School never meant much to me (but it made me feel like a genius).

I'm sure there are many people that would be happy with simply doing what they were good at.  If you're really good at something, why not get famous for it, make money doing it, essentially just live your life doing that?  Like I said I bet most people would be happy with that, and there's nothing wrong with that.  But for me, I didn't value that as much.  Maybe if it was for the sake of others or because I really enjoyed it, maybe then I wouldn't mind.  But otherwise...  Well if you're always just doing what you're already good at, then how do you ever learn something new?  How do you ever improve yourself?

For me, school was something I was really good at.

I say I was really good at it, and someone who had the full picture might say, "Now that's a pretty big understatement right there."  I was really good at it.

I really wanted to learn something from school.  I wanted to learn something new.  I wanted to improve.  But more than learning or improving, it always felt more like a very tedious task.  Like if you were told to count a bunch of dots.  They say you have to practice it a lot so that you learn how to count, and I would feel like, "Well, I already know how to count; I don't doubt my ability to count a bunch of dots."  In a class it would be them telling you a problem and the method to solve it.  And I knew how to recognize problems, and I knew how to use methods.

I know I heard some time that students only remember some very small percentage of what they are taught after a class is over.  I'm pretty sure I don't fit in that category.  Maybe my general memory was just very good.  Or maybe my memory organization was very good.  Either way, I tended to remember everything.  Everything that was important, that is.  I was almost always able to determine, during the class, the big picture, the key points, the most important details, and then the smaller details that were less important but sometimes worth remembering.  And then I would walk out, walk in for the next class and think, "All right, I remember the big picture, I remember the key points, the most important details, and even some of the smaller details."  And they would say, "All right, let's go back to what we discussed last class.  Let's look at more examples so you can see the big picture.  Let's highlight the key points in more clarity.  Let's examine the details to determine what's most important," on and on for weeks.  Internally I'd yell out, "I know all that.  I got it already!  I already got it!!"

Let's go back to the counting analogy.  If you think of it as a real class, then this would be like what I would hear, and what I would think, and [everything else that I didn't care much about].
Okay, so the class is a class on counting a bunch of stuff by hand manual target enumeration in a 2D space.  And we're going to spend 4 weeks on the most important concept of this class: partitioning.
If you have a whole lot of stuff to count a number of objects on the order of magnitude of 10^5 or higher, then it will take too long to count everything one by one... [Paragraphs on why it would take too long to count everything one by one along with plenty of examples...]
So that's why some really smart person from the past developed the partitioning method!  Let's consider the most basic form of partitioning: square partitions on a rectangular grid.  [Paragraphs on what square partitions and rectangular grids are along with plenty of examples...]
Now what is the benefit of partitioning, you ask?  Well let me ask you this: if every partition had the same number of objects inside, then how would you compute the total number of objects?  Multiply the number of partitions by the number of objects in one partition!  [Paragraph explanation]
And then, you could get the number of partitions by multiplying rows times columns! [...]
But what if every partition doesn't have the same number of objects?  This is why it's better to try and guess the average number in each partition compute an Empircally Determined Partitioning Average (EDPA).  [...]
[Many paragraphs on choosing partition size]
[Many paragraphs on using rectangular partitions instead of square partitions]
[and so on...]

Now I'm probably bad at estimating people's abilities to learn and understand and memorize, but doesn't that all sound pretty simple?  If you have a bunch of dots that you want to count, you can break it up into smaller sections, guess how many dots are in each section on the average, and multiply that number by the total number of sections.  I think most people would be able to remember that concept, even after only hearing it once or twice.  For me that's how most classes felt.  The concept would be simple enough to me, so it's not like it would be something that I would forget.  And then the explanations of how to apply the concept and why it was important and necessary and all of that would go on and on and on...

