15 ms·

Is genius simply the product of hard work?

76 points by grellas 16y ago

albertsun 16y ago
Even if genius isn't simply the product of hard work, it would still be a useful lie to convince everyone that it was. Hard work might not be sufficient, but it's certainly necessary. And even if genius isn't achieved, you'd still get pretty close with just hard work.
katovatzschyn 16y ago
I read once a thought that sums up genius, intelligence and skill acquirement well I think, and you probably also think the same- along the lines of: "IQ, talent, and circumstance define your upper bound. Hard work gets you there."
- mathgladiator 16y ago
  I think that's fairly accurate. I think the key is a metric which is just a strange thing we are born with as I can't exactly explain why I like computers. They are just neat. Given a metric and enough hard work, a work will be considered genius quality by someone else. The number of other people is going to be what determines if someone goes down in the history books as genius.
- billswift 16y ago
  I agree. And as for the original article, I have to wonder when people use the phrase "simply hard work" if they have ever worked hard themselves. "Hard work" is called "hard" work for a reason; and focused, creative, intellectual work is the hardest work there is.
astrofinch 16y ago
How did this article provide any new or useful information?
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  How does your comment?
  - Estragon 16y ago
    I usually come to the comments on HN posts first, to assess whether an article is worth reading. Comments like the grandparent are very helpful to me.
powera 16y ago
I think the most important point that the article leaves out is that 99% of people don't want to put in those 10000 hours anyhow. Most people can get really good at most things if they really want it enough. That said, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone can be the next Beethoven or Einstein (or even Bobby Fischer) just from hard work.
- throwAway_29 16y ago
  you are agreeing AND disagreeing at the same time???!
  - jimfl 16y ago
    Genius.
  - nice1 16y ago
    He said that there is difference between being really good (most mortals can get there given the effort) and being a genius (for that you need to be a god).
cmurphycode 16y ago
What's the difference? We're substituting having superior intellect with having the willpower to work hard. It seems weird to say that at first. But the more I think about it, the more I think there must be a reason why some people do persevere enough to become "genius" level at something, and some people never do. Personally, I think work ethic, along with intellect and charisma, is something you are partially born with. It's just silly to say that genetics play no factor: do those with severe mental disabilities just not work hard enough? Think about it as your genes defining a range: you can be between the 30th and 75th percentile of human prowess. Where you fall in that range is up to you.
- incognito3 16y ago
  Yes and some people are born naturally skinny but if they don't take care of themselves they could become obese. And a naturally chuby person with some work and will, good eating habits, regular exercise can become well fit. There are ranges, any IDIOT knows that. As long as you have some minimum level of intelligence you can accomplish almost anything as long as you work on it. To the brain all inputs are the same. The same basic neural circuit is repeated again and again all over the brain. There are no specialized circuits in our brains. Our brains are general intelligence machines equipped to learn any input pattern as long as it is repeated enough. For hearing, speech, audio, motor skills, memory, thinking, the same neural circuit is used over and over again. If you are able to learn and read by your expected age level than that means that you should be able to get a phd on anything you want (assuming no learning disabilities). Learning to speak is actually pretty hard. It takes years for a child to speak properly. The child brain has to be exposed thousands of times to the same speech patterns until it finally starts to learn them. This explains why it seems so hard to learn high level stuff like advanced math or science, because in order for us to learn knew stuff those patterns have to be repeated hundreds if not thousands of times until our brains finally starts to learn them. For people this is boring which is what makes it hard, not that it is hard to learn. LEARNING QUANTUM MECHANICS IS JUST AS HARD AS LEARNING TO SPEAK. From the brains point of view everything is a pattern. And that pattern has to be repeated a minimum number of times before it learns it. So you see, a child is exposed to speech patterns all the time even if it doesn't want to. The brain will learn on its own. However, you are never exposed to quantum mechanics patterns like in speech. Rather you have to actively seek those patterns. You have to exposed your brain to those patterns just as many times as you had to exposed your brain to speech patterns. Finally, the mere fact that kids are rarely skipped a grade level or fail a grade level means that we are all within the same level of learning ability which means that if your friend from your same grade level is able to become a scientist you could too if you wanted to. So the conclusion is that the differentiator is work and persistence as mentioned in this article. I'm really interested in your counter arguments.
NyxWulf 16y ago
Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10 years to produce genius level work. Any takers?" On this subject, the best book I've read is talent is overrated. They discuss this subject in depth and provide a great deal of research and information to support their claims. edit Oh, and their claim is that there isn't much empirical evidence that supports the notion of genius or even innate talent at all.
