Dumb people sometimes make the best players
- Thread starter whitewolf
- Start date
Okay, here is MY theory, that i have thought about for years and never told anyone. This is a THEORY, so i am looking for someone to disprove it. EVERY PERSON ON THIS PLANET BASICLY HAS THE SAME MENTAL CAPACITY. Mental Capacity is the best words i could think of to describe what i am getting at, BRAIN POWER, may be another.
By this i mean, we all have unique abilities to do things, better or worse than others. For example i consider myself VERY INTELLIGENT and VERY LOGICAL, in some respects, and i am VERY STUPID in other respects. On IQ tests i score around 145, but i seriously don't believe they have any valid application to real life. I'm not bragging or tooting my own horn here, just trying to give you a basis of how i formed this opinion. I have a few BIG WEAKNESSES, including my ability to communicate and my ability to do anything that is related to ART. If you seen my stickmen you would laugh.
Getting of ME as a subject, i have run into VERY intellectually and Logicly stupid people. But they could express themselves through ART far better than i could ever possibly hope. I am not sure how the Brain Power could be explained, but i consider every person i run into, mentally equal. You could take a Autistic Person as one extreme and a ARTSY person as someone else.
The best way i can think of describing MY OPINION is to look at a role-playing game. BTW, I have never played any roleplaying game for more than 5 minutes, they don't interest me, but i have tried a few. Anyways, at the beggining of most of them it will let you pick a set of Attributes for your character. You may get 35 points to assign to 15 attributes and then you choose if you want to be a good locksmith, blacksmith, magician, whatever.
I think that people are alot like this. That everyone was created/evolved (to keep this completely non religous) with say 500 (random) attribute POINTS to be distributed among who knows how many Skills. As an example an autistic person may have 480 points go to random, what society might call, Intelligent area, and only 10 points to communication areas, and the remaining 10 points spread out.
That is how i find BALANCE in HUMAN VALUE. No one human is BETTER, just better at somethings, and worse at others.
In answer to your question i think that analytical thinking can be both a detriment and a help to your game, but defining it as DUMB people vs Intelligent people cannot be accurately summed up without a perfect definition of DUMB and INTELLIGENT.
If anyone has read the INNER GAME OF TENNIS, it compares Right Brain/ Left Brain, Self 1/ Self 2 thinking. I believe that some people have stronger SELF 1/Left Brains and some people have stronger SELF 2/Right Brains. I think the real key lies in people with a very strong RIGHT BRAIN. Right brain thinking is impossible to describe in our COMMON terms of INTELLIGENCE, since the right brain does not understand words, or reason, making it retarded by LOGICAL thinking. How else do you describe something/someone that CANNOT communicate with others.
By this i mean, we all have unique abilities to do things, better or worse than others. For example i consider myself VERY INTELLIGENT and VERY LOGICAL, in some respects, and i am VERY STUPID in other respects. On IQ tests i score around 145, but i seriously don't believe they have any valid application to real life. I'm not bragging or tooting my own horn here, just trying to give you a basis of how i formed this opinion. I have a few BIG WEAKNESSES, including my ability to communicate and my ability to do anything that is related to ART. If you seen my stickmen you would laugh.
Getting of ME as a subject, i have run into VERY intellectually and Logicly stupid people. But they could express themselves through ART far better than i could ever possibly hope. I am not sure how the Brain Power could be explained, but i consider every person i run into, mentally equal. You could take a Autistic Person as one extreme and a ARTSY person as someone else.
The best way i can think of describing MY OPINION is to look at a role-playing game. BTW, I have never played any roleplaying game for more than 5 minutes, they don't interest me, but i have tried a few. Anyways, at the beggining of most of them it will let you pick a set of Attributes for your character. You may get 35 points to assign to 15 attributes and then you choose if you want to be a good locksmith, blacksmith, magician, whatever.
I think that people are alot like this. That everyone was created/evolved (to keep this completely non religous) with say 500 (random) attribute POINTS to be distributed among who knows how many Skills. As an example an autistic person may have 480 points go to random, what society might call, Intelligent area, and only 10 points to communication areas, and the remaining 10 points spread out.
