The distinction between skill and talent is very important to me. I like to use "talent" to refer to innate abilities and "skill" to refer to developed abilities. I believe that, given an infinite amount of time, anyone can develop any skill. However, since in life we have time constraints, it's prudent to be aware of our talents and build upon them.
"Soar With Your Strengths" by Donald Clifton and Paul Nelson (which I have yet to read) warns of the tendency to focus too heavily on weaknesses. While it is important to compensate for your weaknesses, in order to be successful you should focus more heavily on maximizing your strengths. I couldn't agree more.
My personal story: I would not list athletics as a talent of mine. I'm not horrible, but I'm just about average at any sport I pick up. I spent an ungodly number of hours practicing basketball in high school. I was better than average, but I was never going to be great. Greatness was not attainable for me in four years given my talents.
Meanwhile, my philosophy for academics was "the minimum necessary to get an A." As I realized later, my biggest talent is academics, especially analysis, and I would have had far more success building on that talent (as I do now). I'm not saying I should have completely avoided sports, just that it wasn't the wisest focus for all my practice time.
This video deals with the distinction. Although he uses "talent" to refer to acquired abilities, which doesn't lend credibility to my definition... I'll keep using the words as I defined them though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUuJo_DeyI
My favorite part is about taking 10,000 hours to develop a skill. That's 3 hours a day for 10 years. It's ironic that at age 14 I started playing basketball about 3 hours a day. I'm 25 now. Maybe I should have kept it up... I think according to this definition, my only current skills are eating and sleeping. Hopefully by the time I'm 35 I'll have gathered a few more.
Talent: An innate affinity for a certain activity.
Skill: An ability acquired through practice.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Actuary
A friend recently played me a snippet of a podcast called the BS Report with Bill Simmons. Bill had a guest on named Rick Reilly, and Rick was complaining about people disparaging him on their blogs. His grievance was, "I don't really want to read [criticisms by] people who have never met me. Or some guy that's an Actuarial by day, and at night he's trying to do this blog and he's pissed that he never got hired as a sports writer, so he's gonna take it out on me and other people that are hired. I don't really need to hear his gripes."
I wasn't aware that my profession, with one of the most strenuous professional exam processes in the world, was a typical fall-back job for out-of-work sports writers. I also wasn't aware that we're adjectives.
Actuary (n): One who specializes in the quantification of risk.
Actuarial (adj): Of or pertaining to an actuary.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The importance of logic
Shortly after the "stupid people are happier" comment, another conversation took place which included a logical fallacy. Can you spot it?
Person A: "How are you today?"
Person B: "I'm doing fine."
A: "You look quite happy."
B: "Are you trying to say I'm stupid?"
Though this was a joke, this logical fallacy, called "affirming the consequent" is actually very pervasive and often quite hard to detect.
Logically, here's the form:
If P then Q
Q
Therefore P
This works in some situations:
If Bob is a human, then Bob is a Homo sapien
Bob is a Homo sapien
Therefore, Bob is a human
But it does not work in others:
If Jill got hit by a train, then she needs serious medical attention.
Jill needs serious medical attention.
Jill got hit by a train.
Jill is probably glad this is not sound reasoning, or else she'd have a hard time with doctors ("Jill, it appears that your appendix is about to burst. I must again advise you to stay away from railroad tracks.").
It seems like these would be very easy to recognize, but they can be very subtle. TV News personalities love them. Although ad hominem and slippery slope probably could be the most popular, from my limited exposure. Counting fallacies is pretty much the only way I can stand to watch Fox News.
Fallacies can also be very funny, however. Some friends and I recently laid the groundwork for our Fallacious Fitness Program. We noted that, if you get done with your workout and you aren't tired, then you didn't exercise hard enough. So the purpose of a workout program is to make you tired. Thus you can be more fit if you incorporate as many tiring activities as possible into your daily life. Some suggestions would be: using the stairs, parking far away, eating deep-fried foods, riding your bike to work, driving long distances, reading very challenging books, watching basketball for 6+ hours, and staying up really late. As long as you're tired, you must have worked out.
This can be combined with the fallacy of constitution to provide an eating regime. The rule: As long as the food item contains something healthy, it itself is healthy. Some examples might include: fruit roll-ups, chocolate-covered cherries, fried potatoes, deep-fried mushrooms, broccoli-cheddar soup, corn flakes, and so on.
Person A: "How are you today?"
Person B: "I'm doing fine."