- Arun2009 16y ago
  I'm yet to read the article, but on this: > Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10 years to produce genius level work. Any takers?" two examples that leap to mind are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography Two examples famous in India are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_and_personal_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Personal_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Personal_life
sliverstorm 16y ago
Do I even have to say it? Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
andreyf 16y ago
Is anyone else infuriated by the use of vague words like "genius" without a good metric to measure it?
- Dramatize 16y ago
  IQ tests are generally a good measure. I say generally because I broke the test - I was really bad at the short term memory tests, yet good in other sections. Because there was such a big difference, a proper score couldn't be worked out.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  In current psychological literature, the term "genius" is developing a generally accepted definition. Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton is the leading author on the subject. The basis idea is that a genius is someone who performs at a level that is reliably superior in a statistical sense (that is, an "expert" in the terminology of K. Anders Ericsson) AND produces a new paradigm of performance in the domain of performance. Comment on the submitted article: the Mozart biographical materials I have read suggest that Mozart's sister didn't reach Wolfgang's high level of performance partly because their father really did have a child in whom more was invested, consistent with sexist attitudes of the time. After edit: I guess the author of the essay has ten years to learn how to write a well researched essay on a topic that is well sourced in the standard scientific literature.
- nadam 16y ago
  For example if you can prove a hard open mathematical problem at which great mathematicians failed then you are a genius. (This is just an example, there are other examples, but this is quite objective.)
drewse 16y ago
It can be, or it can not be. If by "genius" you mean someone who's defined by their actions, then it is [simply the product of hard work]. Otherwise, if by "genius" you mean someone with the potential to be great, then it is not [the product of hard work, but rather one's genes]. Both of these interpretations of "genius" are often used, although there is very little distinction between the two if the "genius" with the potential to be great lives up to their expectations. On the other hand, those who have the potential to be great but don't take advantage of their genes are hard to discover. Also, the "genius" that -has- potential to be great and -is- great is technically a genius of both kinds. Something to think about...
mhb 16y ago
In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. Hans Bethe, whom [Freeman] Dyson considers to be his teacher, is an “ordinary genius,”. . . . (Quoted from Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography, by Mark Kac. Harper and Row. 1985. p. xxv.) from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Feynman http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Feynman
- iliketosleep 16y ago
  this is true. especially with regards to magicians.. some peoples' brains are simply wired different from the rest of us. people with synaesthesia, for instance, may have abilities which are not replicable by normal people (regardless of hard work).
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  It's a nice quote, but it physically must be the case that Feynman was not doing magic, but was doing thinking with human thought processes, within the confines of a human brain and all that entails. We gain nothing by pedestaling it and calling it magic, we gain everything by trying to work out if it is a process or habitual way of thinking or a fluke biological rewiring or something else. If I was the right amounts of different and better in the right directions I could as easily be Feynman as Bethe. I could never be Gandalf.
  - gxs 16y ago
    Feynman was just making the point that there is a point where no matter how hard your work your little tail off, you will simply be at a disadvantage compared with someone who has genetic gifts or the like. This thread is curious because it's treating the nurture vs. nature debate as if it were some novel concept. In America, we're taught to believe that if we work hard, we can be anything we want. This thread largely stinks of people clinging on to this belief, if only for their own sanity. It's no secret that the HN crowd holds itself in high regard intellectually and it would be damning to believe otherwise, as all of a sudden you wouldn't have a shot at being the next Bill Gates or the next Linus Torvalds or whoever it is you worship, on the basis of your hard work alone. This ideal is highly romanticized and is part of our education problem. We strongly belief EVERYONE should go to college, and EVERYONE is equal, when in reality, some people would be better suited to work with their hands as a mechanic than some paper pusher at an insurance company. In Europe, they are more slanted towards the nature point of view, and this is reflected in their vocational training in education - ie, everyone isn't born equal, everyone doesn't have to follow the exact same path for the sake of appeasing some romantic ideal that we can't prove true either way. While the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, it's plain foolish to ignore that some people are just born with an innate talent. If you played sports, it would be easier for people to wrap their head around this - a 5'5 basketball player will never play starting center in the NBA. It's just the way it is. It is part of your responsibility as a human being to find out what those things are that you are most gifted at and exploit them to their maximum potential.
