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There is always something that someone, somewhere will excel at. However they might never know it, never experience it or even know that it exists. I believe that everyone in this world is amazing, they could be the next messiah in a random activity out of sheer talent if they only discovered it to begin with.
There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of activities in this world and so many things we go through life not knowing existed, trying them or bothering with.
Geniuses exist in each and every one of us, i am certain of this. The combination that forms a genius is 1) Raw talent 2) Love and dedication and 3) Discovery. If a person only discovers the right activity they have enough love and talent for, they have the potential to do amazing things.
The thing is, geniuses are a hard thing to come by because while a person could be the next Sinatra or Flash, they simply spend their lives doing completely different things and never discover their love or talent for it. You could find the activity, have all the talent in the world and never realise your potential because of a lack of love for the activity, you simply dont enjoy it and as such, never become a genius in its field despite your great ability to do so.
Always remember that something out there is waiting for you to discover it, everyone has the potential to do amazing things, they just never discover or love what those things are.
 
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Bearded Elder29905 Posts
Need to discover a device that will scan your brain in search of your talents. That'd be awesome.
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iv'e become half decent a lot of things in my life but never truly been great at anything
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On January 31 2014 17:23 igay wrote:
iv'e become half decent a lot of things in my life but never truly been great at anything
I think its safe to say your inner calling isnt with picking usernames.
On January 31 2014 16:56 739 wrote:
Need to discover a device that will scan your brain in search of your talents. That'd be awesome.
I honestly think such a device would either increase human output by upwards of infinity % or outright destroy us. It would have to be something that measured ones talent and love for every certain activity on the planet and pick the one with the best mix.
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I'm not sure what to think of talents, i.e. what they are, whether they exist and if so, to what extent. It's one of those areas I'm still very much undecided on and would need to do more research. But it's clear that if we are born with a slightly better ability or stronger proclivity for something, then that something is going to be very general like visual-spatial, kinesthetic or rhythmic/harmonic activity. This is because nature precedes social practices. On the other hand, I find this talk of everyone being a special butterfly to be ideologically and economically convenient, so I remain sceptical by default.
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I took a probability/statistics course, and I think that you can interpret properties of probability in high dimensional vector spaces to explain why this happens in a mathematical sense.
One of the rules of probability dictates that if you have a high dimensional space, and you take a uniform random sample from it over a given volume, there is a high probability that the sample will be near the surface. The larger the number of dimensions, the greater this effect will be.
So imagine that people can be described by high dimensional vectors. Each dimension could be anything: One could be your skill at arithmetic, another could be your running speed, another could be your height. It's easy to imagine how you could come up with millions of these vectors.
However you can't just say that a person is a uniform sample from this vector space: it's pretty obvious that tons and tons of these vectors correlate with each other: For example, if someone has longer than average legs, they have a high probability of being taller than average. So what can you do now? You can do the Principle Component Analysis of the matrix that contains all people. This makes a new matrix where every vector is linearly independent. This matrix is made up of eigenvectors. You can use this matrix to translate from a an equal dimension vector space onto your vector space of people. Some of the dimensions in this altered space correspond to large differences in what kind of person you have, but most of them have very minor effects.
But now we have a new vector space, and we can take uniform random samples from it because the eigenvectors are linearly independent. and since there are still many vectors that have a large effect on what kind of person results, it is very similar to uniformly randomly sampling a high dimensional space. Remember, almost all vectors from high dimensional space are close to the surface. So what does this mean? Well, being near the surface is caused by one thing: having one or more dimensions that are close to the maximum.
So all people are extremely likely have some attribute that is more extreme than the vast majority of other people. In layman's terms: Everybody's good at something. The inverse is also true, for the same reasons: Everybody is bad at something.
This view of the world has another implication. If you take two randomly sampled vectors from a high dimensional vector space, the have a high probability of being very far away from each other. In other words: everybody is very different from each other. And also they're extremely likely to have some dimension that is very close in both vectors. So, everybody has something in common.
If you want a visual sort of explanation, look up Eigenfaces. Computer Scientists use very similar mathematics and reasoning to be able to do facial recognition.
I found it cool that you can use advanced mathematics to explain why the stuff they teach you in kindergarten is true.
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Re: Talents, it seems related to the idea of genetic learning. If you have read or heard about the study done on rats, I don't remember exactly how it went, but it was perhaps something like a lever causing a shock, and their children knew not to push the lever, presumably because this was a learned danger through genetic learning. You could argue that, for example, direct ancestors' experiences of pleasure and avoiding danger influence what is learned genetically, and therefore what "talents" the offspring have.
For example, if your dad was playing the guitar when he met your mom, it could be likely that you have a talent for playing the guitar, if the experience was meaningful enough to have an impact on your genetics.
