared in this long-winded thread. You're just a sore loser.

PS to CNA: No one ever said that people with damaged brains can will themselves into greatness. Maybe Matus should add an item number 6 to include the incessant creation of strawman arguments of every sort by the talent people.

The point is: even people who don't have damaged brains can't will themselves into "greatest" compared to the person who out performed them in spades--even as a child. I'm thinking of the Indian boy again.

Edited January 5, 2007 by Victor Pross

[CNA]

I just read my post again and there may be an area of confusion on where I stand. I still stand by my previous posts on this thread. But I have not drawn a conclusion regarding the most recent post in regard to Einstein and his parietal lobes as well as the other mathmeticians exhibiting the same area of extensive development as much more needs to be addressed, tests, and so forth. But ultimately it is now up to medicine to prove if it does exist. There's been evidence produced that has pointed that it "may" exist as well as brain abnormalities being well documented in individuals to varying degrees. This new area of research that some are now actively pursuing is controversial but has yielded tremendous breakthroughs and this branch of medicine will more than likely be the area that will ultimately prove it either way.

Angie

[sjw]

The point is: even people who don't have damaged brains can't will themselves into "greatest" compared to the person who out performed them in spades--even as a child. I'm thinking of the Indian boy again.

I've already addressed that point Victor. If you are going to continue to post, please try to keep up.

[CNA]

Let me clarify. We have some innate limitations against becoming "great" in some fields, depending on the individual. That is what I meant. You reject this, if I read you correctly, claiming that anyone can become "great" in any field, regardless of his limitations.

I would only apply that literally to normal healthy babies, and I would not accept the idea that normal healthy babies have limitations that would inherently keep them out of some field or other. I would agree that as we age, we become less "plastic" and have more limitations. Some people develop more limitations than others, and that's not genetic.

Shayne,

I do apologize for the Anyone can become great statement. But the point being is what can be considered normal and healthy when you research into neurologists and neuroscientists and their diagnoses as well as post-mortem examinations of individuals that many many individuals have been documented with some form of abnormality. This is past and present examinations over a great length of time. I am no exception as I am dyslexic and teeter on the border of being mildly autistic, Aspergers syndrome but have yet been diagnosed. My son has been diagnosed and has seen many doctors, Regional Centers, state doctors, and so forth as well as one of the leading researchers into autism at UCI.

To my understanding and based on some things that were talked about in the psyche forum was that Roark had many traits of also being autistic, although I have not read the book so I am unable to confirm this with accuracy. But if you do quite a bit of research into autism and keep in mind the traits that are exhibited, apparently Roark also had traits of being autistic. So with all the evidence, if you do the research as I have, many individuals but not all have some form of abnormality. So it takes quite a few people out of the loop of what is considered normal and healthy.

Angie

Edited January 5, 2007 by CNA

[Rich Engle]

I've already addressed that point Victor. If you are going to continue to post, please try to keep up.

See now? That's just the tone I'm talking about. It could have stopped after the first sentence, but NOoooo.

[Brant Gaede]

I want to put in a word for ignorance as opposed to speculation. Speculation displaces ignorance but not with knowledge, by and large. Speculation can help with investigation of a subject, but ignorance reminds us how hard it can be to really know some things and keeps us grounded. I think it takes a fair amount of knowledge to experience ignorance. Now Einstein was a great speculator, maybe the greatest of all time. I think all the confirming experiments came later.

--Brant

[James Heaps-Nelson]

On the question of talent, I do think that some people have greater innate abilities than others. However, I'm also sensitive to Shayne's frustration that people simply take the not enough ability as an excuse not to try hard. Unless we try really, really hard we will not know what we are capable of in a given field or endeavor. One phrase I like is that perfect practice makes perfect. That is prolonged, informed, directed effort toward being an expert.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael D,

There is much I agree with in your last post, but there are some things that bother me. I will concentrate on the differences I have, but do not let this be an indication that I disagree with everything.

For starters, MSK’s quoted links on “aptitude”, well that is a very poor definition of “Aptitude” on that Wikipedia link, dictionary.com has the word including both acquired and innate abilities. From my understanding and usage aptitude (as in an aptitude test) never bothers to separate the two.