btilly 16y ago
One of the most ironic pieces of good advice on this topic is http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to.... Why is it ironic? Because it is written by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao. While nobody will deny how hard he works, he is also on record as being one of the most amazing math prodigies ever.
- nadam 16y ago
  I think what he writes is true: one does not have to be a genius to do mathematics. But: - He says that a reasonable intelligence is needed (I think it is something like an IQ of at least 120, so most of the population would have no chance. Come on, I know some guys who suffered very heavily from high school math even if they tried hard. But certainly a genius level is not needed to do math). - Reaching the level of Terry Tao is impossible without being brutally talented. I have heard it from good, very smart, successful and extremely hard working (and enthusiastic) mathematicians. Other mathematicians achieved big things when they were children but Terry Tao consistently was ahead of even them. (Like winning a bronze medal at the International Mathematical Olimpiad being 10 years old) Being a genius is an AND combination: talent and hard work. The 'talent is overrated' statement is true: most people underestimate hard work. This is similar to bodybuilding: most people think that steroids alone are enough to be a body builder champion. No: very lucky genetics AND steroids AND extremely hard work are needed.
  - btilly 16y ago
    I agree. Which is why I called it good advice. However I still think it ironic to get that advice from someone who clearly has such extreme levels of raw talent.
chesser 16y ago
> yet it still fails to account for the impenetrable mystery that enshrouds such birds of paradise as Bobby Fischer, who started playing chess at the age of 6. Nine years later, he became the U.S. chess champion. What's the mystery there? Bobby Fischer was completely obsessed with chess and played and studied it incessantly. 9 years of manic dedication and he "suddenly" got good. His mother spoke something like 8 languages and his father was a Hungarian physicist who headed the Theoretical Mechanics section of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and was an expert in elasticity and fluid dynamics. One famous story about his memory: "One day when he was in Iceland, Fischer called Frederick Olaffson, Iceland's only Grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic-speaking daughter answered the phone and explained her parents were out and would return at suppertime. Fischer understood nothing that was said because he did not know the language. But he listened, apologized and hung up. Later that day Fischer met with another Icelandic player who spoke English. He explained what had happened and repeated every Icelandic word he had heard on the phone, imitating the sounds with perfect inflection. The Icelandic player translated the message word for word for Fischer." Despite being prodigiously "intelligent", it still took years of dedication to get good, and years more to get really good. Plenty of average people undoubtedly beat him at chess when he was a kid. When you think about it, it should be obvious that he was always that smart. Just because you're a kid and don't know anything yet doesn't mean you aren't smart. "Smarts" is not the same as skill. Incidentally, his record as the youngest grandmaster in history lasted for many years until it was broken by Judit Polgar, whose father was explicitly running an experiment with his daughters to prove that prodigies are made, not born. All three daughters became chess experts. He explained that Judit, the youngest, was the most successful because she worked the hardest. She's the only female ever ranked in the top-10 of the "Men's" ratings list. Since then, many people have gone on to break the youngest-grandmaster record at younger and younger ages. I can only assume that if being a classical composer had as much of a "lobby" as chess (parents pushing their children into it, reward structures), we'd see more Mozarts as well. The reason it takes HARD work is because even geniuses aren't that genius. If you look at the top level of any objectively measurable and well-subscribed field, there is generally less than a 1% difference between the best, whether it's sprinting, bike racing, weight lifting, or chess. Knowledge builds on knowledge and skill builds on skill. If you think of it like compound interest, a few percent difference between two individuals at any given moment eventually turns into a huge dividend a decade or three later. For chess, if you take two average players rated 1500 each, and one improves at 2% "interest" and the other at 4% "interest", in 10 years the former player will be rated in the 1800s (moving from class C to class A), and the latter will be rated in the 2200s (National Master). To become a Grandmaster (typically 2500+) in 10 years, that's an "interest" rate of about 5.3%. Meanwhile, a super-genius with a 7% compounding rate who puts in 7 years and then burns out will be stuck at ~2400, International Master level. Humans occupy a pretty narrow raw talent niche. The best people tend to be pretty tightly clustered together. I'm not smarter than I was when I was young, but I have compounded YEARS of knowledge and experience to the point where I can vastly outperform my younger, smarter self.
Homunculiheaded 16y ago
