461–470 of 477 posts
I probably count as some kind of example. -- I was born in 1960. -- I got my first algebra book when I was 4, and aced the subject immediately. -- I had one IQ test score higher than the one that got Marilyn vos Savant into the Guinness Book of World Records. -- The National Merit folks thought that I was the youngest winner of their scholarships until that day. -- I got a math PhD from Harvard when I was 19. -- At l…
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>Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. This is BS, and the kind of BS that results in lazy entitled adults expecting the world to be their oyster because they have kept their dreamer curiosity intact. Out of the people I've know who are internationally-recognized academics and/or world-class engineers, many are both hard working and creative. Probably the majority of them, in fact. But many more…
> "they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques" This could easily be attributed to curiosity. Don't dismiss curiosity as something wishy-washy. As I said before, the mindset between hardworking and curious is different. That's not to say pursuing curiosity takes no effort. I'll use a musician analogy to explain. A hardworking musician works hard to…
Saying hard work is ego driven while curiosity has some more noble, ineffable motivation is the exact same sort of BS I was decrying before. Hard work can just as well be driven by a sense of responsibility, a desire for more predictable outcomes, or faith, while curiosity/playfulness can be an ego-saving measure to offset mediocrity that the person can't or won't work past. Neither is more morally right, imo.
But to meander back to the core of the discussion, I don't think it's possible to become notably good at anything without at least some motivation towards self-improvement and foundational skills. People who ride playfulness and curiosity into lasting renown are able to do so because they have some degree of mastery of the fundamentals. Some people manage to earn lasting renown without much curiosity or playfulness, just a single-minded drive towards mastering known techniques.
Few to no people have ever earned lasting renown by noodling around in a field they had zero grounding in until they randomly struck gold. Some have earned infamy with that approach, but that's a different topic.
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Knowing a few friends and other acquaintances with PhDs, all they have common is endurance and focus. They were not exceptionally creative, or apparently breathtakingly genius. And I guess that's why Google et al. likes to hire PhDs. They can take all kinds of shit, and endure. Get to the bottom of those problems even in the face of internal politics/bureaucracy.
"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success." -- Thomas Edison "Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lives solely in my tenacity." -- Louis Pasteur "Men give me credit for genius; but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly." -- Alexander Hamilton
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Although... Being able to do what your told is fairly necessary for a productive life. Don't do drugs, brush your teeth, get a good education, exercise regularly, shower regularly, spend less than you make, eat healthy. Do as your told.
Don't study CS, Law is where the money is, don't start a business, it will probably fail, don't date that girl, her parents are bumpkins. Do as your told.
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He didn't know what a cartoon was? Or was it a bit of playful retort?
He said the surgeon was "dead serious"... but it must have been an act, right? Sure, maybe he never saw one, but being unaware of at least the dictionary definition of "cartoon" seems highly unlikely.
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>Chess has a limited set of rules, once learned all that remains is practicing and letting it to sink in // I learnt recently that Chess computers/programs are pre-seeded with standard moves and apparently do very badly if they're set to play without using the traditional openings. This seems to move against your analysis of what is needed to play chess well. Study of stock openings also appears to be required to per…
This is not really true any more. Computers will still play at a superhuman level if you disable the opening book.
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> must have some gift Or what? The rest of us are dumb? It could have been a good teacher, who found a way to make it make sense, or some other series of positive reinforcement that shaped them and prepared them, to be thinking about mathematics clearly. It doesn't have to be the luck of the draw. I don't want anyone to give up, thinking they just didn't get the gift, so they should be content with playing with the b…
It just means the rest of us have to work harder. It doesn't mean you have to be content with less intellectual pursuits. Just because most people will never be Olympic medalists doesn't mean they shouldn't play sports and exercise. Lots of people do those things even when they don't have a particular gift.
If you want to be an olympic medalist, you need to work as hard as an olympic medalist.
If you do not want to be an olympic medalist, you do not work more hard than an olympic medalist.
And indeed, if you actually did work as hard as an olympic medalist, you could possibly receive an olympic medal.
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Calculus textbooks are difficult but rewarding. A 10 year old child who can enjoy them must have some gift that makes it easier for them to understand the difficult parts quickly and get straight to the rewarding part.
> must have some gift Or what? The rest of us are dumb? It could have been a good teacher, who found a way to make it make sense, or some other series of positive reinforcement that shaped them and prepared them, to be thinking about mathematics clearly. It doesn't have to be the luck of the draw. I don't want anyone to give up, thinking they just didn't get the gift, so they should be content with playing with the b…
I probably count as some kind of example. -- I was born in 1960. -- I got my first algebra book when I was 4, and aced the subject immediately. -- I had one IQ test score higher than the one that got Marilyn vos Savant into the Guinness Book of World Records. -- The National Merit folks thought that I was the youngest winner of their scholarships until that day. -- I got a math PhD from Harvard when I was 19. -- At l…
What do you do now? Do you have children?
I never raised a kid, and the one stepdaughter I have was old enough that she never really regarded me as a parent.
She has a kid now, however, and I am indeed a grandfather. :)
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I won't ever know how people like that process the world but my guess is that they are attuned to the sheer horror of it in a way that most people can't conceive of, and aren't able to distract themselves from this with other pursuits. Following this taking their own lives becomes the only solution they can envision.
I'm a 22 year old student and developer. I took a test that said I was gifted as a kid. Since I was very young, I've sensed 'sheer horror' constantly. It's when I see my friends and family, and they describe their aspirations that they won't reach for lack of insight; its the people that get stuck in a local minimum of cognotive dissonance who decide not to seek the global minimum. The coming death of the world is th…