Have you done a differential comparison for the social class and timeframe of each of those childhoods? That is, was their childhood environment as unique as the outcome, or was it pretty standard and there were thousands of non-exceptional adults that had similar (on these dimensions) childhood environments?
Like the advice “being very good at a sport requires dedication and training”, this analysis may miss the point that SOMETHING is enabling and rewarding that level of time and dedication (from the parents and mentors). We’re not very close to identifying and replicating that causal thing.
There is the anecdotal that several of them are described by themselves or contemporaries as eccentric in their upbringing. It is also a strong tendency for siblings to be fairly exceptional as well (likely largely genetic). Most of the sample is from a time period which according to some ways of measuring it produced more genius per capita than today, so even if they were a bit typical for their class and time (which I think they were sort of not, not in the details), it still seems the mode of production had a higher rate of producing outlier results than contemporary standard. But I’m very unsure about all of this!
Or von Neumann and his contemporaries and predecessors stole all the insights that someone with merely Neumann’s intellect could develop independently, leaving future geniuses to have to be part of collaborative teams?
What I meant is that it is possible the things that Von Neumann discovered were easier to discover than anything that is still undiscovered, so new Von Neumann’s won’t be as impressive.
Sure the median ‘impressiveness’ of various discoveries might change over time but whether someone’s discoveries was 5 standard deviations above average in 1953 or 5 standard deviations above average in 2023 doesn’t seem to matter?
Have you done a differential comparison for the social class and timeframe of each of those childhoods? That is, was their childhood environment as unique as the outcome, or was it pretty standard and there were thousands of non-exceptional adults that had similar (on these dimensions) childhood environments?
Like the advice “being very good at a sport requires dedication and training”, this analysis may miss the point that SOMETHING is enabling and rewarding that level of time and dedication (from the parents and mentors). We’re not very close to identifying and replicating that causal thing.
No.
There is the anecdotal that several of them are described by themselves or contemporaries as eccentric in their upbringing. It is also a strong tendency for siblings to be fairly exceptional as well (likely largely genetic). Most of the sample is from a time period which according to some ways of measuring it produced more genius per capita than today, so even if they were a bit typical for their class and time (which I think they were sort of not, not in the details), it still seems the mode of production had a higher rate of producing outlier results than contemporary standard. But I’m very unsure about all of this!
Modern geniuses could, on average, be more secretive because advancements beyond von Neumman’s are immensely info-hazardous.
So the rate per capita might not have changed much.
Or von Neumann and his contemporaries and predecessors stole all the insights that someone with merely Neumann’s intellect could develop independently, leaving future geniuses to have to be part of collaborative teams?
What does this mean?
oops, that was supposed to be something like ‘low hanging fruit’, I’m pretty sure it was a typo.
I still don’t understand how it’s possible for Von Neumann et al to ‘steal’ knowledge or insights. Steal from what?
Plus most of their discoveries appear to be non-rivalrous, unlike low hanging fruit.
What I meant is that it is possible the things that Von Neumann discovered were easier to discover than anything that is still undiscovered, so new Von Neumann’s won’t be as impressive.
Why wouldn’t they be?
Sure the median ‘impressiveness’ of various discoveries might change over time but whether someone’s discoveries was 5 standard deviations above average in 1953 or 5 standard deviations above average in 2023 doesn’t seem to matter?
So we can’t have less geniuses. More people means more people above 5 standard deviations (by definition?).