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EphemeralNight comments on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You - Less Wrong
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On any task more complicated than sheer physical strength, there is no such thing as inborn talent or practice effects. Any non-retarded human could easily do as well as the top performers in every field, from golf to violin to theoretical physics. All supposed "talent differential" is unconscious social signaling of one's proper social status, linked to self-esteem.
A young child sees how much respect a great violinist gets, knows she's not entitled to as much respect as that violinist, and so does badly at violin to signal cooperation with the social structure. After practicing for many years, she thinks she's signaled enough dedication to earn some more respect, and so plays the violin better.
"Child prodigies" are autistic types who don't understand the unspoken rules of society and so naively use their full powers right away. They end out as social outcasts not by coincidence but as unconscious social punishment for this defection.
Aren't there stories of lucid dreamers who were actually able to show a measurable improvement in a given skill after practicing it in a dream? I seem to recall reading about that somewhere. If true, those stories would be at least weak evidence supporting that idea.
On the other hand, this should mean that humans raised in cultural and social vacuums ought to be disproportionately talented at everything, and I don't recall hearing of anything about that one way or the other, but then I can't imagine a way to actually do that experiment humanely.
Do children raised in a vacuum actually think of themselves as high-status? I'd guess that they don't, due to the moderate-to-low status prior and a lack of subsequent adjustments. If so, this theory would predict that they would perform poorly at almost everything beyond brute physicality, which doesn't seem to be far from the truth.
I wish I could cite a source for this; assume there's some inaccuracy in the telling.
I remember hearing about a study in which three isolated groups were put in rooms for about one hour. One group was told to wiggle their index fingers as much as they could in that hour. One group was told to think hard about wiggling their index fingers for that hour, without actually wiggling their fingers. And the third group was told to just hang out for that hour.
The physical effects of this exercise were examined directly afterward, and the first two groups checked out (almost?) identically.
And yet, they're actually worse at many cognitive tasks. Language, especially, is pretty hard for them to pick up after a certain point.
Improving after practicing in a simulation doesn't sound that far-fetched to me. Especially not considering that they probably already have plenty of experience to base their simulation on.