I'm very interested in learning about new fields. Unfortunately, I feel I already know my talent, and perhaps also my genius is correlated with that area, but I have a fear of commitment. It's tough, man. I gotta learn to sacrifice, I guess. Once I learn that, maybe I'll be able to sacrifice everything in the name of my talent. But maybe I won't! Isn't that something to be curious of? To know what to do, to assume your potential is incredibly high if not outright unparalleled, but being afraid that your drive isn't enough to take you there?
I have this time plan of my future. Soon, my active workload will be cut down to roughly 22 hours a week. If I assume roughly 10 hours of social activity, I calculate about 70 hours remain for improvement and recreation. So, there's a possibility that I could use all 70 hours per week to improve in the area of my talent and genius.
The question is, how long will it take me to burn out? What can I do to prevent that? Should I schedule time specifically for letting go of the improvement process, or use it all in the name of my ancestors and the living? I've thought of maybe watching a 10-30 minute series of motivational videos to stay on track, but maybe what I really need is novelty in my learning, to keep things fresh and interesting.
How do you continue when it is known that thoughts arise which will not be in line with your goals?
Big commitments.
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@hp.Shell: That sounds awfully a lot like Lamarckism. I can see how it might lead to proclivities, but I'm very sceptical that it can have a direct effect on ability.
@jrkirby: Can you explain to me again why being near the surface is caused by having one more dimensions that are close to the maximum?
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I think OP is wrong. It's a nice idea, it's a "feel good" idea. But we're not all special. Not *all* of us have some extraordinary talent at something. And the idea that it might be hidden forever is just a cop-out, a cheesy way to assert something without providing any evidence. People are only willing to accept the idea because it might give them hope.
I would say that everybody has some form of potential, which varies. Certain personalities as well as external circumstances may lead to this potential being used, or not. So yes there are great talents hidden out there in the world. And there are probably things I could be decent at that I don't currently do. That doesn't mean I necessarily "excel" at anything, let alone that I could get world-class at it.
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On January 31 2014 22:16 GERMasta wrote:
@hp.Shell: That sounds awfully a lot like Lamarckism. I can see how it might lead to proclivities, but I'm very sceptical that it can have a direct effect on ability.
@jrkirby: Can you explain to me again why being near the surface is caused by having one more dimensions that are close to the maximum?
It's pretty intuitive if you think about it graphically.
Look at a 2D space:
(-1,1)...................(1,1)
.............y.............
.............^.............
.............|.............
.............|.............
<-----------|------------>x
.............|.............
.............|.............
.............|.............
.............v.............
(-1,-1)...................(1,-1)
if any of the dimensions are near -1 or 1, the minimum or maximum, then that vector is near the edge of our bounding box that goes from (-1,-1) to (1,1).
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Ah, the graph helped me understand. I forgot about the magnitudes of vectors and I was just visualizing a field of compasses (of all the same magnitude) so it was hard to understand the first time around.
I agree with your assessment, jrkirby. There are just so many potential vectors that one of them has to have great magnitude and pointing in the best direction.
Now we get into social constructs. If I happened to have my "best vector" as a world-class ballet dancer, it is unlikely that I would ever know that. I think our interests betray our talents, or at least our capability to stick with something through many tumultuous hours. If your heart/subconscious is telling you it wants to do something, there's a great chance that, were you to choose it as a focus, you would break through the effort and time barriers and become something great.
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On January 31 2014 22:16 GERMasta wrote:
@hp.Shell: That sounds awfully a lot like Lamarckism. I can see how it might lead to proclivities, but I'm very sceptical that it can have a direct effect on ability.
It does sound like Lamarckism, as it deals with epigenetics. I'm not sure you can argue that epigenetics have direct measurable effects on things like talent, but if it interests you more because of your epigenetic background, you may pay more attention to the activity and in so doing produce a better result than someone who did not pay as much attention due to their relative epigenetic disinterest.
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Hm, I generally agree, but think you are overstating the effects of genes on specialization.
People have altitudes for general categories of tasks. No one is born with the talents to be a zebra expert, but maybe with an aptitude for connecting with non-human beings. Or an aptitude for kinetic manipulation and detail, which could be hundreds of different roles.
Edit: IMHO, the best way to harness this is through universal education that allows children to self select avenues of excellence beyond the common curriculum.
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On January 31 2014 22:55 Djzapz wrote:
I think OP is wrong. It's a nice idea, it's a "feel good" idea. But we're not all special. Not *all* of us have some extraordinary talent at something. And the idea that it might be hidden forever is just a cop-out, a cheesy way to assert something without providing any evidence. People are only willing to accept the idea because it might give them hope.
I would say that everybody has some form of potential, which varies. Certain personalities as well as external circumstances may lead to this potential being used, or not. So yes there are great talents hidden out there in the world. And there are probably things I could be decent at that I don't currently do. That doesn't mean I necessarily "excel" at anything, let alone that I could get world-class at it.
Agree completely. I think our intelligence, physical attributes, personalities, and other "measurable" qualities each have a spectrum, kind of like the sliders during character creation/customization of an RPG game. There are tons of variation between individuals, but only a few are born with the proper things "maxed out," aka genius level.
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EPT
