Ability

[One Who Nigs]

I should like to join this debate.

This is an interesting topic, because until this time, the idea of "genetic ability" by me has been grossly misunderstood. However, as I currently do not have the time to read all of the replies, I should like to simply quote myself from another post

"I think that this is the subject of another debate, for I do believe that to a certain extent a man's mind has a physical process. Or in other words, a man with a greater forehead has more potential that a man without, though whether or not he utilizes his potential is a matter of his own volition. Man's mind, like his body, has physical limits, too, and as such certain men are geniuses and certain men are not. Not everyone is a Salvador Dali, Shakespeare, or Mentzer, for that matter..."

I think that there is much to be said with regards to one's interests. And I also do think that with regards to this, the degree to which a man may pursue his pleasure is the degree to which his mind is predisposed to competence in any given endeavour. To prove this, I point to the simple illustration of a basketball player. What is a professional basketball player? The answer is that professional basketball player is a man who has a poet's passion for basketball. What is professional basketball player? It is a black man whos merits from his race have given him the ability to jump higher than other men (for the most part, there are exceptions). What is a professional basketball player? It is, in essence, a man who possesses both desire and innate ability.

I think that upon this point one may ponder the reason of men's interests, that being that the reason of this is a combination of both their wit and will, both their wisdom and talent. The root motivation for a man who says that you are "so gifted" or are "so talented", though he himself may not understand it, is simply out of genuine benevolence. What I mean by this is that he truly admires your work and your passion for it, though most men have automated their evasions to such a level that they do not even think any other mode of thought possible. Such is the reason for this. I, personally, could not pursue my life's passion as a bodybuilder, for my genetics simply prescribe that the degree to which I may enjoy bodybuilding is limited, because it is with much difficulty that my body gains mass. For more on this subject, I refer you to Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty: Mind and Body (I think that is what it is called, it has been so long since I read it)

I think that this proves an adequate point, and I will go back and read your posts to see if anyone has yet said this.

Sincerely,

-Marcus

I should, myself, likely re-read the arguments in Mentzer's book, but however, I see from the posts that he seems to be a person who has not yet been mentioned, and I should note that his knowledge with regards to excercise science is very great, and for anyone who is interested in it, I advise you to read his book! He was a pioneer in excercise science, and his reasoning may be used as a base for analyzing any academic articles and academic statistics.

-Marcus

[dadmonson]

Man's mind, like his body, has physical limits,

You believe that we have a fixed intelligence?

[cliveandrews]

You believe that we have a fixed intelligence?

I believe that we have fixed aptitude. For example, we can clearly improve our mathematical ability through practice, but some people clearly progress much faster than others given the same amount of practice. This is genetic supreriority.

[dadmonson]

I believe that we have fixed aptitude. For example, we can clearly improve our mathematical ability through practice, but some people clearly progress much faster than others given the same amount of practice. This is genetic supreriority.

No, it's not.

[cliveandrews]

No, it's not.

Yes, it is.

[Tenzing_Shaw]

I believe that we have fixed aptitude. For example, we can clearly improve our mathematical ability through practice, but some people clearly progress much faster than others given the same amount of practice. This is genetic supreriority.

Years of direct personal experience tell me this is false:

First, almost all of my blood relatives exhibit a high verbal aptitude, while very few of them exhibit a talent for math (most of them read constantly, but few of them know more than basic algebra). When I was young, I fit this family trend perfectly: I read all the time, I had a better vocabulary than other children my age, and I always scored well on verbal aptitude tests. Although my math abilities were not below average, I was often confused by math problems. I felt helpless when attempting any nontrivial problem, as if my mind turned into a haze in the face of anything so concrete. In my second year of high school, I took a physics class, and was unable to handle any but the most simple quantitative problems. I loved science, and wanted desperately to be good at it, but I could not solve simple mechanics problems, even after hours of effort. I had a sort of awed respect for anyone who was good at advanced math, and experienced constant anxiety due to my own lack of understanding.

This situation began to change in my third year of high school, when I set a goal for myself: working independently, I wanted to finish two years of math in one year, so that I would be able to take calculus in my final year. At this point, I began to go through my textbook at home, solving every problem at the back of each chapter. Shortly after this, I came to the realization that it is possible to understand math through rational thought; that mathematical ability is not a mysterious power determined by a fixed inherited ability. By doing endless problems and relating these problems to reality, I ended up meeting my goal with time to spare at the end of the year. The hazy sense of helplesness I had experienced before was gone, and I found that solving the mechanics problems which had baffled me a year earlier became easy.

It was not only my mathematical knowledge that increased during this time, but also my aptitude itself. Before the events I have described, my scores on mathematical aptitude tests were only a little above average. On a test of calculation speed, I once even scored in the 20th percentile. After training myself and acquiring confidence, however, my scores on such tests were constantly above the 90th percentile.