Sometimes, it even felt like I could have come up with the ideas myself.  Now that was something I wanted to learn to do.  I didn't want to memorize a bunch of effective methods to solve a bunch of problems.  I wanted to learn how to take a problem and determine an effective method to solve it.  I wanted to learn things that were broader and more powerful.  And by that, I mean things that were basic and simple, and how they applied to broad areas.  Think about this: you could learn that by breaking up a large grid into smaller pieces you can count a whole lot of stuff by hand, and so you've learned a method to do just that, count a lot of stuff by hand.  But, you could also see it as: by breaking up a larger problem into many smaller pieces, when you can take a solution to the smaller piece and apply it to the larger problem, you can more easily solve the larger problem, whether that is... counting a lot of stuff by hand, or running large computer code in parallel, or performing a complex task...  If you learn like that, then what you've learned is not just a method to count a lot of stuff by hand, but a concept that applies to many more areas.  I wanted to learn that.  Simple concepts and methods and ways of thinking and reasoning that applied to most anything and everything you wanted to do.  But that's not what school taught you.  Not that that doesn't make sense.  Most people go to school to learn how to solve their one problem, and keep solving that problem over and over, so why would you want to teach applications to any and every problem?  You just teach people to solve their one problem that they are going to solve, over and over.
For a better example of broad applications, take addition.  If someone teaches you the sum of 19+37, then, well, you know the sum of 19+37.  But if you learn how to add numbers, then you can figure out the sum of any two numbers.  Now if someone asks you to add 19+37, well it might take you more time to calculate the answer than someone who's reciting the number 56 from memory, but you know how to add.  And if, beyond that, you understand the basic concept of addition, then you can understand how to add, say, binary numbers or hexadecimal numbers, even without learning how to do both explicitly.  So, if you are taught 19+37, and then you are taught 19+38, and then 20+39 and so on, have you learned something new?  If you don't know a general method for adding numbers, it sure looks like it.  To someone who doesn't know how to add, it might look really impressive.  You now know what 19+37 is, and what 19+38 is, and you can even add crazy stuff like 191+372.  Now you know a lot.  But most people know how to add, and they'll say, "Well wait a minute, that's just the same concept; it's not that impressive."  If you know how to add, then it's pretty meaningless to talk about how many specific combinations of numbers you can add.  You should be able to add all of them!  But then, surely learning to add different types of numbers, like binary numbers is new and different and meaningful, right?  Well I don't know.  Because it's actually really similar.  You can use the same method; you can apply the same concepts.  If you understand that, then you should be able to add numbers in any base.  There's no need to be taught how to add base 9 numbers specifically if you know the higher concept.  It's not something different.  If you wanted to learn something more, you would have to go beyond the concepts you already know.  For this example, you'd have to learn something like multiplication.  But, is that actually any different?  If you understand the concept of a binary operation, and are able to take the rules of a given operation and develop an efficient method to perform the operation within the group to which it applies, then maybe not.  You should be able to make sense of any operation, not just addition and multiplication.
For me it always just felt like I was learning everything on one level higher.  They would teach me 19+37 and I would say, "I got you.  I get how to add numbers."  And then they would go on to teach 19+38 and 20+39 to the people who were more focused on reciting 56 and 57 and 59.  And then they would teach how to add binary numbers and I would say, "Oh I see, there's a system behind it all and that's how it works."  And then they would go on to teach how to add in hexadecimal to the people who weren't looking for some larger system or some broader reasoning behind addition.  Take that to the level of individual classes, and they would say, "Here are some new classes!" and I would say, "I know how to memorize and I know how to think logically, especially in a manner that is going to let me succeed in a class when you teach the class how most classes are taught."  And anyone would say, "Well look at all the new and different stuff you learned!" but to me it just felt as if every class was so frustratingly similar.

As the classes went higher, they just felt more complex.  More "complex."  And more specific.  But for me it was just more of the same.  Determine what's important.  Memorize that.  Determine the key concepts.  Memorize them.
Like if you were to go farther in manual target enumeration with partitions, and learn that you can compute the EDPA by extending a line in both directions through the approximate 2D median of the objects in the direction of the density gradient vector, and taking the average of manual enumerations of evenly spaced samples of partitions that lie on this line.  And I would say that it's not that complex, you're just saying that if you want to count dots by hand using partitions, then you can guess what the average amount of dots is in each partition by drawing a line from areas with lots of dots to areas with few dots, and averaging the number in some of the partitions along this line.  You can lecture on it for hours, and you can tell me chapters to read and assign sets of homework problems, but it all feels so pointless because it's something I already understood.  It's not something I'm going to forget.  It's something I actually did come up with myself.

