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User: simple_impulse

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  1. What is expertise exactly? on The Expert Mind · · Score: 1

    What if both sides are correct?

    It may take ten years to get really good at something. But there might be those who are good at something from the beginning. I think there could be a key. You just need to have some core ability or knowledge.

    Think about it. I can draw. Many people draw tens of years and get no better. Others are really good from beginning and improve really fast. It is often so that you just find out something that works, some neat trick. "How about if I vary line width? Neat-o!" It takes a long time for some people to catch up, to figure out what exactly makes the difference. Some guys just pick up the important thing from the beginning.

    So, this core ability or knowledge could be the key. It might be that it is not well known and that the teachers do not know what it actually is. It might be, as in previous posts here, that they talk about talent so that they know it when they see it even if they can't point out exactly what it is.

    This is intriguing because if you can pinpoint the core ability or knowledge, you can improve dramatically and fast. That is, if you can exploit it.

    In this Scientific American article they discussed chunking. It's kind of categorization and it improves memory. With these chunks the expert can have at least one level of abstraction more in thinking than the novice. But if this chunking needs ten years to form and the process is more or less random, wouldn't it be nice if you could skip the random part and use it at will?

    That would be superhuman talent. Wishful thinking, probably. But nice idea.