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Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

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Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#131

Post by misja111 »

something_ wrote: post #34

Growing up, my grandfather tried to instill two major ideas in me and my siblings. The first being that perfect was an impossible goal, only achievable under artificial circumstances. Secondly, that practice makes permanent, so be mindful of what you're practicing. The first part always seemed reasonable, but I have had a lot of trouble with the second part. I recently gave up playing golf when I finally realized I h…

> I recently gave up playing golf when I finally realized I had spent 20 years practicing being angry.

You should read The Inner Game of Tennis. Actually I think there's a version about golf as well. That book has been a life changer for many people and it is exactly about what it seems you have been experiencing.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#132

Post by jogjayr »

ak39 wrote: post #77

In case you weren't paying attention while reading this otherwise fascinating article ... practice has little positive influence on: 1. Academic achievement, 2. Computer science shyte, and 3. Sales Fuuuuuuck this. I'm off to the beach.

> Academic achievement,

That seems counter to my experience. In school and college the kids with the best grades were almost always the ones who studied the most. Though of course, everyone has that one friend who aced the final with a hangover after flipping through lecture notes for 5 minutes.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#133

Post by Lordarminius »

ambicapter wrote: post #127
Lordarminius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genetics and hard work are ... inferior to information I have never seen it put better. The Soviet Union had a stranglehold on chess for almost 70 years until its collapse in the nineties. Then information fled with grandmasters to the west and the present bloom in talent began. Westerners began to regularly defeat soviet players. An Indian, then a Norwegian became world champion. Before then, it was a small miracl…

What did the Soviet books talk about that the other books were ignoring?

>What did the Soviet books talk about that the other books were ignoring?

Amongst other things they introduced better training methods; diligent classification and cataloging of common and critical positions. For instance, a systematic introduction to pryomes and positional maoeuvers. These books were written by people who had mastered the craft as players or coaches of elite players. Improvement in chess to a large part entails becoming conversant with known positions and manoeuvers.

Recall that it was almost treason to reveal the techniques that soviet grandmasters used. This was one reason why Korchnoi was harrassed.

Three examples of fantastic books:

[1]Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov [https://www.amazon.com/Find-Right-Plan-Anatoly-Karpov/dp/190...]

[2]Techniques of positional play Brozhnik and Terekhin [ https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Positional-Play-Practical-...]

[3]A practical guide to Rook endgames by Nikolay Minev [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ds...]

..and I have not even gotten started on the Dvoretsky series

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#134

Post by reddytowns »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #102
reddytowns wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say the author must be wrong because of lack of compelling evidence, and then you propose the opposite without any evidence. Why does it have to be confirmed either way? Why can't you admit you just don't know? It seems to me that by going into things with the idea that you know something that you don't is just limiting your own ability to discover new information about it. Reality is a complicated landscape. By…

Part of the problem is that if you admit the idea talent plays a primary role in success, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Research by Carol Dweck has shown that people's own belief in their ability to improve strongly predicts their actual improvement. Given things like talent hot zones and the Polgar sisters, which to me demonstrate talent isn't a big deal, the level of evidence needed to change my mind is go…

Then the idea that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy should be explored and understood.

That one poorly understood idea (nature vs nurture) affects another poorly understood idea (that belief of something may help cause it to be true) and may somehow harm you is no reason not to explore them both, since you'll just stagnate.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#135

Post by dredmorbius »

mikebenfield wrote: post #122
dredmorbius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous cases in mathematics. I can't put names on incidents but: * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. Chess isn't an area I'm closely familiar with, but there absolutely have been prodigies there as well. Many in music.

FYI, the schoolboy is CF Gauss, early 19th century German mathematician who did... tons of stuff. (That's why so much in mathematics and physics is called "Gauss" or "Gaussian.") The graduate student was George Dantzig. While I think Dantzig is certainly an example of extraordinary natural talent, if your parent comment was looking for examples of talent manifesting itself before any training at all, I don't think th…

Thanks, I suspected someone would provide the names.