And it just went on.  And on.  And on.  And it always felt like such a waste of time.  And my mind turned into a broken record, repeating, "What am I doing here?  Why am I doing this?  Isn't this just a waste of my time?"  In some classes I would space out.  Plan out a new game, or attempt to solve some random puzzle or plan out a game strategy.  Sometimes doze off in the after-lunch class.  Yet somehow I always managed to hear just enough to know all the important stuff, so I never had to study.  The extent of my studying was usually something like 20-30 minutes refreshing my memory before an exam, and that was all the studying I knew.  And along with those other questions another one often popped up, asking, "Why am I an A student?  Why am I the one who's acing every exam?"  There were many people who always took notes, always went to office hours, studied diligently, carefully completed all the homework, and never came close to matching my performance in classes.  But I never told anyone, so no one ever knew.  Not that I was acing every class, and not that I never put the least bit of effort into it.  It wasn't even that I was someone who didn't want to try hard.  There was just never any reason to do so.  I could have learned the things more effectively, or practiced more and solved them quicker, but it never felt like it was benefiting me, in terms of learning and in terms of grade.  A 90% was an A and an A was the highest letter grade, so I saw everything beyond 90% as just safety points.  They weren't good for anything but ensuring that I kept an A grade.
And then, sometimes there were things that I didn't get perfectly.  Even those, I probably knew better than most of the other students.  Just, I didn't have them down as strongly as I had other concepts.  I didn't know everything there was to know about the concept.  I hadn't reached that broader level.  "Well yeah, you're just a student, so you're not supposed to understand everything in perfect detail," the voice representing possible responses from the average person says.  But that was a problem for me.  I stopped caring about whether I knew my stuff really well, or whether I just knew it well enough to get an A.  If it was an easy concept for me, then I'd just hear it and understand it and know it really well.  If it wasn't, then I'd know there were missing pieces, but it never mattered cause I could always understand it well enough to get an A.  I mean, it was always just memorizing something and understanding some logical concepts.  It wasn't like I was doing something new to me (the concepts were new but memorizing and thinking logically wasn't), so it never felt worthwhile to develop an understanding of all the concepts to the level which I believed I was capable of.  Any desire I had to develop a complete understanding of the subjects got washed away, washed away with any of the motivation I had ever had in school, in a never-ending sea of why's.
Why?

Why?



Why?