"Disbelievers in genius are hereby invited to prove their point by sitting down and creating an equally great work of art. You have until 2020 to comply. Any takers?" This is conflating the claim that expertise can be acquired in 10,000 hours with the claim that genius can. I don't believe anyone is truly claiming the latter is the case. I'll take him up on the challenge the former though. 5 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about programming. I decided I wanted to learn. I started spending few hours a day on learning new things, doing exercises, taking classes and doing projects. I'm far from an expert in the area now, but I'm absolutely blown away with how far I've come in 5 years. If I keep it up I'm pretty confident that in 5 more years I'll be there. The author also seems to miss the real dangers of "the myth of genius", which should more appropriately be called "the myth of innate talent". I can't tell you how many people I've heard say "Oh I could never learn X, I'm just not one of those people who is good at X". One thing I like to point out is that if it takes you 10 years to be an expert, it probably only takes 2-4 years to achieve an intermediate level of skill, which is pretty damn useful.
pshapiro 16y ago
No, genius doesn't come from just hard work. You can work hard at the wrong way for a long time and still not get any better. A genius is someone who sees the world by his own sight. A genius has wisdom because of that. On the other hand, someone who learns only from school can't be a genius and get wisdom from books, he can only be someone with ability through learning, because he didn't awaken himself and see the principle of the world through himself.
throwAway_29 16y ago
Is the notion of 10-X programmers, super cool programmers over-rated?
known 16y ago
Genius == DNA + Environment
unculture 16y ago
This chap, Mr. Teachout, is the drama critic for the WSJ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Teachout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Teachout ), he's also a musician and librettist. The arts, and arts journalists in particular, have a vested interest in genius. If we suddenly find that genius isn't that magic "je ne sais qois" we thought it was for all those years, all that purple prose we wrote about artists in the past suddenly looks a bit stale. In truth in the arts you have an almost unrestrained version of the Matthew effect - early success either through luck or hard work breeds more and more success. This is more true in drama than music - it is more difficult to tell a good actor from a bad actor than the equivalent violinists for example. (Sour grapes alert :-)) I trained as an actor, and I know from my cohort that the ones who are really successful now weren't objectively any better than most of their colleagues at the beginning. Their entire careers now rest on the fact that they had two or three really lucky breaks in a row very early on - choosing the right speech at the showcase and getting that good agent, getting a good tv job early on etc. The upshot is that ten years later, they've been working on their craft constantly and so now ARE objectively better than the classmates they left behind, no contest. It is extremely unusual, though not unheard of, for someone who was unsuccessful at the beginning to go on to develop a high profile career and even then the examples you read about in the press are probably fabrications or half-truths (the cliche of the overnight success for example). I find that arts journalists consistently misrepresent the element of luck. Perhaps because they don't understand, or it undermines them in some way. I've never read an article about an actor friend of mine that has told the truth about how they've come to be successful. It's always something along the lines of "they always new they were special", or "hard work got me where I am today". I'm not suggesting that the actor is lying, although I wouldn't blame them if they did. Your reputation is your career, and if you declare yourself to be a lucky chancer you might damage it. I've always thought that it is more likely to be the journalist justifying why we should look up to the interviewee. In any case, does anyone here know what happened to Mozart's sister? Perhaps it was harder back then for a woman to be a composer than it was for men? The last orchestra I saw was 90% male, so this wouldn't surprise me one bit.
nadam 16y ago
It is really simple: Theorem: Genius is talent AND hard work Proof: 1. Look at geniuses: all worked hard to achive what they achieved. 2. Look at a group of persons who are all extremely hard working, successful and good at what they do. Like researcher mathematicians, or professional sportsmen. Only a very small minority of them is considered a real genius. (like Terry Tao or Maradona). Why? Because those guys are not just very hard working but also exceptionally talented.
- jleyank 16y ago
  While it is true that talent and hard work is a win, talent can be a win on its own. I think people agree Einstein was a genius, but there's no evidence he worked hard at anything when young. Perhaps we should be careful re: definitions, separating insight and genius, favoring the former as more innate?
  - halostatue 16y ago
    Having read one of the more recent biographies, Einstein did work fairly hard for his insights. He had a lot of time to think as a patent examiner.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Why do you think there is no evidence that he worked hard as a kid? Nothing that "he had bad grades in school" myth I hope.
chalimacos 16y ago
Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in 6 weeks. That's genius.
middlegeek 16y ago
I believe genius and hard work are merely two ingredients into success or excellence in performing a task. A person of below average intelligence who has studied chess for years and years could beat a genius who took up the game a week ago.
istari 16y ago
"Genius" is 10,000 hours of constant improvement. Spending 10,000 hours on something is incredibly common. Everyone spends 10,000 hours on multiple things. But we coast. It's what we do by habit. It's habit itself. To break our own habits over and over again in order to improve, to get into a positive feedback loop of ever increasing ability, for 10,000 hours, is genius.

