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Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

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Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#31

Post by pitt1980 »

throwawaymath wrote: post #21
jl2718 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve noticed a strong tendency toward eidetic memory in people that started in their professions without going to college. Very common in enlisted military, for instance. I think it might actually be quite natural. Education, I think, overloads a person with all of this useless stuff to make them ‘well-rounded’ and they lose their ability to focus on the details.

The other commenter's reply is a tad aggressively stated but I agree with it. I think your conclusion is probably skewed by survivorship bias. When I began my career I didn't have any college experience and I have a fairly exceptional working and long term memory (as measured by an IQ test and other peoples' remarks on my work). As an example, I can typically recite most lines of dialogue from a TV show verbatim in o…

supposedly Eidetic memory is somewhat common in childhood

"Eidetic memory is typically found only in young children, as it is virtually nonexistent in adults.[5][6] Hudmon stated, "Children possess far more capacity for eidetic imagery than adults, suggesting that a developmental change (such as acquiring language skills) may disrupt the potential for eidetic imagery."[6] Eidetic memory has been found in 2 to 10 percent of children aged 6 to 12. It has been hypothesized that language acquisition and verbal skills allow older children to think more abstractly and thus rely less on visual memory systems."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory

one way to think about what education is, is that its a process for taking your perceptual inputs, and putting them on an abstract lattices

this is an obviously useful process in all sorts of ways

but it probably does change the way you both notice things, and remember things

-------

(there a sort of similar thing going on when you're looking at something to draw it, you have to sort of un-abstract it, instead of putting the lightwaves hitting your eye onto the lattice 'apple', you have to get it back to lightwaves in certain pattern)

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#32

Post by michaelmrose »

pitt1980 wrote: post #20
michaelmrose wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning makes people stupid is a very strange thesis with zero support. It seems more likely that you have no idea what the instance of eidetic memory in either population, that memory doesn't work like that at all, and that small handful of anecdotes is leading to a spurious connection.

this seems overly hostile to what appears to be a hypothesis the idea that what we're trained to notice changes what we perceive, doesn't strike me as strange thesis at all I'm reminded of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Our brains are trained to find patterns. Prove it is a perfectly valid response to what appears to be a spurious one.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#33

Post by nerdnumerouno »

babesh wrote: post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

How dare you make a negative remark towards the KING!

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#34

Post by throwawaymath »

pitt1980 wrote: post #31
throwawaymath wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other commenter's reply is a tad aggressively stated but I agree with it. I think your conclusion is probably skewed by survivorship bias. When I began my career I didn't have any college experience and I have a fairly exceptional working and long term memory (as measured by an IQ test and other peoples' remarks on my work). As an example, I can typically recite most lines of dialogue from a TV show verbatim in o…

supposedly Eidetic memory is somewhat common in childhood "Eidetic memory is typically found only in young children, as it is virtually nonexistent in adults.[5][6] Hudmon stated, "Children possess far more capacity for eidetic imagery than adults, suggesting that a developmental change (such as acquiring language skills) may disrupt the potential for eidetic imagery."[6] Eidetic memory has been found in 2 to 10 perc…

> one way to think about what education is, is process for taking your perceptual inputs, and putting them on an abstract lattice

this is an obviously useful process in all sorts of ways but it probably does change the way you both notice things, and remember things

The problem with this is you're inducing a hypothesis via intuition and analogy. I don't see any reason to think education has the deleterious effect you're proposing. I guess it could, but I don't think there's any compelling evidence for it. It doesn't strike me as the simplest explanation.

From my perspective, I don't think there is any inverse correlation between memory capability and educational achievement. I could just as reasonably say eidetic memory decreases as language skills develop because we no longer have as much need for episodic recollection versus semantic recollection.

But neither of these proposals is grounded in anything empirical, it's intuitive speculation based on limited anecdata. The simpler explanation, by Occam's Razor, is that educational achievement trains memory faculties.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#35

Post by matwood »

babesh wrote: post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

> developed a runner

Like the last second one that won them a playoff game last year?

> a low post game

Have you watched him play? He dominates the post, but is smart about it. If you put a small on him, he goes post. You put a big and he blows by for the dunk. Why take other players on at their strength?

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#36

Post by kmkemp »

babesh wrote: post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

What's interesting about this form of criticism is that his ability to do any basketball task is judged not by the ability that the median NBA player has at that task but against the bar he's set in other areas. His jumpshot isn't as great as his rebounding, playmaking, dribbling, or defense, so he's lazy or lacks foresight? No matter how good you become, you will always have a "weakest" area to your craft. He clearly has made tremendous strides in shooting (did you see him play in high school?), and in fact, he is well above average when judged against a median NBA player, which is itself remarkable since he possesses the ability to score an efficient 25+ ppg without taking any jumpshots at all.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#37

Post by FPGAhacker »

fenomas wrote: post #27
beebmam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this IS truly incredible. This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.

You probably already know this, but of course the companion trivia there is that chess masters' incredible recall for board positions only works for realistic layouts - when tested on randomly placed pieces, masters apparently remember them no better than beginners. If basketball is analogous, one could suppose that (A) there may not be anything special about LeBron's memory per se - e.g. he might remember the plays…

I have heard, though no citations, a psychologist or two on podcasts say that memories as we commonly understand them are reconstructions from fragments and snapshots.

If one accepts that hypothesis then it would make sense that you can reconstruct more accurately things that behave according to a fixed and small set of rules that you understand thoroughly and intuitively.

*small relative to the universe of rules outside of things like chess and basketball.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#38

Post by kmkemp »

kmkemp wrote: post #36
babesh wrote: post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

What's interesting about this form of criticism is that his ability to do any basketball task is judged not by the ability that the median NBA player has at that task but against the bar he's set in other areas. His jumpshot isn't as great as his rebounding, playmaking, dribbling, or defense, so he's lazy or lacks foresight? No matter how good you become, you will always have a "weakest" area to your craft. He clearl…

In fact, 55% of his shots last season were jumpshots, which he converted with a 47.2 eFG%.

http://www.82games.com/1718/17CLE15.HTM

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#39

Post by asimpletune »

vertline3 wrote: post #23
beebmam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this IS truly incredible. This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.

Steve Kerr said it's common for players at the top, said Draymond was the same way. I imagine Jordan as well. Did LeBron’s memory of the fourth quarter surprise you? Kerr: “Not for a great player. I think great players remember everything. It’s like a quarterback.” Your guys do? Kerr: “Yeah. Not all of them [laughs]. Draymond would be the same way. “We’ll be watching tape of a game from, we played Houston in December…

Draymond is known for also being a very smart player.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#40

Post by JDWolf »

babesh wrote: post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

being allowed to bring the shoulder back up with an elbow to the face of the defender while taking an extra 2 steps after picking up the ball outside of the free throw line helps too....
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