Even now I'm not sure.  "Why?  Why didn't you do more there then?" the voice asks.  I don't know.  I didn't care enough to.  It's not that I hated the subjects, just, I didn't really love them either.  And I wasn't connected.  There was no reason to ask professors for help when you didn't need any help.  And I just couldn't imagine going in saying, "Hey yeah, you know, I think you're teaching the class too slow for me, and not in a broad enough manner.  Could you just change the class to some really broad class that contains the older, narrower, simpler version of the class but goes beyond that too?  Or, better yet, could you tell me the fundamental problem the class is trying to solve so that I could try to solve it myself.  I think I'd get more out of it that way."  Yeah.  That wasn't really my style.  And there was no reason to connect to classmates.  If they would have asked, they'd say, "Hey, do you want to study with us for a few hours?"  And I'd look at them funny, wondering, "So… what would you be doing for those few hours?"  And they'd pull out multiple notebooks full of detailed notes and well-organized sections and neatly highlighted key points, and books with all the important pages marked, and sections underlined for emphasis.  And I'd pull out a notebook with a half a page of seemingly unorganized scribbling.  And they'd pull out old tests, with 80% written at the top.  And I'd pull out an old test, with 98% written at the top.  And then I'd put it back, asking them, mentally, "Do you really want to know the truth?" and walk off sighing.  Because, I think you might be better off not knowing.  Because I don't think, I - don't - think, this knowledge would make you feel any better about yourself.  So if you want me to help you, well, I can do that, but, if you want me to study or do homework with you, well… I don't know about that.
No one ever knew really.
No one ever knew, and even that was part of the problem.  The professor says, "You did really well.  You must have worked really hard," and I think back laughing, wondering if I was supposed to say, "No, it's just that your class, and school in general, is a complete joke to me."  Anyone that knew I scored well on all the tests would think, "Wow, that guy must study a lot."  Yeah.  You would think.  And everyone out there, everyone out there, is saying, "You did great.  You showed you learned a lot, and you surely worked hard, so how could you be dissatisfied with that?"  Well…  Well……
It's like if I was so tall I could reach 10 feet up in the air, and they were teaching how to dunk.  And everyone's impressed I can dunk a basketball on a 10-foot tall rim.  But I can… reach 10 feet up.  I didn't do anything!  And they wonder why you're not happy when you can do so well.  But I didn't do anything!  I'm sure, I'm sure there are people who would be happy just standing there dunking on a 10-foot rim all day, or maybe even, maybe there aren't that many people that wouldn't be happy with that.  But you could look at all the people who can reach 8 feet and jump 2 and think, "Well if I could jump 2 feet, I could reach 12 feet up."  If I aimed even higher than that 10-foot rim everyone else thought was so great, I could do even more.
Of course if you were really tall, it'd be immediately obvious.  As for a level of understanding, or speed of understanding, or memory or logic, none of those are visible.  So the world, a world that can't evaluate those characteristics easily, looks and says, "You surely worked hard.  You surely learned a lot."  But I look back, and… I really don't know.  I think my brain was almost idle, or simply auto piloting when I was in classes or doing schoolwork, and then I usually tried to put it to work outside of class.
And then I got degrees, and everyone, everyone who doesn't know, will look and say that that is the measure of how much you know.  That shows how much you've learned, and how strong your ability is.  Because you've got to go to school to know any of that, to learn any of that.  Because when you're in school, you're studying, learning, and working hard.  Yeah.  But there are always exceptions.
And I couldn't- I couldn't make that my meaning for school.  Sure it has its value, but I couldn't accept it as my own answer.  The whole idea that you go through a program and now the whole world thinks you're smart.  It felt like I could either do it just so that people would think that I was smart and qualified, or I could actually try to learn more and improve myself.  I could actually try to improve, or I could go along with the game of society while taking advantage of all their misconceptions.  And that wasn't my goal.
The waves of why's come crashing in again, and even though I can answer them in many different ways, I can't do so in a way that matters to me.  And so they keep on coming.  The waves of regret.  Doubt.  Dissatisfaction.  Disappointment.  They would say that's ridiculous for one who did so well, but it's so hard to make the other lines of reasoning mean anything to me.  And so, even now, the question just keeps coming back, in all it's varieties.  Why didn't you do more?  Why didn't you change something?  Why didn't you find a different answer?  If you didn't care then why'd you go through it?  Why did you do it?
Why?

Why?



Why?

The Turkey Trot 2013

There was never really any point to it, you know.  Even if I ran, say, 18:56 for my 5K time, even then...  I wasn't aiming to become a runner again, and there's no award for being good but not great, and there was no way, nooo waaay that I could run that fast anyway.  So it's a story of: no matter how hard you try, no matter how much effort you put in, you will not be able to produce a worthwhile result.  So why even try at all?

And that was one interpretation of it.  I couldn't overlook that, but I could always focus on an alternate view.  You could see anything and everything as meaningless, always asking why.  Why would you do something like that?  Why would you care about something like that?  Surely there's no point to it.  You could always look at things from that perspective.  But I didn't run to tell a story of how pointless it all was.  This time, this time it will be a story of overcoming the past, I said.  I'll show the world that you are not bound by your weaknesses!  And with that, I set off on another foolhardy journey...

Dual n-backing, and, my fluid intelligence seems to be off the charts

So having gone through all that intelligence stuff and hearing about this big news that apparently the dual n-back game increases fluid intelligence, I decided I might as well try out an n-back game myself.  In an n-back game, you are presented with a sequence of objects (numbers, letters, sounds, etc) and you press something if the next object you are shown matches the one that was n objects ago.  So, if you were doing a 1-back game you would just be pressing the button if the object you were shown matches the one immediately before it, and if you were doing, say, a 3-back game you would press the button if the object matches the one from 3 ago (like A, B, C, A, the last A matches the letter from 3 times back so you would press the button).  Now it's a dual n-back game when you have to memorize 2 streams of objects at once (which I didn't know at first, so I just made a single n-back game).  I made my rough calculator version in about 10 minutes with 5 speed options and your choice of n and how many digits to use.  I played it a few times on low n levels, figured that was too easy and jumped to 7-back and struggled with that a little (if it was slow enough I could do it well but if it was very fast it got tough).  Then it started to bug me about how much was lacking from this TI-83 game created in 10 minutes, and I looked for a better version online.  I found this, and I downloaded it, started it up, and went with the default settings.  Here are the results from my first 20 tries:

The way it works is you advance a level if you score 80% or above and you drop a level if you score 50% or below three times without advancing.  D is for dual and the number in the middle is the n-back level, so D3B is dual 3-back.  I expect that this is pretty good for a first 20, which is why I had to be fair and mention the single n-back practice I had on my calculator.  I didn't do all 20 at once, I did about 5 or 6 and then did other stuff and then did it again later.  Also I cheated and quit in the middle a couple rounds when I missed a bunch at the start (osu! reflex), but it was after I had already done a few on D3B, and I only quit 2 or 3 times.