That's a pretty convenient manner of dismissing what is presented--merely saying "my usage is different," but then not concentrating on the idea and where the differences are, but merely treating your statement as if it invalidated what was presented. It didn't.

I agree that the Wikipedia article is pretty weak. I much prefer the other one I gave (Estimating your Aptitudes) as it listed different aptitudes and even categorized what we are talking about into three areas: achievement, ability and aptitude. You did not address my own observation, that innate talent is nothing more than facility for learning. This article did, though, calling aptitude "the quickness or ease with which you can learn."

The thing that most bothers me about your approach is that you make an erroneous presumption that people who recognize innate talent are stating that it is the predominant ingredient in the mix of achievement (past performance) or ability (present performance) and that they belittle effort. Nobody has so far. I personally have repeatedly emphasized the importance of training and experience. I will illustrate this attitude with quotes as I go along.

Jeff just made a very interesting question:

Just to clarify, we are arguing that innate abilities are generally insignificant not that they don't exist?

Leaving aside the less precise use of the term "innate abilities" (I believe Jeff was using it in the popular sense, which includes a mix of innate aptitudes, training and experience, not in the specific one I just gave, which would not be solely innate), I would have to look, but I remember in the discussion at the beginning that some people were claiming that there were no innate aptitudes at all. I might be mistaken, though. From your post, I presume that at this point in time, you agree that innate aptitudes exist. To be specific, some people are born with more aptitude than others in specific areas. I refer to facility for learning. You simply claim that these differences are insignificant. Is that fair?

Now here is something that bothers me. Even going from this point, the value judgment of "significant" or "insignificant" boils down to the standard Objectivist question, "significant" or "insignificant" to whom? A person who comes from a very poor family and does not have a great deal of money to spend on education would be wise to invest what little he can in an area where he shows high aptitude. In another case, a person who is high-strung and impatient by temperament would do well to pursue an area where results come quicker than one where he will have to work twice as hard as others to achieve the same results. These are just two cases where "innate talent" (using the popular term for aptitude) is extremely "significant." I could go on with many more examples.

But identifying the various areas people have aptitude (ability, rather innate or developed) in does emphasize something important to keep in mind, someone could have a strong aptitude in one or a few areas that have been developed by something they have done over and over again, whether a child playing with blocks, staring out the window, or continually following lines in the floor with his finger, and that areas of aptitude that were developed from that will play well into other seemingly un related areas, making the child appear remarkable advanced compared to other children who did not engage in such activity. This is something that is probably often mistaken for ‘innate’ talent.

Here you are not being precise with the word "aptitude" (facility for learning.) I believe you mean "ability" (present skill) for this comment. With this qualification, I see nobody disagreeing with this. Once again, innate aptitude does not blank out training and experience and vice-versa. Your statement "something that is probably often mistaken" is a big "probably."

I do agree that if a person has a high degree of facility for learning a specific mental, or mind & body skill (as given in the article I linked to above) and never exercises it, it will be impossible to measure it or even note that it exists. The only way to notice learning ability is through the act of learning. I don't see how this negates degrees of innate learning ability or makes them "insignificant."

As for an organization which measures your aptitudes and then uses that to help people choose a career, I hardly doubt using personality profiles, hand writing analysis, or astrology to do so would be any less successful as long as those people being tested *believe* the test is useful and accurate.

This is kind of silly and shows lack of familiarity with what the company actually does. (The literature they use for their profiling is grounded in many scientific experiments using control groups.) A personal uninformed opinion like what you just gave is not knowledge.

MSK wrote

“I could do what you just did. I could just as easily ask from the other end, making the same mistake, "How do you trace it to environmental and chosen factors and eradicate everything you are born with?"

You can do it by comparing the logical consequences of the two. If innate differences are significant, only certain people could becomes experts and greats in particular certain fields, and most people who tried would fail miserably, even with the proper kind of practice and training.

Did anyone on this thread ever claim this? This is a perfect example of presuming that those who acknowledge innate aptitudes are proposing failure of effort or something like that. I have no doubt that a normal person can become highly skilled at most any normal human activity. Some people need much more effort than others to acquire a specific skill and that is the significance.

