What is talent?....

The only reason i am putting this into the medical section is becasue it has to do with genes and so forth.

I wanted to know wat u all think on the subject of talent. I for one think its strictly a skill that anyone can pick up, if they have been exposed long enough and from a young enough age. Some ppl think that its all genetic and that some ppl "just have it" when they are born. So that means its genetic. I dont beleive there is such a thing as "music gene" or a "drawing gene". Do u??..

Some ppl say its "God given talent", but thats really not provable in anyway, so i dunno, i dont really consider that being an option.

So, like i said earlier a talent is jsut a build up of a certain skill. I am pretty sure anyone can be a musical talent if they jsut stuck to it and the key thing is being exposed to it a young age.

Any thought??...

well id like to think that may be the case that its in your gene's ,as i feel that the better your gene's are reflect on ur intellegence and hence would speed up the way u pick up all the skills used which ever talent that may be and your intellegence reflects on how creative u may be, as top pianists do have the acedimic back round whic again reflects on their music. if any 1 else mybe thinks this may be the case id like to hear any follow up there might be to this

I believe some people are more "predisposed" to some things than other people. Take Mozart as an example. I seriously doubt that 1 in 1,000 kids could play as he no matter at what age the were exposed to music.

Everyone may 'eventually' be able to play like Mozart be for most it would take years if not decades.

Same as with most any task- some people are predisposed. I do believe there are certain genes that allow one person to do something easier or quicker or better than virtually anyone else.

Go hunting with a glue-green color blind person sometime. They can see "through" brush! It will blow your mind.

Every now and then perserverance overcomes 'talent.' There are many stories of someone overcoming great difficulties to do things. Lance Armstrong
It could be said he overcame death!

There are thousands of examples of one person better so much better than others at some task that I have no trouble believing in genetics.

its at least partially genes or we wouldnt be able to play music better than a giraffe lol like a person with asthma wont have the potential to run as well as someone w/o. u wont be able to play music as well as someone with more natural talent ROFL

Interesting....I do believe that people have the natural ability to learn faster than others when it comes to certain things. I will use myself for an example of this....please understand I am not bragging or anything, but its a good example.

The first time I picked up an instrument (Guitar) I was able to learn it faster and more efficiently than others that had tried to do so. I'm not saying that I have some sort of "super-brain", but for some reason unknown to me I am able to learn musical instruments with complete ease. I play many instruments, and never took lessons for any of them. The first time I ever picked up a Violin, Cello, Mandolin, Sax, etc. I was able to play it with ease, and within a couple of days I was very proficient at it. I guess some things just come naturally to some people...

That being said, if "natural" talent did not exist how could anyone explain how a less than 10 year old kid with a mental disorder is able to play the most complicated forms of Piano music. I forget the kids name, but he can play Bebop Jazz that even the likes of Thelonious Monk and Dizzy would be proud of. I have no way to explain this, so there may very well be an inherent talent or gene that predetermines what talent someone will have.

If re-incarnation or something similar is really true then maybe the reason people have "talent" is because the former "themselves" had skills in something similar. Now, I'm not saying this is true, but it just may be one explanation!

Originally posted by Jazzerman

That being said, if "natural" talent did not exist how could anyone explain how a less than 10 year old kid with a mental disorder is able to play the most complicated forms of Piano music. I forget the kids name, but he can play Bebop Jazz that even the likes of Thelonious Monk and Dizzy would be proud of. I have no way to explain this, so there may very well be an inherent talent or gene that predetermines what talent someone will have.

The only way i could possibly explain this is that there seems be a balancing act between mental capability and musical ability in the boys mind. Its like when u lack something in ur mind, some other ability is hieghtened. Kinda like blind ppl and how their other senses are heightened becasue of their lack of visual sense. Could talent then be an opposite/balancing of some component of the brain that is repressed or lacking of???
Does everyone have a talent???...
What makes some ppl have talent and others not have it if ur answer to the question is no??
If talent is a gene, can we eventually manipulate it and import talent into ppl??...

Originally posted by LuDaCrIs
If talent is a gene, can we eventually manipulate it and import talent into ppl??...

If everyone is made to be talented then would that not become the norm and diminish its value as far as we currently see it?

Originally posted by Jonna
If everyone is made to be talented then would that not become the norm and diminish its value as far as we currently see it?

Thats true, but i am really searching for wat talent is exactly.
People say that God given talent is something of a gift, but wat exactly does that mean. If God gave u a gift, that would mean ur brain is somehow different, meaning ur way of thought. If that is true then talent is really another way of viewing the world????...Its not an actual genetic imprint that makes up who u are??...

Originally posted by LuDaCrIs
Thats true, but i am really searching for wat talent is exactly.
People say that God given talent is something of a gift, but wat exactly does that mean. If God gave u a gift, that would mean ur brain is somehow different, meaning ur way of thought. If that is true then talent is really another way of viewing the world????...Its not an actual genetic imprint that makes up who u are??...

