[HN Gopher] The Expert Mind [pdf] (2006)
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The Expert Mind [pdf] (2006)
Author : JustinSkycak
Score : 101 points
Date : 2024-08-18 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (personal.utdallas.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (personal.utdallas.edu)
| neom wrote:
| People who are good at something have done it in may different
| ways for a very long time, perfecting the optimal way. Shocking.
|
| Edit: this appears to be from 2006, so maybe that was a
| marginally more novel idea then?
| kelsey98765431 wrote:
| The 'shocking' part was that the main advantage comes in
| seconds, suggesting a specialized region of the brain that had
| a fuller development. This is however no longer controversial
| as cognitive functions have emerged as perfectly reasonable
| stand ins for many cases thought to need a full generalized
| intelligence.
| north_african wrote:
| What's the point of mastery anyways? If you are a master software
| engineer, what does that guarantee? is investing in mastery the
| best use of your time?
| ramenbytes wrote:
| I don't know if I'm using the word the same way, but I
| understand the benefit of mastery to be that you automate and
| abstract away things and can get to a point where you're just
| firing off mental routines instead of having to consciously
| focus on the specific task. This means that in a multi-faceted
| task I can focus primarily on the elements I haven't mastered,
| since the things I _have_ mastered come easily and
| automatically. As a consequence, anything that relies in part
| on the mastered skill gets easier.
| JustinSkycak wrote:
| Totally agree. The key idea here is _automaticity_ , the
| ability to execute low-level skills without having to devote
| conscious effort towards them. Automaticity frees up limited
| working memory to execute multiple lower-level skills in
| parallel and perform higher-level reasoning about the lower-
| level skills.
|
| For instance, think about all the skills that a basketball
| player has to execute in parallel: they have to run around,
| dribble the basketball, and think about strategic plays, all
| at the same time. If they had to consciously think about the
| mechanics of running and dribbling, they would not be able to
| do both at the same time, and they would not have enough
| brainspace to think about strategy.
|
| (This comment is basically the intro to a detailed article I
| wrote on the topic with plenty of scientific citations:
| https://www.justinmath.com/cognitive-science-of-learning-
| dev...)
| ramenbytes wrote:
| That is a much better way of putting it, thank you.
|
| (edit) One thing neither of us directly mentioned in our
| comments, but which I feel is important is this bit from
| your article intro:
|
| > Insufficient automaticity, particularly in basic skills,
| inflates the cognitive load of tasks, making it exceedingly
| difficult for students to learn
|
| A real-world example for myself was when I was learning a
| small lick on guitar with an uncomfortable-to-me rhythm. I
| initially just played it slowly so I could get everything
| right, trying to speed it up every now and again to check
| progress. I progressed, but slowly. What ended up
| demolishing the challenge is the separation of the rhythm
| element(s) from everything else involved in the lick, and
| practicing those individually. By themselves they were easy
| to knock out (matter of minutes), and after those few
| minutes when I revisited the entire integrated lick I could
| suddenly knock it out of the park.
| JustinSkycak wrote:
| Great example. Yeah, I fully agree that in general, the
| fastest way acquire a complex skill is to focus your
| practice on the particular components that are giving you
| the most trouble. That's the main theme behind deliberate
| practice: find the bottlenecks and concentrate your
| practice time on them.
| revskill wrote:
| Solve real world problem in a formal way, not ad-hoc.
| convolvatron wrote:
| as opposed to rewatching Seinfeld? Competency is its own
| reward. Does it make me more effective the job market?
| certainly not.
| north_african wrote:
| Any research/advice/tips on how a software engineer makes
| himself more effective in the job market?
| convolvatron wrote:
| you're not there to make software. you're there to pad out
| someones headcount and not make any trouble. associate
| yourself with an enterprise that becomes successful
| independent of your contribution, and leverage that to get
| similar roles elsewhere.
| cyberax wrote:
| Try to master new fields that are just beyond your current
| comfort area. Make sure you actually practice them, and keep
| memorizing stuff.
| eleveriven wrote:
| In a rapidly changing world also
| modin wrote:
| I played Kasparov in 2017, in a setting similar to Capablanca in
| the ingress of the article. Whilst I managed 50+ moves, he was
| sometimes struggling in a way I wouldn't have expected for a GM.
