Re: ::scr Re: doesn't have the morlocks

[Simon Wistow <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan Argent said:
> But I don't "believe" in natural ability. It's simply
> you were exposed to enviromental factors that allowed that development.  

This is the whole Nature vs Nurture argument isn't it. As far as I
understand it anyway and it's a topic that's been bitterly debated on
both sides.

>From what I've read, the general consensus is that it's a bit of both
i.e the fact that your Dad is a great tennis player means you've
probably inherited the requiste physiological characteristics to be a
good player. The fact that you've been knocking around a ball since you
were 2 and have been coached by an expert your whole life probably isn't
going to be a bad thing anyway.

Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man who thought his Wife was a Hat) did
some study on this with respect to savants :

"A savant is someone who demonstrates an extraordinary talent in a
particular field such as art, music, or mathematics. A large percentage
of savants are autistic with limitations in their ability to personally
relate to others. Sacks became "friends" with a young boy named Stephen,
who was an autistic savant, capable of memorizing complex scenery at a
glance and retaining the information for months. When asked he would
accurately construct a pen and ink sketch from what he had observed
earlier. He started his pictures at one edge of the paper, working
across to the other edge, filling in the framework and all the details
without an outline. While drawing, "the house could come down" and
Stephen would not notice. He sometimes took artistic license and added
features which did not originally exist, but the basics, the original
flavor, remained. In a sense, having demonstrated his enormous talent at
an early age, he had little need for nurture - from the environment or
from other humans."

Of course, the only way to test this is to breed some babies, rear them,
teaching them exactly the same thing and enforcing strict fairness and
as much equality as possible and then, after 18 years. See what they're
good at.

Even this will be difficult because some of the kids will be bigger than
the others and will therefore find sport easier and will enjoy it more.
Or something.


Alaric Snell said : 
> But it's much more complex than that. I have varying levels 
> of success  mapping something like 'art' into my mental map. 

Perhaps this is were the schism occurs. At some point you starting
organising things in a certain way in your brain for whatever reason and
this is what dictates what you'll be good (or best) at. If you're an
electronic engineer you'll have organised everything in a certain way
that facilitates those mental leaps that let you 'intuitively'
understand, say, why you do everything in complex numbers. Or that the
sum of currents at a junction is zero (I think, I may have that wrong).


By mapping it this way it makes in unlikely that you'll be as good at
more aesthetic (ignoring, for the moment, what consitutues aesthetic)
pursuits in the same way that Mr Jordan couldn't switch to baseball.

Or maybe not. I'm probably speaking out of my arse.

On the other hand you probably will get better with practice. If you
keep taking photographs you'll get a better feel for what looks good and
your results will improve immeasurably. Maybe you won't be as good as
someone who is a 'natural' (if such things exists) and who practices
everyday. Maybe you won't even be as good as someone who is a 'natural'
and who doesn't practice but it's more about whether you enjoy it or
not.


...

$god, I sound like one of those quiche-eating, happy clappy types don't
I? Fetch me more animals to hunt!

 

-- 
: square failure, cubic wildcard