On Dantzig: there's training, and there's the capability to come on a problem cold, treat it as an ordinary exam question, and find a solution within a day or so, to something which had dogged the rest of the maths world for years or decades.

I'm not denying that Dantzig had had formal training by this point. But he'd also accomplished in small time what others hadn't in big.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#136

Post by dredmorbius »

ambicapter wrote: post #126
dredmorbius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous cases in mathematics. I can't put names on incidents but: * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. Chess isn't an area I'm closely familiar with, but there absolutely have been prodigies there as well. Many in music.

> * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. Gauss > * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. George Bernard Dantzig

Thanks to you as well.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#137

Post by hasenj »

mikebenfield wrote: post #122
dredmorbius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous cases in mathematics. I can't put names on incidents but: * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. Chess isn't an area I'm closely familiar with, but there absolutely have been prodigies there as well. Many in music.

FYI, the schoolboy is CF Gauss, early 19th century German mathematician who did... tons of stuff. (That's why so much in mathematics and physics is called "Gauss" or "Gaussian.") The graduate student was George Dantzig. While I think Dantzig is certainly an example of extraordinary natural talent, if your parent comment was looking for examples of talent manifesting itself before any training at all, I don't think th…

Yet he exceeded hit professor and many experts in the field while he was still a student.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#138

Post by hasenj »

something_ wrote: post #34

Growing up, my grandfather tried to instill two major ideas in me and my siblings. The first being that perfect was an impossible goal, only achievable under artificial circumstances. Secondly, that practice makes permanent, so be mindful of what you're practicing. The first part always seemed reasonable, but I have had a lot of trouble with the second part. I recently gave up playing golf when I finally realized I h…

Off topic but as I read this

> Secondly, that practice makes permanent, so be mindful of what you're practicing

I started thinking about why deits are hard to stick to.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#139

Post by cageface »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #104
cageface wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure talent is overrated. but I doubt in most cases that it exceeds 2-3 percentile point shift I think we'd all like to believe that we can do anything we want if we try hard enough but where is your evidence? This is not a matter for good wishes but scientific proof. It's pretty clear that some physical variations contribute tremendously to ability in sports so it's illogical to accept on faith that no su…

I agree that the natural variability in potential is such that an average person isn't going to ever get sufficiently good to medal at an olympics, or even attend one (except perhaps in unpopular sports). You shouldn't let the fact that your natural limit is only the 99th percentile instead of the 99.99th percentile make you feel like a failure though, you're still awesome. One thing I have noticed is that some peopl…

I have not found that to be the case in software development. Some people get good very quickly and others are still mediocre after ten years of coding. That doesn't necessarily prove that coding ability is innate, of course, but it at least suggests that effort alone is not enough.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#140

Post by CuriouslyC »

reddytowns wrote: post #134
CuriouslyC wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that if you admit the idea talent plays a primary role in success, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Research by Carol Dweck has shown that people's own belief in their ability to improve strongly predicts their actual improvement. Given things like talent hot zones and the Polgar sisters, which to me demonstrate talent isn't a big deal, the level of evidence needed to change my mind is go…

Then the idea that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy should be explored and understood. That one poorly understood idea (nature vs nurture) affects another poorly understood idea (that belief of something may help cause it to be true) and may somehow harm you is no reason not to explore them both, since you'll just stagnate.

How exactly am I stagnating by not lending plausibility (and thus some tacit acceptance) to a demonstrably self-limiting belief absent absolutely iron-clad evidence in its favor? I'm not a research psychologist who makes a living or derives self-worth studying expertise.

Remember, I'm not completely discounting talent and fostering unrealistic expectations. In fact, I explicitly stated I believe talent is necessary to succeed at the highest level (i.e. medaling at the olympics). I just think even if you are un-talented, if you do everything right you can still be in the ~97-99th percentile in terms of ability (depending on the activity) which is objectively still pretty awesome.

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