| It so happened that our chess board was turned "upside down" by
| the organisers (we didn't notice until it was time to start;
| white was on row 7,8 instead of 1,2), and I have always wondered
| how much that mattered.
| adonovan wrote:
| I'm surprised neither of you noticed immediately. I would have
| thought it as jarring as a mistuned musical instrument.
| modin wrote:
| We did notice immediately, but we had the first board to play
| following a grand speaker introduction, and we just went with
| it instead of resetting the board with all eyes on us and
| making the hosts look bad. Speaking for myself at least, I
| can't believe he didn't notice immediately too.
|
| It made my noting down of the moves quite hard.
|
| > I would have thought it as jarring as a mistuned musical
| instrument.
|
| This was exactly my thought, how much it mattered to him at
| his level.
| ckcheng wrote:
| > I can't believe he didn't notice immediately too.
|
| Is it possible that maybe Kasparov noticed and just like
| you, he went with it instead of making the hosts look bad?
| YZF wrote:
| This would be my guess. It's hard to imagine Kasparov
| didn't notice. There are variants of chess where the
| pieces are organized differently and obviously as the
| game progresses beyond the opening you can get into all
| sorts of positions. I'm sure Kasparov can calculate from
| any given arrangement of the pieces. The difference would
| be that moves that he would play automatically because of
| preparation now have to be thought through deeper.
|
| I'm impressed parent survived that many moves. Must be a
| good chess player even with the simultaneous game
| setting.
| modin wrote:
| That's what I think, and also what I think I wrote. Sorry
| if it's unclear, I'm not a native English speaker.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| At first I was imagining this was a blindfolded game, in which
| case this would have been especially surprising and impressive!
| modin wrote:
| That would've been impressive for sure! A somewhat recent
| world record[1] I just found shows a blindfolded simul for 48
| boards, with 80% win! (All boards correctly turned, I'd
| expect and hope!)
|
| The games in the article must've been a normal "simul"[2],
| which was what I enjoyed playing too.
|
| [1]: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-
| records/72345-mos... [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_exhibition
| munchler wrote:
| I think you mean sideways, not upside-down? There should be a
| white square in the bottom-right corner from both players'
| point of view.
| modin wrote:
| No, upside-down, or rather rotated 180deg. You have rows 1-8
| and columns a-h (which are usually written in lower case, as
| upper case are used for piece value). h1 and a8 are the white
| corners you mention, with rooks on them initially. White's
| "home" are on row 1 and 2. These coordinates are usually
| printed on the board.
|
| In our case black's home was on row 1,2. The king and queen
| was thankfully positioned "correctly" given this mishap, as
| normally the white queen are on a white square (and likewise
| for black queen and square), but not in our case. White still
| had short castling on his right hand side.
|
| What I wonder is if Kasparov (or any expert) remembers
| movements from the coordinates, rather than (or in addition
| to) seeing the pieces on the board, and how much this
| impacted our game.
| munchler wrote:
| That's interesting. I've never played chess on a physical
| board that had printed row and column ID's. I'm surprised
| anyone would care about that while playing, since it's
| irrelevant to the rules, but I'm no more than a casual
| player.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| > The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that
| experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated
| ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music
| and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the
| schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to engage
| in the kind of effortful study that will improve their reading
| and math skills?
|
| This is an interesting point. I think our schools (in most of the
| West) are proficient in producing generalists. Especially our
| state schools.
|
| I think there is potential for improvement in producing
| specialists.
|
| As one example, go to the top universities in Europe, and look at
| classes in STEM fields. You will find a preponderance of Romanian
| students, far overindexing their relatively small 19 million
| population, which is especially surprising considering their
| relative poverty to other European countries. I would suggest
| that their specialist schools are the key to this surprising
| success.
|
| One thing about specialist schools is that selection is
| necessary. So the public of most Western nations will never
| accept it.
| f1shy wrote:
| > our schools (in most of the West) are proficient in producing
| generalists.
|
| From a german perspective, I would say exactly the opposite.
