The past several years on the internet I have seen countless videos of guys and girls doing things I would have thought impossible not too many years ago. About 95% of this is physical feats of some kind being it climbing, riding bikes or motorcycles, feats of strength etc. I tend to believe these athletes are feeding off of the recognition and it seems to act on them like a performance drug. The focus, concentration and ability to practice and train for long extended periods seems to be greatly enhanced.
Mental feats are not so easy to showcase and receive the same levels of recognition for. I do see some examples and they do seem to be increasing but I doubt they will ever be able to showcase these feats like physical feats can be showcased.
I am wondering if there was a better platform for showcasing mental feats would we see a rise in great mental feats due to performance enhancing natural chemicals stimulated by positive feedback.
Most people would be really impressed with things like mind reading and clairvoyance, where that ever made possible. But there are theoretical physicists and mathematicians and computer and medical science professionals that are the great thinkers of our time and the equivalent of gifted athletes but they slip under everyone’s radar because nobody wants to watch someone’s great feats of thought and understanding of the universe. Most people simply can’t relate or understand the impact of scientific discovery – unless and until you market it, package it, and sell it at the smartphone store.
I agree, I have seen a few books that were pretty good at showcasing things like this to average people like myself but it seems like such a shame that we can’t appreciate something we don’t really understand. I have to wonder if more effort were put into finding away to show these accomplishments off in such a way that we would marvel at them the same way we do the physical feats if it wouldn’t have the same effect on the mental athletes.
I would say that other than the Carson show, physical feats have always gotten more press and attention than mental feats so I don’t think a different sort of platform is the answer. There seems something more hard-wired into us to think that with practice we could achieve physical greatness (we probably can’t) but that mental acuity is simply a gift you have or don’t. That isn’t true either but its how most people I know relate to both acts.
You could have some kind of central venue, like something mimicking international negotiation (maybe call it "Model UN’ or something) or perhaps people could compete on mathematical ability (you could call them "Mathletes’, very clever!).
The chief advantage of collecting this type together is that it makes it easier for a group of physically gifted folks to create a You-Tube of the largest collective Atomic Wedgie or something, post it, and get a lot of hits. Maybe even get into Guinness World Book of Records, if that still exists.
I like that term Mathletes, maybe coining new words to fit the different areas of intelligence would be a good start. I have a feeling some great thinkers are lingering among us cleaning our toilets and trimming our trees that just haven’t had the right kind of motivations.
We do have 'Mathlete’s entering competitions. This is in some degree parallel to spelling and geography bees.
There are also many other venues of competition, including speech, music, robotics, and engineering. Basically, you name. It just doesn’t get quite the recognition that sports does.
Your comments made me think of a Simpson’s episode, which is where my wedgie comment comes from. Basically, the local bully drops by the math meet venue in a cab just long enough to taunt the Math team, then tells the cabby to hurry up and get to the Model UN.
I was toying around with the thought of devoting a chapter in my “Collaboration” novel to a brain search for hidden talent. The brain search team would try to create problems and challenges on various social media sites. Respondents would either be ignored or praised for their solutions. Hopefully a large group would form that played the challenges regularly and shared them. They would be tracked and receive a rating based on the amount of likes they got. The experiment would be to see if the positive responses they received had any effect on their overall level of performance. The team would be covertly building a think tank without the knowledge of the players until they were actually invited to join. I think it may not be a bad theme for a novel on its own.
The premise that a You Tube video of an athletic performance somehow compresses the time frame before that fete is surpassed (compared to pre-internet), may have some merit.
However, it’s difficult to envision any revolutionary method of “showcasing” intellect in like fashion that the OP set the stage for. A video is an easy, and attention grabbing method of documenting a physical act. After watching a video of a philosopher contemplating his navel, the same would not hold true for an understanding of his mental process.
The problem might be with you, Honey, Badger, DC.
Sites, like youtube, do a good job of recommending things you’ve already expressed an interest in. So, if extreme athletics is what you’re always being exposed to it’s because you view it more then other things. If you’re not careful you could end up with nothing but trashy Daily Mail style celebrity gossip and tide pod challenges.
I use youtube a lot and it’s full of all kinds of clever stuff. It could be how to draw better, ingenious things people construct in their spare time, or how industrial machinery works. Of course I get videos on Star Wars tech and crazy conspiracy theories about aliens, but I’m asking for it.
I suppose you could find videos on things that are purely mental if you look. Tricks to solving difficult math problems in your head or memorize entire books perhaps.
In my opinion many of those athletic feats require as much ingenuity as physical conditioning. But then I don’t know how often they are the result of planing it out before trying or just seeing someone screw-up in a spectacular way then repeating it.
I agree but I think you slightly missed the point I didn’t do a very good job of expressing. The point was to hopefully find a way to reward talented or brainy people through recognition with the premise being that it could motivate them to even bigger and better challenges. I see plenty of clever things on line because I look for it. They do draw some attention and positive feedback but not the level the athletes get.
