Magnus Carlsen, a child prodigy?

Some ppl just have the talent. For others it is hard work. Some others never make it.

What makes McD, KFc, Microchop, Apples, IBM great companies? Their strength.

BTW, is it Microchop?

The prevailing argument is that talent is an innate characteristic that can easily be stunted by environmental factors.  

Michael Jordan will not be as good a basketball player if he was high, never worked out, and was intoxicated during games.  Carlsen will not be a good chess player if he never learned how the pieces move.  

If you do not recognize that some kids grow up ahead of others, then you're fooling yourself.  We're referring to those kids that graduate college at 12, composed a symphony while other kids were playing the triangle, dunked a basketball while others just learned to dribble without carrying the ball.  Amazing stuff like that.  Carlsen just so happened to have a particular talent for chess, but that talent would never have been realized if he were hit in the head in a car accident and became a human vegetable.  Those are extreme environmental factors.  Now if you considered more subtle environmental factors like rearing techniques, socioeconomic status, nutrition as pertaining to physical and neural development, etc, it's pretty clear that talents aren't a guarantee for success.  

Mozart is a product of the best music education available in Europe in his day. This education began early in his youth. Would anyone with the same education have achieved what he did? Probably not. Was his achievement solely the product of "talent" apart from effort? Certainly not.

Capacity for work, persistence, drive, ambition: these are all elements of talent. These are the most important elements. Does that render genetics (or some other cause of in-born gifts) irrelevant? No.

Why do most child prodigies achieve nothing as adults?

When you are six and play the violin as well as a seventeen year old, yoiu are a prodigy. Composing a symphony that folks will perform centuries after your death is a whole other matter. Mozart played the violin early, but he also spent 10,000 hours mastering his skills before he composed original music.

Carlsen is a child prodigy with a gift for memory, as well as a strong work ethic. His achievements in adulthood put him at the top of his profession. He will get better, too.

I'd really like to see a name or two here.

obviously i was giving out exaggerated feats of magnitude, but you get my point lol.  

If you want a more realistic list, in terms of physicality and athleticism, look at Lebron's high school photos compared to the majority of kids his age, or even Shaq's growth spurt when he was a teen. 

Magnus' chess development is also amazing, because what kid can say they drew against Kasparov at such a young age, let alone be matched up against him when typical kids around 13 are playing xbox, stratego and connect 4?  This is NOT normal.  

For college graduates, just do a quick google search for youngest college graduate.  12 is NOT the record.  It's actually younger.  

For the youngest person to write a symphony do the same.  

Turns out my gross estimates weren't that far off. 

I agree that some kids have advantages, but your exaggeration leaves no room for the critical element that I've been emphasizing.

Both Mozart and Carlsen started out with a jump, but they reached pinnacles because of a talent for hard work. Carlsen is an adult and will become world champion, possibly within the next month. Mozart was an adult before he composed symphonies of any merit.

For an atheist, you sure do sound an awful lot like a Protestant.

I'm not an atheist.

Typically we look at "hard work" as synonymous with dedication and commitment, which in turn is affected by environmental factors.  Hard work in of itself is not typically regarded as a talent, because any no talent hack can put in hard work and make the roster on a basketball team, as long as he gets out there and crash the boards, play defense.  Dennis Rodman is one of those workhorses I loved to watch back in the day.  He had no skills, but he still led the league in rebounds and defended Shaq one on one!

Maybe i´m lost in translation, but he composed symphonies before he was an adult.

Mozart's first was @ age 8.  Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6eQdeNOjU

Contemporary popularity isn't a requisite for being his first.  

He was 17 when he composed the first of his pieces that is still performed today: Exsultate, jubilate. It is a short work.

17 is an adult

This is it

MrDamonSmith wrote:

Yeah, genius plus very hard work. A lot of discipline, commitment, incredible focus, AND a lot of natural talent.

I guess if you measure it in dog years, Mozart was an adult when he wrote his first symphony lol. 

@ richie_and_oprah

Just because two things interact doesn't mean they are one in the same.  

He composed as a child, but did not compose works of note until he was an adult. That's my point.

It is important because the exceptional performance that he achieved was a consequence of hard work (not only his head start). Take only the skills he displayed at the age of six without a talent for hard work, we would not know his name.

Child genius + 10,000 hours of skill building = exceptional performance (and lasting fame)

Its so crazy how good magnus is even when he was i think 13 he was? when he played gary kasparov and it was a draw!

@Ziryab

I understand where you're coming from.  But to be fair, you're comparing Mozart against Mozart at that point, when we should really be looking at Mozart's feats against others.  Writing a symphony at age 8 is already amazing, when kids his age are just learning to play "Mary had a little lamb" on a recorder.  

I'm not disputing that he displayed early promise. Lots of kids do (still a fraction). But of all child prodigies, most never amount to anything as adults. Achievement that is memorable stems from hard work. "Talent", if such a concept is even definable, may help, but it is not the critical factor.

Yeah, and at the Sinquefield Cup Maurice Ashley during an interview mentioned something about teaching Magnus about football and Magnus responded with he could teach Maurice a thing or two about chess! That was hilarious.