|
| In my experience, the poorer the country the more you find
| "jacks of all trades" and less mega-super-experts. Of course,
| statistically speaking...
| beardyw wrote:
| > I think there is potential for improvement in producing
| specialists.
|
| Let us not forget that these are human beings. I doubt I will
| hear an adult say "I was produced as a ....".
| ckcheng wrote:
| > the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an
| expert--in chess, music ...--sets a clear challenge before the
| schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to
| engage in the kind of effortful study...
|
| What's interesting is the subtle shift from saying objective
| ability can improve to asking if schools can encourage
| (motivate?) students to engage.
|
| I'm guessing most teachers know that given the right
| circumstance, students can be made to improve in math/reading.
| But getting all/most students to engaged in the right "kind of
| effortful study" is just a different task.
| vik0 wrote:
| I find it extremely depressing that people here wish for more
| experts (i.e. specialists). The greatest minds that have thus far
| graced this planet were not specialists, they exceeded in a wide
| pool of areas. They were, as the saying doesn't go - jack of all
| trades and masters of dozens
| monktastic1 wrote:
| Most of us cannot be those "greatest minds that have thus far
| graced this planet." For many of us, it's more fulfilling to be
| good at one thing than mediocre at dozens.
| wslh wrote:
| I think the core point of being "mediocre at dozens" is that
| you could connect dots that the experts can't, so at the
| macro level you can have advantages while the averages turns
| to specialization.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| I suppose there's levels of mediocre. For the vast majority
| of us, the level of mediocre we could accomplish across
| many fields may not enable us to do much connecting at all.
| But I realize this is all very vague and depends on
| individual traits. I just don't think that what OP points
| out is "extremely depressing."
| haswell wrote:
| I think the key is balance. The people I've worked with
| who are the most effective and successful are really good
| at one or a short list of things, but have their hands in
| many other things.
|
| And often they're really good at the one thing _because_
| they have their hands in many things.
|
| Cultivating a breadth of knowledge often isn't just being
| mediocre in a bunch of subjects, but about broadening
| one's awareness to potential connections and
| opportunities.
|
| If you can't go deep on anything, that shallow knowledge
| may not get you very far.
|
| But if you can go deep on X subject with enough surface
| level knowledge of a variety of potentially related
| topics, you'll be able to accomplish far more interesting
| things than someone with equivalent but exclusive
| knowledge of X.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I have been a deep specialist in my career. Currently I am
| a generalist.
|
| My bosses task me with being the 'dot connector' for a
| bunch of specialists. Seems to work out well.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| I have a thing that I do. I would like to be better at it.
| Insight into how worldwide-recognized experts achieved their
| expertise is of interest to me.
| eleveriven wrote:
| Renaissance-like approach to knowledge and skill acquisition in
| many ways can be seen as outdated. The rise of specialization
| in the modern world is, I think, a response to the increasing
| complexity of many fields.
| north_african wrote:
| Does a "kernel" of a field really does increase in size over
| time? or is it that we are accustomed to being highly
| specialized?
| lxm wrote:
| > The greatest minds that have thus far graced this planet were
| not specialists, they exceeded in a wide pool of areas
|
| For each polymath there's also Michael Jordan and golfing.
| jltsiren wrote:
| It doesn't have to be either-or. Narrow specialists lack the
| intellectual curiosity that would drive them to seek
| understanding. False generalists lack the drive to become good
| at anything. True generalists have wide interests and become
| experts in many things.
|
| You can't be a generalist without being an expert.
| cyberax wrote:
| One thing that is becoming more and more clear, is that
| memorization is absolutely a required part of becoming an expert.
|
| But it's not fun, it's boring, and it takes up a lot of your
| time. You can't really train your memory with a nice Youtube
| video, and it's incompatible with the "learn while playing"
| concept.
|
| So schools in the US tend to sideline it by handwaving that "they
| teach how to think" instead. And I think we're now seeing the
| result, with the ever-declining test results. The NAEP scores in
| the US peaked in 2014 and have been declining ever since:
| https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ushistory/results/scores/
|
| It's also interesting that there's no similar decline in China,
| where rote memorization is unavoidable because of the writing
| system.