76 points by grellas 16y ago

Even if genius isn't simply the product of hard work, it would still be a useful lie to convince everyone that it was. Hard work might not be sufficient, but it's certainly necessary. And even if genius isn't achieved, you'd still get pretty close with just hard work.

katovatzschyn 16y ago

I read once a thought that sums up genius, intelligence and skill acquirement well I think, and you probably also think the same- along the lines of: "IQ, talent, and circumstance define your upper bound. Hard work gets you there."

mathgladiator 16y ago
I think that's fairly accurate. I think the key is a metric which is just a strange thing we are born with as I can't exactly explain why I like computers. They are just neat. Given a metric and enough hard work, a work will be considered genius quality by someone else. The number of other people is going to be what determines if someone goes down in the history books as genius.
billswift 16y ago
I agree. And as for the original article, I have to wonder when people use the phrase "simply hard work" if they have ever worked hard themselves. "Hard work" is called "hard" work for a reason; and focused, creative, intellectual work is the hardest work there is.

astrofinch 16y ago

How did this article provide any new or useful information?

jodrellblank 16y ago
How does your comment?
- Estragon 16y ago
  I usually come to the comments on HN posts first, to assess whether an article is worth reading. Comments like the grandparent are very helpful to me.

powera 16y ago

I think the most important point that the article leaves out is that 99% of people don't want to put in those 10000 hours anyhow. Most people can get really good at most things if they really want it enough. That said, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone can be the next Beethoven or Einstein (or even Bobby Fischer) just from hard work.

throwAway_29 16y ago
you are agreeing AND disagreeing at the same time???!
- jimfl 16y ago
  Genius.
- nice1 16y ago
  He said that there is difference between being really good (most mortals can get there given the effort) and being a genius (for that you need to be a god).

cmurphycode 16y ago

What's the difference? We're substituting having superior intellect with having the willpower to work hard. It seems weird to say that at first. But the more I think about it, the more I think there must be a reason why some people do persevere enough to become "genius" level at something, and some people never do. Personally, I think work ethic, along with intellect and charisma, is something you are partially born with. It's just silly to say that genetics play no factor: do those with severe mental disabilities just not work hard enough? Think about it as your genes defining a range: you can be between the 30th and 75th percentile of human prowess. Where you fall in that range is up to you.

incognito3 16y ago
Yes and some people are born naturally skinny but if they don't take care of themselves they could become obese. And a naturally chuby person with some work and will, good eating habits, regular exercise can become well fit. There are ranges, any IDIOT knows that. As long as you have some minimum level of intelligence you can accomplish almost anything as long as you work on it. To the brain all inputs are the same. The same basic neural circuit is repeated again and again all over the brain. There are no specialized circuits in our brains. Our brains are general intelligence machines equipped to learn any input pattern as long as it is repeated enough. For hearing, speech, audio, motor skills, memory, thinking, the same neural circuit is used over and over again. If you are able to learn and read by your expected age level than that means that you should be able to get a phd on anything you want (assuming no learning disabilities). Learning to speak is actually pretty hard. It takes years for a child to speak properly. The child brain has to be exposed thousands of times to the same speech patterns until it finally starts to learn them. This explains why it seems so hard to learn high level stuff like advanced math or science, because in order for us to learn knew stuff those patterns have to be repeated hundreds if not thousands of times until our brains finally starts to learn them. For people this is boring which is what makes it hard, not that it is hard to learn. LEARNING QUANTUM MECHANICS IS JUST AS HARD AS LEARNING TO SPEAK. From the brains point of view everything is a pattern. And that pattern has to be repeated a minimum number of times before it learns it. So you see, a child is exposed to speech patterns all the time even if it doesn't want to. The brain will learn on its own. However, you are never exposed to quantum mechanics patterns like in speech. Rather you have to actively seek those patterns. You have to exposed your brain to those patterns just as many times as you had to exposed your brain to speech patterns. Finally, the mere fact that kids are rarely skipped a grade level or fail a grade level means that we are all within the same level of learning ability which means that if your friend from your same grade level is able to become a scientist you could too if you wanted to. So the conclusion is that the differentiator is work and persistence as mentioned in this article. I'm really interested in your counter arguments.

NyxWulf 16y ago

Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10 years to produce genius level work. Any takers?" On this subject, the best book I've read is talent is overrated. They discuss this subject in depth and provide a great deal of research and information to support their claims. edit Oh, and their claim is that there isn't much empirical evidence that supports the notion of genius or even innate talent at all.