Then, I saw the FAQ and the discussions and the current research and all of that, all about the dual n-back game, and I realized that some people were taking this very seriously.  There were studies that had been done recently, and people who put a lot of time and effort into training on the dual n-back.  For me though, I couldn't help but feel that... it was just another game.

A passage from a non-existent story

Well, as always, I had my whole plan laid out on how to progress in a logical manner with transitions that flow into new areas, but... my fingers- wouldn't- type...  Well, with the focus on intelligence and improving your mind there haven't been any good stories.  To make up for that, I guess I'll have to throw in this.

As the title suggests, there's no background to this.  There was never any planned follow-up, no nothing, really.  But I look at it and shake my head saying that there was so much potential there.  Maybe I should have tried to complete the story.  Maybe I still should.

----------
~I had heard about the couple who had died, though I had never learned the cause.  They had apparently left behind a girl, but no one knew exactly what had happened to her.  And so, on that cold day, as the rain fell heavily, as I walked slowly back toward my home, as I noticed the most beautiful girl standing in front of that place with tears in her eyes, my brain put together the pieces of a rather simple puzzle.

Closing statements on the ability to improve your mind

I figured I just couldn't leave it as it is.  The argument isn't complete yet.  If you were to read everything I've written from the viewpoint of one who has always believed in a fixed IQ and limited memory potential and cognitive capabilities, then you might point out the following:
--Basically, what I've written is something like, it doesn't benefit you to believe that you can't improve, it doesn't make sense to me that it wouldn't be possible, and there are some recent studies that say that you can improve.  Well the first two points are no support.  Which view is most beneficial for one to believe has no impact on which view is more accurate, and the fact that I can't see how it makes sense doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense.  And the studies that say it's possible?  Well anyone can go out and find plenty of studies that say it's not possible.  Why should one place more faith in the particular studies I chose to pick out, rather than all of the other studies out there that say it can't be done?--
In other words, you probably wouldn't be convinced.  You probably shouldn't be convinced.  It's not a complete argument.  There's still more to be said.

Are People Defined by their Desires?

Okay, maybe that's a strange question to ask.  If I were to ask you about someone, you'd probably tell me such things as their height and weight, how old they are, where they're from, stuff like that.  None of that is related to desires in any way.  But, if I were to ask you, "What is that person like?  Not in physical aspects, but mentally.  What type of person is that person?" you might tell me how they act, how they interact with others, hobbies, things like that.  All of these features can perhaps be explained as a result of desires.  It's more than that though.  I would go so far as to say that one's actions can be explained as the result of one's desires.  So, in the same sense as the phrase "people are defined by their actions," I ask the question, "Are people defined by their desires?"

"You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential"

Well I was about to do one last post on cognitive limits, but then I found this and figured that I'll just base the post on this article.  This way you can hear someone else arguing the point.  My thoughts on this article are down below.

Is Organized Memory the Explanation Behind Logic?

Here I want to propose a new way of thinking about logic.  I want to argue that any type of logic can be equivalently viewed as a manner of organizing your memory.  By "organizing your memory," I mean putting the things which you remember into groups that are similar in some way, and then taking new information and observations and adding these to the appropriate group.  For example, think of what it takes to read a sentence.  The image of the sentence enters your eye, and then your brain divides the sentence into separate words.  To put the word together, you would learn the individual letters, and the word could be identified by identifying the letters, which could be done by matching the shapes of the letters with the letter shapes you have memorized.  Basically, it's all a big chain: the image you see is organized into objects which are identified as letters which make up words with associated meanings to give the meaning of the sentence.

Starcraft improves your mind & memory improvement

Another one of those coincidental things happened.  Although I stopped playing Starcraft 2, I kept on watching it, and, having caught up on all the matches in the Korean leagues I follow, I searched for some other Starcraft 2 stuff and just so happened to find this article, titled: playing Starcraft can increase your cognitive abilities.