But there is another significance which I mentioned before. There is a ceiling on how far a person can go that is imposed by biology. This is true for all areas of being alive and I see no reason whatsoever to presume that the mental ceiling is the same for all people. Some people simply have more space they can go. Is that fair? No. But that's the way it is. Since when has nature ever been egalitarian?

I am not claiming that a high degree of skill is not a standard ceiling. I believe it is. But that is not the same as denying that a ceiling exists or dismissing it as "insignificant." (I am not sure where you stand on the ceiling idea, so that is why I also mentioned the denial. I am not claiming with this that you deny that a ceiling exists. I presume that if you do not deny it, you consider it as insignificant based on your other statements.)

The article then goes on to explain how this type of memory works, called chunking, is it basically a form of memorizing which uses compression algorithms that relate to the vast amount of stored knowledge at the experts disposal.

I particularly enjoyed this observation. Objectivist epistemology is scant in theories of memory. This would be called "integration" in Objectivism or using "gestalts" in Gestalt psychology. I believe that investigating this further will be highly fruitful.

I found the use of chess to be disappointing, but still illuminating in some details. The aptitude for learning patterns (which I speculate includes a mix of Spatial Aptitude, Form Perception and Clerical Perception) is what really needs to be tested for this kind of mind, not an already developed skill. Mounting random positions and testing recall of them merely proves that the ability to find patterns in random samples and memorize them was about the same between grand masters and people of average ability.

Using the test in the article, which did not deal with the important innate aptitudes needed to develop skill in chess, to discredit all innate aptitude is really forcing the issue. It gives the appearance of science, but it is not really. The only place the particular aptitude tested is used is in the initial learning of how the pieces move and how the board is set up. To someone not familiar with chess, the beginning looks random.

So no, amazing feats of memory do not discount the primarily developed ability position, since everyone who tries can develop these skills, but it must require entering lots of information into the long term memory which must be done by many hours of particular study.

Once again, you are making the presumption that training and experience are being discarded by people who claim that "innate talent" is one input in acquiring a skill. No one has "discounted" anything by noticing innate differences.

I try to spend more and more of my time in effortful study of some kind, but it is as difficult sometimes as physical endurance training and I know I am probably operating at only 20% of my capacity, and I am interested in too many things to focus on only one. I think most people hover around 10%, Doctors and professional athelets probably more like 30 – 40%, while experts and geniuses, like Einstein probably reach 80% or more. The truly rare great genusies of history, the Tesla’s, Mozarts, Da Vinicni’s, Newtons, etc. pretty much abandoned all normal aspects of life, marriage, relationships, etc, and made their lives centered around their effortful study and productivity, probably achieved 90-95% of their potential capacity.

These are some pretty amazing numbers. Did you get them from somewhere or are you just speculating? I agree that focus is important in acquiring a skill and that the ability to focus requires effort. Would you grant that a high degree of ability to focus is innate? Or do you hold that a 3 year-old has the capacity to make a conscious choice to increase or diminish his average day-to-day degree of focus?

I think we are working toward a mutual understanding but have been deviating lately (like MSK’s response to SJW’s agreement with Brants comments)

My objection is to making incorrect presumptions of slights and reacting with accusations of dishonesty, etc. This detracts strongly from the discussion. Mike Erikson above noted the correct manner of trying to understand what a person is saying: you make an initial presumption of the honesty and good will of the person and try to discover what he actually is saying--discover the concepts behind his words--before you judge his character. Many of Shayne's negative observations and accusations about the character of different posters are downright silly in this respect. I like Shayne and I highly appreciate much of his thinking, but this is an awfully bad habit. Sometimes I have to comment on it to get the discussion back on topic.

Physiological differences exist and contribute to differences, but the effect is very minimal, most notable only at early ages, and practically irrelevant at later ages. The fact that scientific studies have shown that virtually anyone can become good at virtually anything proves that point.

Here we go again with the presumption that people who recognize the existence of innate aptitudes are claiming that you can't become good at something through rational effort where your aptitudes are low. Nobody I have read so far claims that. They merely notice that some people take a long time to learn something that others learn easily and quickly, and that the ones with low aptitude have a great propensity for getting stuck in learning--so much so that learning a different activity where there is a higher aptitude is often a better use of time and effort. (See the different anecdotes about students in the thread.)