Arun2009 16y ago
I'm yet to read the article, but on this: > Summarizing the article: "Genius is just hard work? Prove it, you have 10 years to produce genius level work. Any takers?" two examples that leap to mind are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography Two examples famous in India are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_and_personal_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar#Early_years_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Personal_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand#Personal_life

sliverstorm 16y ago

Do I even have to say it? Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

andreyf 16y ago

Is anyone else infuriated by the use of vague words like "genius" without a good metric to measure it?

Dramatize 16y ago
IQ tests are generally a good measure. I say generally because I broke the test - I was really bad at the short term memory tests, yet good in other sections. Because there was such a big difference, a proper score couldn't be worked out.
tokenadult 16y ago
In current psychological literature, the term "genius" is developing a generally accepted definition. Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton is the leading author on the subject. The basis idea is that a genius is someone who performs at a level that is reliably superior in a statistical sense (that is, an "expert" in the terminology of K. Anders Ericsson) AND produces a new paradigm of performance in the domain of performance. Comment on the submitted article: the Mozart biographical materials I have read suggest that Mozart's sister didn't reach Wolfgang's high level of performance partly because their father really did have a child in whom more was invested, consistent with sexist attitudes of the time. After edit: I guess the author of the essay has ten years to learn how to write a well researched essay on a topic that is well sourced in the standard scientific literature.
nadam 16y ago
For example if you can prove a hard open mathematical problem at which great mathematicians failed then you are a genius. (This is just an example, there are other examples, but this is quite objective.)

drewse 16y ago

It can be, or it can not be. If by "genius" you mean someone who's defined by their actions, then it is [simply the product of hard work]. Otherwise, if by "genius" you mean someone with the potential to be great, then it is not [the product of hard work, but rather one's genes]. Both of these interpretations of "genius" are often used, although there is very little distinction between the two if the "genius" with the potential to be great lives up to their expectations. On the other hand, those who have the potential to be great but don't take advantage of their genes are hard to discover. Also, the "genius" that -has- potential to be great and -is- great is technically a genius of both kinds. Something to think about...

mhb 16y ago

In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. Hans Bethe, whom [Freeman] Dyson considers to be his teacher, is an “ordinary genius,”. . . . (Quoted from Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography, by Mark Kac. Harper and Row. 1985. p. xxv.) from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Feynman http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Feynman

iliketosleep 16y ago
this is true. especially with regards to magicians.. some peoples' brains are simply wired different from the rest of us. people with synaesthesia, for instance, may have abilities which are not replicable by normal people (regardless of hard work).
jodrellblank 16y ago
It's a nice quote, but it physically must be the case that Feynman was not doing magic, but was doing thinking with human thought processes, within the confines of a human brain and all that entails. We gain nothing by pedestaling it and calling it magic, we gain everything by trying to work out if it is a process or habitual way of thinking or a fluke biological rewiring or something else. If I was the right amounts of different and better in the right directions I could as easily be Feynman as Bethe. I could never be Gandalf.
- gxs 16y ago
  Feynman was just making the point that there is a point where no matter how hard your work your little tail off, you will simply be at a disadvantage compared with someone who has genetic gifts or the like. This thread is curious because it's treating the nurture vs. nature debate as if it were some novel concept. In America, we're taught to believe that if we work hard, we can be anything we want. This thread largely stinks of people clinging on to this belief, if only for their own sanity. It's no secret that the HN crowd holds itself in high regard intellectually and it would be damning to believe otherwise, as all of a sudden you wouldn't have a shot at being the next Bill Gates or the next Linus Torvalds or whoever it is you worship, on the basis of your hard work alone. This ideal is highly romanticized and is part of our education problem. We strongly belief EVERYONE should go to college, and EVERYONE is equal, when in reality, some people would be better suited to work with their hands as a mechanic than some paper pusher at an insurance company. In Europe, they are more slanted towards the nature point of view, and this is reflected in their vocational training in education - ie, everyone isn't born equal, everyone doesn't have to follow the exact same path for the sake of appeasing some romantic ideal that we can't prove true either way. While the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, it's plain foolish to ignore that some people are just born with an innate talent. If you played sports, it would be easier for people to wrap their head around this - a 5'5 basketball player will never play starting center in the NBA. It's just the way it is. It is part of your responsibility as a human being to find out what those things are that you are most gifted at and exploit them to their maximum potential.

btilly 16y ago

One of the most ironic pieces of good advice on this topic is http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to.... Why is it ironic? Because it is written by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao. While nobody will deny how hard he works, he is also on record as being one of the most amazing math prodigies ever.