What if this god of yours gave a person the talent of being fluent in the ways of witchcraft or black arts?

study some genetics and you'll see how talent can be genetic. not everone can sing. however, if one of your parents(my mother is an opera and broadway singer), you have a good chance of having vocal talent yourself. i do i just hate to sing. my dad was an excellent trumpet player, my sister a concert pianist. the father of my children has NO musical talent(well, a little bit). so will our 2 children inherit my abilities? too early to tell. on the other end of that, my aunt and uncle have no musical abilities and neither do their children. but they as well as their children have a stong green thumb. from my own observations and what i learned in genetics classes, i think talent can be inherited, but i don't think that theory can be 100% proven as there are always special cases.

Originally posted by LuDaCrIs

The only way i could possibly explain this is that there seems be a balancing act between mental capability and musical ability in the boys mind. Its like when u lack something in ur mind, some other ability is hieghtened. Kinda like blind ppl and how their other senses are heightened becasue of their lack of visual sense. Could talent then be an opposite/balancing of some component of the brain that is repressed or lacking of???
Does everyone have a talent???...
What makes some ppl have talent and others not have it if ur answer to the question is no??

If talent is a gene, can we eventually manipulate it and import talent into ppl??...

My opinion, is that you are on the right track here Ludacris. I don't believe that it is a gene. I believe it is in the brain, and how we process information. Idiot savants are a great example of this. I watched a show once. Were they took an idiot savant, up to around the 8th floor of a highrise in a big city. They sat him in front of a window, and let him watch the traffic going by for a few minutes. Then they asked him questions about the cars he had watched pass.

He literally could go in order of the cars that had passed. He could tell you the color of the car, the make, the year it was manufactured, who designed it. Basically anything you could have asked him about any of the cars that passed, he knew instantly. Things that there is no way he could have known, simply from watching the cars pass below.

So what is unique about idiot savants? They have brain damage. The guy that watched the cars pass, couldn't do much else. He had to be dressed, and cared for, because he couldn't do it himself. He couldn't even read etc.. Yet anything you wanted to know about any car ever made, he knew. Kind of like Rainman. So I think you are right, about it not being genetics, but the way the brain functions.

I saw this at work in myself, fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it. When I was little, I had a bad accident sledding. I went head first into a tree going probably 25-30 mph. (It was in the mountains, so the hills tend to be a little steeper.) Anyways, I noticed a change in how I processed information afterwards. The best example I can give, was when I was taught to subtract in 1st? grade. They had already taught us how to add. So when it came time to learn to subtract. The teacher explained how to do it. I was frusterated with the teacher, because I felt the way she was teaching it was harder then necissary.

So I raised my hand, and asked her. Couldn't you just figure out what to add to the bottom number, that would equal the top number being subtracted? She was shocked, and said why yes, yes you can. I didn't know it at the time, but I was performing algebra without being taught how to do it. I am 100% convinced, that my "gift" was because of my sledding accident.

When my head hit the tree, it hit on the upper portion of my forehead on the left side. This is key here. Because I had become right brained dominant from it. Right brain is the creative side. Left side is your intellectual side. There are many ways I am deficient when it comes to intellect. (Look at my spelling. :-)) On the other hand, I can play instruments by ear much like Jazzerman. To people that aren't musicians, I have a talent or gift in this area. So while I became very good, or gifted in some areas. I was worse in others.

My brain naturally balanced out the defect IMO. I do however still consider it a gift, because without that accident, I probably wouldn't be able to do the things I can. I believe that everyone has gifts or talents. It's a matter of figuring out what it is. We all process information differently. So the way you process it, is going to be unique to someone that doesn't process it the same way. That's the talent, or what sets you apart.

Tom Sawyer

I believe talent is a combination of factors that creates in one a heightened ability to perform in a particular discipline.

Factors such as:

Passive experiential training, leading to a development of a particular neuronal configuration of the aspects of the mind or brain that allows for quicker understanding of a particular subject or subjects.

Genetic predisposition which determines the development of the centers of the brain which affect the rate of learning and comprehension of a particular subject.

But most of all, I believe that talent comes from, in addition to the natural predispositions listed above, a love of and desire to participate in a particular activity. Rather a subconscious choice made by an individual that leads them to excel in their endeavor.

No, I don't think God has anything to do with it. If it does, well, we all know God plays dice. I don't think he'd really know the outcome until he rolled those bones.

[edit on 1-9-2004 by DeltaChaos]

Very interesting Mr. Sawyer! I have never heard of something like that happening, but you are indeed lucky in many ways because of it.

I wonder if some talent, like that described by psychosgirl is more environmental than natural. Meaning if you are brought up in a musical household, and are around music all the time, it may be only the environment that determines how much you learn. If someone is constantly subjected to a certain stimuli, then they would essentially adapt to that, and excel at whatever task that stimuli induces. Just a thought anyhow...

A lot of talent is, however, natural, and I don't know if we will ever have a reason for why talent develops. It feels quite weird when you just know something, but have no idea how or why you know it.