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Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this isn’t to brag, then what is it for?
(not gp) To show that intuitive math understanding is a thing.
But the purpose of the author seems to be social rather than truth seeking. If people believe they are stupid and don’t try, it’s likely they are not succeeding at the level they possibly could.
Consequently, I'm basically a failure as far as career goes. A lot of dumb people have much easier and more luxurious lives than I do, because they just get to doing the thing without ever worrying or caring if the thing is worth doing in the first place. This used to bug me, but it no longer does.
An intelligent person just has to apply themselves to grasp a difficult concept. An unintelligent person cannot grasp the concept no matter how much effort they put in. But the purpose of the author seems to be social rather than truth seeking. If people believe they are stupid and don’t try, it’s likely they are not succeeding at the level they possibly could.
It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…
It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…
I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…
Surely it's a combination of nurture AND nature. It's likely some people are just born smarter than others, much like people are born with the "right stuff" to go further in athletic pursuits. Just like athletic training would play a part in the end result combined with natural athletic potential. It seems crazy to me that people would think that every brain starts as a blank slate, with the same potential, with the end result being purely due to education.
I know that people are worried that even admitting it is a possibility immediately invites ideas of eugenics/racism, but surely we can entertain this idea without the discussion devolving into us goosestepping into oblivion.
Treating “intelligence” as a synonym for “training” is a more effective and positive approach than thinking certain people have some from-birth advantage over others. So many people walk around thinking they’re stupid when they’re not. They just were not trained well in things society considers the core competencies of smart people (math, literature, physics, etc) You can read perspectives on intelligence from people…
> but the major aspect of being smart is about wealth and educational inequality No, this is flat out wrong. There has been so much research on this, and intelligence is both highly predictive of life outcomes (controlling for wealth) and extremely heritable. If you take the biological kids of smart people and raise them in poor households, they still turn out very smart, much smarter than the biological kids of dumb…
Yes, there are absolutely limits on your physical development that you are born with. You won't run 100m under 10s if you're a woman, and you're much more likely if you have recent roots in certain countries. You won't get to play professional basketball unless you're quite a lot taller than average. If you're going to win Mr Olympia, you need to possess the kind of body that can be turned into a hunk of muscle.
But you can do better than most people at almost everything by practicing. You can cut your 100m time just by losing the gut. You can practice throwing the ball in the hoop by yourself. You can lift weights and you'll get more muscular.
Intelligence is no different. If you're going to be a research mathematician, it's going to be incredibly tough competing with the smartest kids in your generation. But if you just want to appreciate quantum physics or complex numbers, it's actually quite low hanging fruit that you will figure out if you want to. Most people do not figure out complex numbers despite it being taught at every high school.
The thing with intelligence, and I suppose we mean the mathematical kind, is it's invisible until you interact with people. If you're very weak or fat there's reasons to do something about it. If you just don't know how vector calculus works, chances are you won't get outed.
Our culture in the West also has a static view of intelligence, the opposite of Dweck's growth mindset, which really harms everyone who should be encouraged to practice getting smarter. The loss of not stopping people without world class brains from pursuing math professorships is greatly outweighed by the loss of everyday people not improving strengthening their thinking skills.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…
Not to brag (is it even possible to brag through an anonymous throwaway account?), but throughout my schooling I skipped or skimmed most readings and avoided doing the homework, or copied it off my more diligent classmates. But I still got perfect grades in high school and graduate school, outperforming classmates who worked much harder. In undergrad, I had mediocre grades only because I just didn't do the homework a…
Must be nice to have that kind of recall at the age of 100.
That being said, some people (John Von Neumann) seem to have had fantastic visual and textual recall.
A number of artists (Kim Jung Gi) and musicians (Mozart) seem to have developed remarkable visual and auditory memories.
And many children or fans who were nothing special in school can easily name every Pokémon, or tell you the stats and history of every member of a sports league, or recite the Star Wars saga line for line.
(And chickens, flightless though they may be, still possess the spatial brain of a migratory bird and can memorize (and peck) 300 random locations in their cage space - or on a piano - in order. They're also much better than rats (or humans?) at mazes.)
It became quickly very clear to me in undergrad that some people had this intuitive conceptual understanding of math and physics that I would simply never have, despite the effort (and I did make good grades). Some of these guys just blew me away with how smart they were. The more time I spent around people a lot smarter than me, the more I realized that some people's brains are just operating at a completely differe…
I agree that Seth's view is too simplistic. Sure, it's socially difficult to accept that for some people it will be pretty much impossible to succeed at intellectual tasks are relatively easy for others. But that's what the intelligence research shows.
It's pretty hard to even imagine how life would be in the bottom 10th percentile of the IQ distribution. For example, good look trying to get into the US army.