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How many people train up to even a tenth of their physical capability? Consider applying the same to creative effort. Yes, your absolute best effort may beat

How many people train up to even a tenth of their physical capability? Consider applying the same to creative effort. Yes, your absolute best effort may beat my absolute best, but we live in a world where most people are not even trying.

mbrumlow 9y ago
Its tricky, but consider the function of "trying" just another brain function. Many brain functions are required to achieve a outcome. So pure aptitude in one area might require cooperation of another. So we might be able to group different functions and map their dependencies. You might end up with something like (effort * raw_aptitude) = actual_aptitude for a given function, and there will be crossovers where where raw_aptitude is less in one person but their effort is more. And again one could arguably assign one being better than the other. When we talk about these sorts of things there are not many "gotchas" because you can't use one brain function to discount the other brain function as they really work together. So I really don't feel like somebodies lack of effort negates anything I said in the original post, as it is just another brain function. This does bring up a interesting crossover where mental faculties does play a role in physical performance. There was a study that showed that "smart" people made poor solders. The notion was that the smarter person was able to think further in the future about how their actions, or orders may play out. It was their ability to ponder the possibilities that ultimately caused them to shut down. On the flip side somebody who did not think as far into the future, or was not keen to pondering on future possibilities executed orders without hesitation -- making them a better solder. I don't know if I agree with this study, or their notion of smart, as "smart" can be subjective and is not really well defined. But it is fun to think about and wonder how these things do play a role in every day life.

mbrumlow 9y ago

Its tricky, but consider the function of "trying" just another brain function. Many brain functions are required to achieve a outcome. So pure aptitude in one area might require cooperation of another. So we might be able to group different functions and map their dependencies. You might end up with something like (effort * raw_aptitude) = actual_aptitude for a given function, and there will be crossovers where where raw_aptitude is less in one person but their effort is more. And again one could arguably assign one being better than the other. When we talk about these sorts of things there are not many "gotchas" because you can't use one brain function to discount the other brain function as they really work together. So I really don't feel like somebodies lack of effort negates anything I said in the original post, as it is just another brain function. This does bring up a interesting crossover where mental faculties does play a role in physical performance. There was a study that showed that "smart" people made poor solders. The notion was that the smarter person was able to think further in the future about how their actions, or orders may play out. It was their ability to ponder the possibilities that ultimately caused them to shut down. On the flip side somebody who did not think as far into the future, or was not keen to pondering on future possibilities executed orders without hesitation -- making them a better solder. I don't know if I agree with this study, or their notion of smart, as "smart" can be subjective and is not really well defined. But it is fun to think about and wonder how these things do play a role in every day life.