This process has continued throughout college, where I studied physics and electrical engineering (I have just started graduate school in electrical engineering). In college, I never got less than an A in any math class, I won a math competition, and I recently got a perfect score on the math section of the GRE.

While my "genetic math ability" is probably somewhat above average, it cannot by itself explain my success in math. Far more important was the effort I put into learning, my intense desire to be good at the subject, and my realization that the only thing math problems require is rational thought (which led me to discover how to think about these problems). My conclusion? Any rational person with a reasonable aptitude for math and a desire to learn the subject can increase his aptitude for the subject. Finally, there is no upper limit on this increase. I do not mean that an average person can become a Newton or a Gauss by virtue of the factors I have mentioned, but that an average person can always further improve his mathematical ability using these factors.

[cliveandrews]

You have mispercieved the events in your life. Your apititude for math did not improve as a result of practice; instead, you merely improved your skill level within the boundaries of your aptitude. A more naturally gifted person could have finished the same amount of work in half the time that it took you, and a less gifted person could have taken twice as long. Furthermore, mathematics is not merely about rational thought. Mathetmatical ability depends on the ability to understand relationships and handle many relationships in your head at the same time. These abilities are genetic. I once took a college math class with a 14 year old kid who was a child prodigy. He could solve problems in his head that would take me all day to work out on paper. Only genetic superiority can explain such ability.

[Tenzing_Shaw]

You have mispercieved the events in your life. Your apititude for math did not improve as a result of practice; instead, you merely improved your skill level within the boundaries of your aptitude. A more naturally gifted person could have finished the same amount of work in half the time that it took you, and a less gifted person could have taken twice as long. Furthermore, mathematics is not merely about rational thought. Mathetmatical ability depends on the ability to understand relationships and handle many relationships in your head at the same time. These abilities are genetic. I once took a college math class with a 14 year old kid who was a child prodigy. He could solve problems in his head that would take me all day to work out on paper. Only genetic superiority can explain such ability.

If you believe that aptitude is objectively definable, then there should be some way to measure it objectively. I know that I would score much higher on any existing math aptitude test (example: the SAT) now as compared to 5-10 years ago. So, assuming my aptitude has actually remained constant, you would have to claim that these tests do not, in fact, measure aptitude. In that case, I would ask how you would measure mathematical aptitude objectively, if you belive that this is possible.

Also, you are primarily mistaken about the nature of mathematical reasoning. The ability to handle large quantities of information simultaneously is certainly valuable in solving math problems (and at least some degree of this ability would be necessary to solve problems at all). The essence of mathematical problem solving, however, is not performing feats with your brain's "hardware" (such as doing mental arithmetic very quickly, or visualizing complex shapes). I claim that the essence of mathematical problem solving is first to gain a very clear understanding of the problem you are attempting to solve (such as by making precise definitions), and then to break the problem into simple pieces, each of which can be grasped easily. This second step is the meat of problem solving, and there are many ingenious ways of doing this, such as mathematical induction, the pigeonhole principle, proof by contradiction, counting the complement, etc. If you know calculus, this is basically the essence of calculus: expressing complex measurement problems in terms of simple linear measurement. Any reasonably intelligent person with enough patience and motivation can learn to apply these techniques to solve (what would have been) very hard problems. This is what I did, not because my mental "hardware" was especially suited to math, but because I desperately wanted to do it.

I am certainly not disputing that a genius would have reached my level of mathematical ability with less effort, provided he put in the effort (I don't think anyone would dispute that). What I do dispute is that it is not possible for me to solve problems as well as a gifted person, though it might take me far more effort to reach the same level. My point is that it is objectively the same level.

Next, I want to bring up the example of Richard Feynman. I have seen no evidence that Feynman could perform mental feats comparable to individuals such as Gauss. With respect to his mental "hardware", all the evidence seems to suggest that he was "merely" a very intelligent man. Why, then, was Feynman more successful as a physicist than many prodigies? The answer is that he knew how to think about physics (the essence of which is relating theory to observations of reality).

Essentially, I completely agree with Ayn Rand's view of intelligence:

"Intelligence is the ability to deal with a broad range of abstractions. Whatever a child’s natural endowment, the use of intelligence is an acquired skill. It has to be acquired by a child’s own effort and automatized by his own mind [...]"

-Ayn Rand, Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 58

So I think you are confusing intelligence with some sort of genetically determined "raw processing power". But humans think by forming concepts which relate to reality. The degree of your intelligence is the degree of your skill at doing precisely that, regardless of how you acquired that skill.

[Marc K.]

This is genetic supreriority.

Hmmm, it seems I've heard that before, somewhere back in history.