"Importantly, the results of the study suggest that cognitive flexibility can be improved through training, which Glass admits is a controversial theory.  He says that more research will be needed to replicate the results."

I saw that and said, "What?  Isn't that like some bold point I made recently about what I've always believed?"  And... controversial??  I just can't see it as controversial.  I just can't.  Name any area, any subject, any skill, and you can find people who have made significant improvements in that area or subject or skill.  I see no reason why it should be impossible to improve in cognitive flexibility, or in memory, mental agility, logical thinking, creativity, and so on, for that matter.  Now, I'd love to hear any argument for fixed mental ability, because as much as I try to argue the opposite viewpoint against myself, I see neither benefits nor significant evidence for it in this case.  At least in memory, I've seen my own mind make significant improvements.  While there are many things that make me think my memory has improved greatly, I found one old memory game which shows the improvement to be more than just something I'm imagining.

The limits of science

What if I told you that everything you learned in science might not be true?  Well, it might not be, and that is true.  By now you surely know how much I hate setting limits, but here a limit exists.  The laws of science cannot be proven true.

The problem lies in how logic works.  Here are two notable things.  One: statements that have never been proven false are not therefore true, otherwise it would be a true statement that I'm the smartest person in the world (just kidding).  Two: the fact that one explanation works and all other known explanations do not does not make the one that works true.  That would be similar to saying that problems that cannot be answered today will never be answered.  The fact that no one can provide an alternate explanation does not mean that the only supported explanation is true, just as the fact that no one can solve a problem does not mean that the problem cannot be solved.  Now, how does this apply to science in general?

The Talent Code

    I actually read a book about talent.  It's kind of a surprising thing; although it's stuff that I would read, I rarely ever actually do read it.  Usually it's something I only do when I think about something that I'm sure I've heard of before and want to find something talking about it so I can post it here, something like that.  Anyway, this post will be about The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.  If you couldn't have guessed, I don't intend to talk about the quality of the writing or how worthwhile of a read it is, or anything like that.  Who would be interested in knowing that?

Talent exists, so why ask that question??

Maybe you've heard people saying that geniuses are made and not born.  Or something like, it's not that people are talented or that people are prodigies, they just work harder or train more efficiently than others.  Well I have to say that in everything I have seen, effort and methods have never been enough to account for the differences in results.  There's always been something else there.  Something that some people just seem to have and some people just seem to be lacking.  I suppose you could call it... talent.

Think about school.  In a PE class with students learning a new sport, all being taught in the same way and all learning by the same methods, even among the students that never knew anything about the sport before, you'll see a wide variation in rates of improvement.  Sure, you could say that some people care more, try harder, but that doesn't account for everything.  Take any class.  Simply during the class, before anyone has time to go home and study, some people will understand the material easily and some people will struggle with it.  Now, that's not proof that talent exists, but any explanation of the world that attempts to rule out talent or frame it as insignificant just seems so unlikely.  It's almost like saying, "Well I don't think gravity exists, I think everything moves in random directions and it's just a coincidence that everything happens to move down all the time."  You can't prove either theory, but I know which one I believe to be more likely.

Basically, talent exists, so why ask that question?  Why?  Does it make you feel better to think that the world is fair, that everyone who is better than you at anything must have put more effort into it, or learned from a better teacher, or something like that?  I mean, I can answer that question for you anyway.  Talent exists, and in everything you do, there will be people more talented than you, and there will be people less talented than you as well (unless of course you happen to be... -the one-).  So why ask that question?  Instead, why not ask this question:

What can I overcome.

A Story of a Code Wars

It was on one day after my class had ended that I saw a couple of my friends sitting and talking, and I had decided to hang out with them.  Eventually their conversation moved onto the subject of some "Windward code wars" event, and they were trying to decide on members for a team.  Code wars?  "What is this?" I asked.  They answered something like, "Oh yeah, Daniel, you should be on the team.  I mean you're not too bad at this coding stuff right?"  Well it seemed to me to be some kind of team coding competition.  Competitive.  Coding.  With friends.  How could I not do it?  Competitive.  Competitive...