A: "You look quite happy."
B: "Are you trying to say I'm stupid?"
Though this was a joke, this logical fallacy, called "affirming the consequent" is actually very pervasive and often quite hard to detect.
Logically, here's the form:
If P then Q
Q
Therefore P
This works in some situations:
If Bob is a human, then Bob is a Homo sapien
Bob is a Homo sapien
Therefore, Bob is a human
But it does not work in others:
If Jill got hit by a train, then she needs serious medical attention.
Jill needs serious medical attention.
Jill got hit by a train.
Jill is probably glad this is not sound reasoning, or else she'd have a hard time with doctors ("Jill, it appears that your appendix is about to burst. I must again advise you to stay away from railroad tracks.").
The reason why the first argument works is that the first statement is actually an "if and only if" statement (which in formal logic is usually indicated by an "iff", which I always dug). P implies Q, but Q also implies P, so the statement is valid by standard if-then reasoning, technically called "modus ponens."
It seems like these would be very easy to recognize, but they can be very subtle. TV News personalities love them. Although ad hominem and slippery slope probably could be the most popular, from my limited exposure. Counting fallacies is pretty much the only way I can stand to watch Fox News.
Fallacies can also be very funny, however. Some friends and I recently laid the groundwork for our Fallacious Fitness Program. We noted that, if you get done with your workout and you aren't tired, then you didn't exercise hard enough. So the purpose of a workout program is to make you tired. Thus you can be more fit if you incorporate as many tiring activities as possible into your daily life. Some suggestions would be: using the stairs, parking far away, eating deep-fried foods, riding your bike to work, driving long distances, reading very challenging books, watching basketball for 6+ hours, and staying up really late. As long as you're tired, you must have worked out.
This can be combined with the fallacy of constitution to provide an eating regime. The rule: As long as the food item contains something healthy, it itself is healthy. Some examples might include: fruit roll-ups, chocolate-covered cherries, fried potatoes, deep-fried mushrooms, broccoli-cheddar soup, corn flakes, and so on.
So I hope this has helped drive home the importance of being aware of logical fallacies. The greatest minds throughout history have all been very aware of fallacies, so if you develop you awareness of them, you could be an amazingly intelligent person as well.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Happiness
Someone at work recently made the observation that "Stupid people are happier."
In other words, "Ignorance is bliss." This is a concern for me, as I place a high value on learning. Are my efforts to improve my understanding of the world simply going to lead to unhappiness?
King Solomon seems to think so in Ecclesiastes 1:18:
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."
But I don't completely agree. I can buy that, on the whole, those who are unaware of the often brutal truths of the world could potentially be happier on a day-to-day basis. However, they are probably not properly preparing themselves for misfortune, and hence will likely suffer more when it occurs. (You know that place where willful ignorance meets foreseeable accident? I'm there.)
In statistical terms, stupid people might have a higher average happiness, but also a much higher variance. In investment terms, stupidity has a higher potential return to compensate for increased risk.
Actuaries tend to be very risk-averse. We also tend to be very learned. If these traits are related, which one is the cause?
I'll accept that if I kept myself ignorant of certain facts I might be happier. But predictability makes me happy. Having control of my life makes me happy. I'm not willing to give up those things. Too risky.
As stated in the video I Love Progress Bars: "What we think we like are surprises, but did you know 99% of surprises suck?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vYoso8Af0
In other words, "Ignorance is bliss." This is a concern for me, as I place a high value on learning. Are my efforts to improve my understanding of the world simply going to lead to unhappiness?
King Solomon seems to think so in Ecclesiastes 1:18:
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."
But I don't completely agree. I can buy that, on the whole, those who are unaware of the often brutal truths of the world could potentially be happier on a day-to-day basis. However, they are probably not properly preparing themselves for misfortune, and hence will likely suffer more when it occurs. (You know that place where willful ignorance meets foreseeable accident? I'm there.)
In statistical terms, stupid people might have a higher average happiness, but also a much higher variance. In investment terms, stupidity has a higher potential return to compensate for increased risk.
Actuaries tend to be very risk-averse. We also tend to be very learned. If these traits are related, which one is the cause?
I'll accept that if I kept myself ignorant of certain facts I might be happier. But predictability makes me happy. Having control of my life makes me happy. I'm not willing to give up those things. Too risky.
As stated in the video I Love Progress Bars: "What we think we like are surprises, but did you know 99% of surprises suck?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vYoso8Af0
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