alt Hacker NewsI guess it's too extreme to say there's no difference, I just don't love the explanation of there being some hard ceiling because it seems like the real process is incredibly uncertain and unpredictable. There's a million little skills you have to learn as a pianist and also many brief moments where you suddenly grow a lot because you finally grasped something important. In other words I feel like the "ceiling" gets broken every once and a while, and the thing that separates the great musicians is they get satisfaction doing it even during the extremely frustrating times where you're stuck at some ceiling. Which also helps them maintain hope and curiosity and see the next step forward when it does finally come. It feels like the ceiling is often a psychological one, not a natural one!
I agree with almost everything you’re saying.
I really love the “brief moments” part too. I believe growth (maturation, skill improvement, etc.) happens in discrete moments that is then reinforced by practice (or lost by the lack thereof).
> stuck at some ceiling… next step forward
Then they weren’t at their ceiling :) they were at a local minimum of optimization. And getting out of a local minimum is insanely rewarding, regardless of the skill.
And maybe you’re right - maybe there is no hard ceiling. But there are learning rates and diminishing returns involved. It might take me 10x longer to get from the 95% percentile than 96% percentile, and then 100x to get to 96.5%. (Obviously percentiles are quite abstract for art). Maybe we can always improve given the right practice and guidance, even if the improvement is marginal. I just define the marginal returns area as a “ceiling”.
But… all of this can co-exist with “natural” baselines of talent.
I hate to admit that I will never be as “good” of a pianist as Martha Argerich… but I just won’t be, no matter how much I practice. I also will never be able to run as fast as Noah Lyles, no matter how much I train.
And that’s ok.
I think there is a tendency to fight back against the idea of natural talent/skill because this idea can diminish the extreme hard work it takes to hone and develop talent.
Noah Lyles could outrun 99% of us without training, but he had to dedicate his life to beat the last 1%. Most people probably don’t realize/understand how much dedication it takes to climb that final mountain.
But “inherent” talent is still a real thing. If we knew “why”.
My final thought is that high baselines can often be counterproductive for growth. Anyway, thanks for chatting about this with me.