nadam 16y ago
I think what he writes is true: one does not have to be a genius to do mathematics. But: - He says that a reasonable intelligence is needed (I think it is something like an IQ of at least 120, so most of the population would have no chance. Come on, I know some guys who suffered very heavily from high school math even if they tried hard. But certainly a genius level is not needed to do math). - Reaching the level of Terry Tao is impossible without being brutally talented. I have heard it from good, very smart, successful and extremely hard working (and enthusiastic) mathematicians. Other mathematicians achieved big things when they were children but Terry Tao consistently was ahead of even them. (Like winning a bronze medal at the International Mathematical Olimpiad being 10 years old) Being a genius is an AND combination: talent and hard work. The 'talent is overrated' statement is true: most people underestimate hard work. This is similar to bodybuilding: most people think that steroids alone are enough to be a body builder champion. No: very lucky genetics AND steroids AND extremely hard work are needed.
- btilly 16y ago
  I agree. Which is why I called it good advice. However I still think it ironic to get that advice from someone who clearly has such extreme levels of raw talent.

chesser 16y ago

> yet it still fails to account for the impenetrable mystery that enshrouds such birds of paradise as Bobby Fischer, who started playing chess at the age of 6. Nine years later, he became the U.S. chess champion. What's the mystery there? Bobby Fischer was completely obsessed with chess and played and studied it incessantly. 9 years of manic dedication and he "suddenly" got good. His mother spoke something like 8 languages and his father was a Hungarian physicist who headed the Theoretical Mechanics section of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and was an expert in elasticity and fluid dynamics. One famous story about his memory: "One day when he was in Iceland, Fischer called Frederick Olaffson, Iceland's only Grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic-speaking daughter answered the phone and explained her parents were out and would return at suppertime. Fischer understood nothing that was said because he did not know the language. But he listened, apologized and hung up. Later that day Fischer met with another Icelandic player who spoke English. He explained what had happened and repeated every Icelandic word he had heard on the phone, imitating the sounds with perfect inflection. The Icelandic player translated the message word for word for Fischer." Despite being prodigiously "intelligent", it still took years of dedication to get good, and years more to get really good. Plenty of average people undoubtedly beat him at chess when he was a kid. When you think about it, it should be obvious that he was always that smart. Just because you're a kid and don't know anything yet doesn't mean you aren't smart. "Smarts" is not the same as skill. Incidentally, his record as the youngest grandmaster in history lasted for many years until it was broken by Judit Polgar, whose father was explicitly running an experiment with his daughters to prove that prodigies are made, not born. All three daughters became chess experts. He explained that Judit, the youngest, was the most successful because she worked the hardest. She's the only female ever ranked in the top-10 of the "Men's" ratings list. Since then, many people have gone on to break the youngest-grandmaster record at younger and younger ages. I can only assume that if being a classical composer had as much of a "lobby" as chess (parents pushing their children into it, reward structures), we'd see more Mozarts as well. The reason it takes HARD work is because even geniuses aren't that genius. If you look at the top level of any objectively measurable and well-subscribed field, there is generally less than a 1% difference between the best, whether it's sprinting, bike racing, weight lifting, or chess. Knowledge builds on knowledge and skill builds on skill. If you think of it like compound interest, a few percent difference between two individuals at any given moment eventually turns into a huge dividend a decade or three later. For chess, if you take two average players rated 1500 each, and one improves at 2% "interest" and the other at 4% "interest", in 10 years the former player will be rated in the 1800s (moving from class C to class A), and the latter will be rated in the 2200s (National Master). To become a Grandmaster (typically 2500+) in 10 years, that's an "interest" rate of about 5.3%. Meanwhile, a super-genius with a 7% compounding rate who puts in 7 years and then burns out will be stuck at ~2400, International Master level. Humans occupy a pretty narrow raw talent niche. The best people tend to be pretty tightly clustered together. I'm not smarter than I was when I was young, but I have compounded YEARS of knowledge and experience to the point where I can vastly outperform my younger, smarter self.