| shostack wrote:
| I'm not sure how you can link these test results to lack of
| memorization when so many other factors are likely at play from
| the worsening parental support many children face with school
| due to economic decline, to the pittance teachers are paid, to
| the war on education some states seem to be playing (curiously
| they are all heavy red states).
| cyberax wrote:
| The scores are falling in the Blue states a-flush with cash.
| E.g. Washington: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/s
| tateprofile/over...
|
| The Red states are actually staying fairly steady.
|
| I don't think that the lack of memorization is the main
| reason, but it definitely is one of the reasons. Mobile
| phones and tablets in education are also not helping, and
| their spread is well-correlated with the start of the
| decline.
| lbalazscs wrote:
| There is a difference between memorization and rote
| memorization. In chess, rote memorization of master games or
| chess positions is not a recognized training method. Chess
| memory improves as a byproduct of analyzing many positions.
| blueboo wrote:
| That seems reasonable, but at the same time my understanding
| is that there's enormous value in novice and intermediate
| players to memorizing openings. I wonder if that effect is
| significant enough to categorize chess as another high-rote-
| memorisation-affinity task.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Learning openings beyond a very basic level is not going to
| help the club player very much and it's generally a good
| way for them to waste their time.
|
| Being the best out of the opening will typically put you a
| "quarter pawn" ahead, maybe putting you ahead as white or
| equalizing as white. Then the novice player will
| immediately hang a knight and end up 2.75 pawns behind.
| Then his opponent will hang a bishop and you'll be a
| quarter pawn ahead again. This isn't to say you learn
| nothing from openings, if you're weak out of the opening it
| tends to put you under pressure and make it easier to make
| a mistake, but you don't need to learn them very deeply and
| just need to understand a few moves and the sweeping ideas
| behind them... not 60 moves deep into ruy lopez opening
| theory.
|
| There's far more emphasis on it at the grandmaster level
| because people are playing a tight enough game elsewhere
| for that slight advantage to really matter. To the point of
| grandmasters like Bobby Fischer complaining it ruined the
| game and inventing variants like chess960.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Rote memorization is absolutely a mainstay of learning both
| openings and endgames.
|
| It's usually a part of tactics training as well although not
| as purely, the polgar sisters for instance were drilled on
| the same chess positions day in day out in a spaced
| repetition system. This is going away a bit because chess
| puzzle databases have so many unique positions that there's
| less need for repetition.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| "In the mind of a beginner there are many possibilities; in the
| mind of an expert there are very few." -- Unattributed
| eleveriven wrote:
| We need to balance expertise with a beginner's mindset
| sweeter wrote:
| I do find it baffling the mythos that surrounds "talent" and
| "meritocracy" in the West. I subscribe to the idea that so-called
| "geniuses" are made and not born that way. Obviously there are
| factors into this, like success early on, and a variety of
| factors that may influence your predisposition to doing a certain
| thing well.
|
| But, at the same time, I know for a fact that far too many people
| put way too much weight on "talent" and often tell themselves
| that they can't do something. Someone may see you do something
| (like drawing or playing music) and say "wow, you are talented, I
| could never do that" but what you didn't see was how awful they
| were when they started and the thousands of hours they put into
| studying light and practicing constructing form from abstract
| shapes.
|
| I think that this is a dangerous lie. You, in fact, _could_ get
| good at drawing... and you could overcome any blocks to that if
| you put in the effort and work. You just don 't want to or are
| not following through. Some people will naturally be better,
| sure, but that is no excuse to say you are incapable of doing
| something. I almost find that notion insulting.
| codazoda wrote:
| > far too many people put way too much weight on "talent" and
| often tell themselves that they can't do something
|
| I consider myself a "maker" and a serial hobbyist. I see this
| in others who seem to be afraid to make things for fear of
| failing. I love to document and share my own process and that
| sometimes feels like showing off. Maybe I should share more
| about my failures. I've recently come to the realization that
| what I really want is to inspire others to explore their
| creativity, learn new skills, and gain the confidence to make
| their own projects.
|
| A genius, I am not, and I'm talented in only a few narrow
| areas, but I love to explore many.
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