
There Is No Magic - robertk
http://deconstructinggenius.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/there-is-no-magic/
======
michaelchisari
The idea of genius and brilliance as something you earn, that is the
combination of hard work, an open mind, the right mix of humility and hurbis,
and the right circumstances, is a profound change in how we view our world.

I hope it's true, because we currently focus our resources and attention on
those who are labelled "gifted" early on, instead of building on the idea of
life as a constant process of re-imagination and education. If this is true,
then there are geniuses the world over, and we just need to tap their
potential.

 _"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s
brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and
died in cotton fields and sweatshops."_ \- Stephen Jay Gould

~~~
tokenadult
HN's founder, pg, has done something to promote this idea.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html>

"I'm not saying there's no such thing as genius. But if you're trying to
choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the
other one is probably right."

It is indeed a good idea for people who are trying to solve hard problems not
to ask, "How good is my ability?" but rather to ask, "What use am I making of
all my ability and all my other resources to solve this problem?"

~~~
invertedlambda
Agree! Another example of this that my old music teacher used to give all the
time was John Coltrane. Everybody agrees that he was a great player, but he
wasn't a prodigy. He was notorious for practicing day and night to continue
improving his craft.

Even Miles Davis thought he was a bit boring because all he (John) wanted to
do was practice. :)

------
rflrob
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.

\--Mark Kac

I think it's probably best if we don't deify too many geniuses, but I think
it's fair to say that there are a handful in history where, even had we been
exposed to all of the diverse experiences they had, we still wouldn't hope to
equal.

~~~
joe_the_user
The impression I got on reading Feynman's "Surely You're Joke...", was that
Feynman was a magician in the ordinary sense of the word; he liked to produce
results in a fashion that was maximally dramatic and maximally inexplicable
(whether those results involved opening safes or calculating complex
formulas).

And consider. The first sleight-of-hand magicians were village shamans who
used the wonder the "magic" produced to leverage the power of suggestion for
healing. But we know that the effect of superstition on society as a whole is
detrimental.

Similarly, the belief that Feynman really had "magic" ways to unlock safes or
solve math problems is less-than-useful.

Edit: I think that it is true that some fraction of scientists operate as
"magicians" but some of this can come from a remarkably selfish position - the
desire maintain their colleagues in awe and ignorance. I don't think Feynman
in particular was in this unfortunate category but I've seen some folks whose
approach was basically abusive.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I read "Surely You're Joking..." and "What Do You Care..." with the idea that
he's probably underselling himself.

------
mhartl
_Multiple studies have shown that beyond a certain point (around two to three
standard deviations), further IQ is not particularly helpful._

Is this true? I'd wager that the average IQ of top-rank mathematicians (say,
the top 100 as judged by their peers) is _at least_ three standard deviations
above the mean, and more likely closer to 4. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me
if the average IQ of said group is well over 160.

~~~
tokenadult
_Is this true?_

You are to be commended for asking whether the statement is true. I'd like to
check that author's references, but I have reason to believe that he is on the
right track.

 _I'd wager that the average IQ of top-rank mathematicians (say, the top 100
as judged by their peers) is at least three standard deviations above the
mean, and more likely closer to 4._

You have indicated your view of the sources you have read by proposing a
wager. I'll gladly stake a large amount of money on that wager, because you
would surely lose. There have already been studies of the issue, after all.
Definitional problems here for settling the wager among you, me, and our
seconds would include defining just who the top 100 mathematicians are (I'd
expect a lot of debate on that point), and which brand of IQ test should be
taken to be the most definitive, as each IQ test battery disagrees with each
other IQ test battery. But I have no doubt I would win the bet.

For one thing, four standard deviations above the population median (IQ score
of 160 by current standard scoring conventions) is the very peak of reliable
scoring on any currently normed brand of IQ test. Commenting on the higher
numerical scores found in the scoring tables of the obsolete Stanford-Binet
Form L-M IQ test, Christoph Perleth, Tanja Schatz, and Franz J. Mönks (2000)
comment that "norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are
constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the
basis of empirical data of representative samples." "Early Identification of
High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J. et
al.. International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam:
Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. Lewis Terman recognized the core
problem with IQ scores at the high end a long time ago:

"The reader should not lose sight of the fact that a test with even a high
reliability yields scores which have an appreciable probable error. The
probable error in terms of mental age is of course larger with older than with
young children because of the increasing spread of mental age as we go from
younger to older groups. For this reason it has been customary to express the
P.E. [probable error] of a Binet score in terms of I.Q., since the spread of
Binet I.Q.'s is fairly constant from age to age. However, when our correlation
arrays [between Form L and Form M] were plotted for separate age groups they
were all discovered to be distinctly fan-shaped. Figure 3 is typical of the
arrays at every age level.

