Thanks for these great ideas.
I am quite confused by the concept of willpower, which is, as you put it, “fuzzy”. On one side, I encounter a lot of advice like yours, where we are urged to preserve it, like a limited resource. On the other hand, there are other advice out there that supposedly help us increase our willpower, using the same concepts that we increase our physical fitness with. These usually involve doing uncomfortable tasks, like having cold showers or focusing on specific objects.
If I assume willpower works the same way as muscles, creating a very systematic life where one barely needs to use it would weaken it in the long term. Though, it is possible that we are actually overusing so much that using systems actually gives the same kind of rest our body needs after a workout before it could get stronger.
Is there a good reconciliation of the preserve vs. develop willpower debate?
Hi Scott,
First of all, thanks for the article. It’s a great demonstration of how thorough investigation can falsify myths of simplistic explanation, such as attributing the creation of great minds to a single teacher or educational institution.
I do have some hypothesis regarding this topic:
1. Luck: Such extraordinary minds as Teller, Neumann and Wigner are produced by chance. We were just lucky that we got so many in that era and we are just fooled by randomness and our eagerness to find causal relationship everywhere.
2. Easier problems: I do not know much about contemporary physics, so I am probably wrong on this one, yet I think it shall be mentioned: These great minds were not as extraordinary as we believe. We have comparable people even nowadays, Teller’s generation produced more results due to “low hanging fruits”: the problems they solved were easier than the problems that remained, hence the lack of such great breakthroughs in contemporary physics.
3. Akrasia: As you mentioned, even before starting their formal education, these people were already extraordinary. Probably due to them being the first generation where their families could afford to have them study instead of contributing to their income. But hey, this is still true for subsequent generations! So why do we not have such great minds? I think this is due to circumstances talented kids in that era were raised: If smart kids wanted to entertain their minds the only thing they could do was studying complicated subjects. They had no TV, comic books, fantasy or science fiction, reddit, mmorpgs or social networks. They had nothing that would drain their attention so they could focus all their time and energy in mastering math, physics and other like subjects. In addition, as they already did this for fun when they were young, even later in their life they could easily focus on these as they did not attribute this activity to be “work” but something they were happy to do.
3.2 This all could have been enhanced by living in a community where being highly educated was a display of great social status, so their families were be motivated to spend a great fortune of tutors, books and to encourage the children.
I must admit, I did not research properly that era, so my assumptions might be wrong.