Homunculiheaded 16y ago

"Disbelievers in genius are hereby invited to prove their point by sitting down and creating an equally great work of art. You have until 2020 to comply. Any takers?" This is conflating the claim that expertise can be acquired in 10,000 hours with the claim that genius can. I don't believe anyone is truly claiming the latter is the case. I'll take him up on the challenge the former though. 5 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about programming. I decided I wanted to learn. I started spending few hours a day on learning new things, doing exercises, taking classes and doing projects. I'm far from an expert in the area now, but I'm absolutely blown away with how far I've come in 5 years. If I keep it up I'm pretty confident that in 5 more years I'll be there. The author also seems to miss the real dangers of "the myth of genius", which should more appropriately be called "the myth of innate talent". I can't tell you how many people I've heard say "Oh I could never learn X, I'm just not one of those people who is good at X". One thing I like to point out is that if it takes you 10 years to be an expert, it probably only takes 2-4 years to achieve an intermediate level of skill, which is pretty damn useful.

pshapiro 16y ago

No, genius doesn't come from just hard work. You can work hard at the wrong way for a long time and still not get any better. A genius is someone who sees the world by his own sight. A genius has wisdom because of that. On the other hand, someone who learns only from school can't be a genius and get wisdom from books, he can only be someone with ability through learning, because he didn't awaken himself and see the principle of the world through himself.

throwAway_29 16y ago

Is the notion of 10-X programmers, super cool programmers over-rated?

known 16y ago

Genius == DNA + Environment

unculture 16y ago

This chap, Mr. Teachout, is the drama critic for the WSJ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Teachout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Teachout ), he's also a musician and librettist. The arts, and arts journalists in particular, have a vested interest in genius. If we suddenly find that genius isn't that magic "je ne sais qois" we thought it was for all those years, all that purple prose we wrote about artists in the past suddenly looks a bit stale. In truth in the arts you have an almost unrestrained version of the Matthew effect - early success either through luck or hard work breeds more and more success. This is more true in drama than music - it is more difficult to tell a good actor from a bad actor than the equivalent violinists for example. (Sour grapes alert :-)) I trained as an actor, and I know from my cohort that the ones who are really successful now weren't objectively any better than most of their colleagues at the beginning. Their entire careers now rest on the fact that they had two or three really lucky breaks in a row very early on - choosing the right speech at the showcase and getting that good agent, getting a good tv job early on etc. The upshot is that ten years later, they've been working on their craft constantly and so now ARE objectively better than the classmates they left behind, no contest. It is extremely unusual, though not unheard of, for someone who was unsuccessful at the beginning to go on to develop a high profile career and even then the examples you read about in the press are probably fabrications or half-truths (the cliche of the overnight success for example). I find that arts journalists consistently misrepresent the element of luck. Perhaps because they don't understand, or it undermines them in some way. I've never read an article about an actor friend of mine that has told the truth about how they've come to be successful. It's always something along the lines of "they always new they were special", or "hard work got me where I am today". I'm not suggesting that the actor is lying, although I wouldn't blame them if they did. Your reputation is your career, and if you declare yourself to be a lucky chancer you might damage it. I've always thought that it is more likely to be the journalist justifying why we should look up to the interviewee. In any case, does anyone here know what happened to Mozart's sister? Perhaps it was harder back then for a woman to be a composer than it was for men? The last orchestra I saw was 90% male, so this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

nadam 16y ago

It is really simple: Theorem: Genius is talent AND hard work Proof: 1. Look at geniuses: all worked hard to achive what they achieved. 2. Look at a group of persons who are all extremely hard working, successful and good at what they do. Like researcher mathematicians, or professional sportsmen. Only a very small minority of them is considered a real genius. (like Terry Tao or Maradona). Why? Because those guys are not just very hard working but also exceptionally talented.

jleyank 16y ago
While it is true that talent and hard work is a win, talent can be a win on its own. I think people agree Einstein was a genius, but there's no evidence he worked hard at anything when young. Perhaps we should be careful re: definitions, separating insight and genius, favoring the former as more innate?
- halostatue 16y ago
  Having read one of the more recent biographies, Einstein did work fairly hard for his insights. He had a lot of time to think as a patent examiner.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Why do you think there is no evidence that he worked hard as a kid? Nothing that "he had bad grades in school" myth I hope.

chalimacos 16y ago

Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in 6 weeks. That's genius.

middlegeek 16y ago

I believe genius and hard work are merely two ingredients into success or excellence in performing a task. A person of below average intelligence who has studied chess for years and years could beat a genius who took up the game a week ago.

istari 16y ago

"Genius" is 10,000 hours of constant improvement. Spending 10,000 hours on something is incredibly common. Everyone spends 10,000 hours on multiple things. But we coast. It's what we do by habit. It's habit itself. To break our own habits over and over again in order to improve, to get into a positive feedback loop of ever increasing ability, for 10,000 hours, is genius.