Talent also commonly just means ability, so I don’t think it’s a good word to use to represent only innate differences that give someone an advantage.

Regardless of how you think the English language should be, that's just the way the English language works. Words often have more than one meaning. If you have trouble accepting that, you are going to have constant unnecessary problems with communication. The correct procedure is to check definitions and see if both sides of a discussion are talking about the same thing when people start talking past each other. Claiming that a common meaning shouldn't exist for a word is not very effective communication.

It’s really way too over simplistic too look at a person that is good at something and automatically attribute that to ‘innate talent’ considering it glosses over the whole of their lives actions, interests, hobbies, and developed skills.

Here is that incorrect presumption again. Nobody I have read "glosses over" effort and experience. This makes a nice position to refute, but it is not reflective of anyone in this discussion. I am repeating this because I want to call your attention to the error and hopefully keep communication open. I don't use the word "strawman" for this as I am growing to intensely dislike Objectivist jargon because of the nasty manner it is used.

Of course brains are different. We are different people, with different interests, and different abilities. But pointing to studies that show brains are different does not prove why they are different and it is not rationally to jump to the conclusion that they are different because they were born that way.

This is an important point. Effort and experience do impact growth, but so does inherent nature (the seed idea again). Both are important and both need to be measured and studied.

Why do we gloss so easily over the developmental plasticity of the body and ignore any possible developmental plasticity of the brain?

Once again, who is "glossing over" anything? Here is the erroneous presumption about the posters on this thread again.

This attitude really gets out there with the following statement:

The evidence that so far has been presented to downplay the developed abilities side of the equation is very limited.

Who has presented any evidence whatsoever to "downplay the developed abilities side of the equation"? I read nothing. On the contrary, I have seen you "downplay the innate aptitude side of the equation" by specifically calling it "insignificant."

This makes me wonder if you are aware that you are not really arguing against the posters on this thread, but seem to be arguing against something inside yourself instead. The last part of this comment is speculation, but that is the impression I get.

Pointing to different structures in a genius brain and attributing that to an innate difference they are born with is as fallacious as pointing to a body builders bulging muscles and insisting they were born with them. Brains, just like muscles, grow and change with use, and atrophy with lack of use.

This is the last comment, but I do want to point you to an Objectivist bodybuilder for a good example: Mike Mentzer. While nobody would attribute his bulging muscles to innate biological structure alone, the ability to develop bulging muscles through his High-Intensity Training was seen to highlight the very point that there are innate differences in ceilings. After a great deal of experience and observing others, he concluded that the same high intensity routines that produced wonderful results in him were too exhausting to produce the same results in others. So he modified his training system.

This, actually, is one case where recognizing "innate talent" (in the popular sense) was extremely significant and not insignificant at all. Mike's brother, Ray Mentzer, also showed the same genetic predisposition to respond to High-Intensity Training better than most.

Michael

[Matus1976]

To emphasize the point both Shane and I were making regarding lazyness and lack of productivity, I came across this article today.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/re...ous/007871.html

Nearly Half of our Lives Spent with TV, Radio, Internet, Newspapers,

According to Census Bureau Publication

"According to projections from a communications industry forecast (Table 1110), people will spend 65 days in front of the TV, 41 days listening to radio and a little over a week on the Internet in 2007. Adults will spend about a week reading a daily newspaper and teens and adults will spend another week listening to recorded music"

[sjw]

Angie I don't put any stock in "scientists" who say that many (most?) of us are born abnormal, and especially in those who would say that Roark had a mental disorder.

Edited January 5, 2007 by sjw

[sjw]

I've already addressed that point Victor. If you are going to continue to post, please try to keep up.

See now? That's just the tone I'm talking about. It could have stopped after the first sentence, but NOoooo.

Yeah, but the only thing worse than me getting a jab in along with some content is you hypocritical types who get their jabs in while contributing nothing else of value. I wish you people would make your minds up: either it's in bad taste to criticize and therefore you should just STFU, or it's in fine taste to make reasonable criticisms and therefore you should just STFU.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor & Shayne,

Enough. Please put a lid on the personal barbs.

Michael