Maybe the idea of a coding competition doesn't sound that exciting to you, but I could already see the story lines going.  Clock ticking down, thirty minutes left.  You've got one last problem to solve, one last error to correct, and you've got to do it now.  You've got to put everything into that one shot, achieve your highest level of problem solving in that moment of pressure, and put it all together to type the code that will lead you to glory, to fame, to the title!..  And I laughed at myself as I always did.  How often does real life turn out like that?  Oh all the time you know.  All - the - time, haha.

I could already feel the nervous excitement building in me waiting for the event to start.  Although, I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only one who could say that.  We would be competing against 7 (I think it was 7 but maybe it was more) other teams from our school, with the top 2 going on to the grand finals.  Some of the people, you could tell, weren't that into the event.  Some (like one of my teammates, cough cough) were there just for the food.  Most of the others were probably there willing to put in a reasonable effort, you know, do what they could.  And then there was me.  "We're gonna win this, right?" I said, half joking, half serious.  Because I wanted to shoot for first.  Not first in our school.  First internationally.  First in the grand finals.  Why aim for less?  The way I saw it, if there was even the slightest glimmer of hope that we could reach the top, then why not go for it?  Why not give it our all?  If in the end you find out you couldn't do it, well then, you couldn't do it, but as long as you believe there's a chance, why not give it everything you've got?  And I could see that chance, that glimmer of hope.  So I let my anticipation grow as we waited to receive the message that would tell us our mission.  Still, I couldn't help but feel that I might have been the only one in the room that was seriously considering the possibility of getting 1st in the grand finals.

From the problem to an answer; The power of logic; Rule-based knowledge is insufficient

For the final project in my machine learning class, one of my classmates asked if I would help them out.  It was one of the few times I got to see how other students approached solving problems, as I usually did all my work by myself.  And, while I did expect it, it still bugged me.  It seemed the only questions they asked were, "How did other people do it?" and "How can we take the ideas or the code that other people have produced and use them here?" and so on.  I wanted to ask, "Why can't we solve the problem ourselves?"  Maybe if these people were undergrads who didn't care much about the subject I could understand better, but these people were Masters and Ph. D. students.  I can't help but feel that at that level, shouldn't your focus be on understanding the problem well enough to solve it yourself?

Now, I don't mean to say that I think that that way of thinking should only be expected of graduate students.  I've heard enough to know that many people approach their class problems the same way: look at related things in notes or the book, ask classmates or the professor for help, and/or look on the internet for similar problems.  Now, none of that is bad in general, but there seems to be such a significant focus on building off others' work or others' knowledge and applying the methods of others, so much so that I have to wonder if people forget how to solve problems from the problem itself.  They'll say, "Movement in a network?  Oh that's a network flow problem and there's all these methods to handle network flows," or "That problem is one of classifying, so I'm going to test out a bunch of different machine learning classifiers."  That kind of approach will work, but if you go from the problem to an answer, rather than searching various answers to find one that applies to your problem, you can take more advantage of the things that make your problem unique.

A Broad, Long Discussion about Genius

First, I would have to consider the easy ways to get things wrong.  One way would be attempting to draw conclusions from the outside looking in.  It is not that appropriate conclusions cannot be drawn in this case; it is just that it's harder to have a sense that your conclusions are correct.  The same goes for considering different cultures and different personality types.  While I can't say that I believe I'm on the outside on the topic of genius, I am aware of the fact that I don't know for sure.  For all I know, maybe I am not a genius, and maybe I have no understanding of what it means to be a genius.  Next, even if I am a genius, I would have to be able to distinguish between things that are due to being intelligent, and things that are due to external factors.  For example, it would be very easy to say that a smart person would develop the same world view that I have.  It was developed through logical thought and well considered concepts, so anyone who thinks logically should come to the same conclusions, right?  I don't think so, because feelings and emotions have a significant impact.  For example, someone who doesn't enjoy being in a crowd is arguably making a logical decision when they decide not to go to a crowded place, while someone who enjoys crowds is making a logical decision when they decide to go.  In the same way, my individual sense of right and wrong and my own balance between conflicting ideas such as order and freedom and individuality and fitting in, all of the things like these play a part in my view of the world.  So, if individual emotions and feelings are not the same for everyone who is a genius, then then their world views will most likely not be the same either.
Anyway, with all that said, here are a bunch of thoughts on various topics related to the concept of genius.