"From Figure 3 it becomes clear that the probable error of an I.Q. score is
not a constant amount, but a variable which increases as I.Q. increases. It
has frequently been noted in the literature that gifted subjects show greater
I.Q. fluctuation than do clinical cases with low I.Q.'s . . . . we now see
that this trend is inherent in the I.Q. technique itself, and might have been
predicted on logical grounds." (Terman & Merrill, 1937, p. 44)

Alan S. Kaufman has a great discussion of error of estimation in IQ testing
and variance in scores between one IQ test and another in his recent book IQ
Testing 101. For much, much more on this issue, see

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations)

for further reading suggestions.

A quotation, from an interview with Stephen Hawking in the New York Times:

"Q: What is your I.Q.?

"A: I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12QUESTIONS.html>

~~~
mhartl
_I have no doubt I would win the bet._

Awesome. I love betting at ∞:1 odds. I wager $ε.

~~~
tokenadult
Here are just a few of the many results for an easy Google search:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=infinity+is+not+a+number>

<http://nrich.maths.org/2756>

(I particularly like this one, as the author is a top mathematician, here seen
writing in her younger days.)

<http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/62486.html>

(Ask Dr. Math pages are generally good for answering elementary questions from
students.)

[http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/10/infinity_is_not_a_n...](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/10/infinity_is_not_a_number.php)

(Of course the Good Math, Bad Math blog has a page on this issue.)

<http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-65355.html>

(A discussion on Physics Forum illustrating how some of the confusions about
infinity arise.)

<http://www.jimloy.com/algebra/two.htm>

(Jim Loy's page on this is interesting too.)

------
eof
There definitely _is_ Magic, at least as it's defined here.

This is plain to see in anyone who has worked with children. These kids are
too young to have had very varied experiences, and they come from bad homes,
good homes, and everything in between.

Yet, a very small percentage of them are an easy order of magnitude 'better'
at understanding and communicating complex ideas.

There is no doubt that hard work, and smart work begets better brains.. but
the idea that brilliance and genius is 'something you earn' just doesn't hold
up when you look at kids.

~~~
Dn_Ab
The way I like to look at it is: even if I am not particularly smart, I am not
going to let that fact get in the way of anything I wish to do [n]. I say
don't underestimate the power of concept reframing, perspective changes,
weaknesses leveraging, tenacity and plain not caring whether or not you are
smart.

[n] So long as it is not stupid and without being stupid about it.

------
satori99
When I was young I sailed and raced dinghies and skiffs.

This is a fairly cerebral sport that usually requires a great working
knowledge of the physics invovled in making boats with sails go fast.

Most of the champions I observed were really smart kids in other regards, but
every so often I would see regatta winners that were not 'smart' people in any
academic sense, but who had what appeared to have an inate ability to rig and
sail a boat as fast as possible. This is not a trivial thing, and I am talking
about people who would have likely failed a highschool level physics class on
the same topic.

Is this a type of genius too?

------
espadagroup
I generally agree with this, however it doesn't explain the "Rainman" aka Kim
Peek, geniuses; this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard
work.

~~~
rednum
Didn't he have savant syndrome - ie. his brain was wired differently than
ours? I am not a neurologist, and I can't explain how his mind worked (I doubt
if anyone can) - but I think that question 'how to gain mental abilities of
Kim Peek' is similar to 'what can I do to get autism'. I know it sound harsh,
I just want to say that you probably can't gain this kind of abilities from
any amount of hard work.

~~~
espadagroup
Exactly, but autism doesn't excuse the fact that it is a humanly possible
level of intellectual capacity.

~~~
rednum
Well, we don't know how many 'brain resources' does 'normal' skills that
autistic people lack require - and in my opinion they may require as much
computing power and memory as Kim Peek's genius skills. We don't know how much
of our potential is spent on everyday tasks, like parsing converstaions with
other people.

~~~
Andrew_Quentin
You seem to suggest that the brain is a zero sum game. It may be so, but it is
a mere assumption.