That is how i find BALANCE in HUMAN VALUE. No one human is BETTER, just better at somethings, and worse at others.
In answer to your question i think that analytical thinking can be both a detriment and a help to your game, but defining it as DUMB people vs Intelligent people cannot be accurately summed up without a perfect definition of DUMB and INTELLIGENT.
If anyone has read the INNER GAME OF TENNIS, it compares Right Brain/ Left Brain, Self 1/ Self 2 thinking. I believe that some people have stronger SELF 1/Left Brains and some people have stronger SELF 2/Right Brains. I think the real key lies in people with a very strong RIGHT BRAIN. Right brain thinking is impossible to describe in our COMMON terms of INTELLIGENCE, since the right brain does not understand words, or reason, making it retarded by LOGICAL thinking. How else do you describe something/someone that CANNOT communicate with others.
drivermaker said:
Interesting. I always thought of it more like "bench racing" where people just talk about different cars, modifications, etc... Most of the people who engage in that aren't F1 drivers or anything other than hobbyists. Or armchair quarterbacking. I can see how it would be infuriating if they were trying to talk down to someone who has actually been there and done it, but I don't think many of us are in that boat. Diff'rent strokes, I guess.
I think I found a worldbeater:
A DUI suspect put a handful of his own feces in his mouth in a police station in what officers said was an attempt to foil a Breathalyzer test. Said an official, "I don't think alcohol alone would make you do (that)." Nonetheless, said police, the man, who had been stopped on Highway 11 near Barrie, Ontario, still registered double the threshold for impairment.
peace
-egg
A DUI suspect put a handful of his own feces in his mouth in a police station in what officers said was an attempt to foil a Breathalyzer test. Said an official, "I don't think alcohol alone would make you do (that)." Nonetheless, said police, the man, who had been stopped on Highway 11 near Barrie, Ontario, still registered double the threshold for impairment.
peace
-egg
chefjeff said:
Nope. I don't really have much time to get into the 1000 pg small print big word books that could help me form a really intelligent philosophy. Till i do have time, I'll post my uneducated, unreadable theory on AZB.
What is the idea behind this book? Is it similar to what i said?
Egg McDogit said:
GOOD GOD!! I think i may have started with the OLD Penny in the Mouth trick, I heard that can work. Well at least i know the OLD shit in your mouth trick doesnt work. Thanks for helping me find out the EASY way Egg McDogit.
I've never been so proud to be Canadian. At least he was being Creative!!
Intelligence is not required to playing well, repitition and consistency are. Becoming great at pool requires you to take a new shot and master it by practicing this shot over and over again until you can execute it without thinking. You only need to be able to recognize the shot when it comes up in a game of pool. Ray Martin narrowed it down to 101 shots and if you are willing to practice alot you can master these 101 shots easily in a year or less.
My intelligence is the same most of the time, but if I am not playing a lot, I go from being a strong A player to an average B player. Consistency is the key to everything in life. What you don't practice you will forget. The difference between most pros and the amateurs is that most pros practice or used to practice 8ish hours a day every day and had a desire to be the best.
My intelligence is the same most of the time, but if I am not playing a lot, I go from being a strong A player to an average B player. Consistency is the key to everything in life. What you don't practice you will forget. The difference between most pros and the amateurs is that most pros practice or used to practice 8ish hours a day every day and had a desire to be the best.
I agree, Mental Capacity probably was not the best choice of words, and likely is an inherited trait. Some people can retain information and recall it easier. That is not what i am talking about though. I'm talking Brain Power, if those are even close to the correct words. Some people are SMARTER by society's standards. But I'm saying someone that has so much brain power in LOGIC and RETAINING and having the ability to Recall information is lacking in other areas that someone that society would consider as lacking in Mental Capacity may be stronger in IE, arts. Although my comparison between Art and Intelligent mental capacity isn't entirely accurate. Some Artsy people can be incredibly SMART, by society's standards, but lacking in, another area. ie. communication skills. Everyone knows the stereotype of the ARTSY GENUIS that can't deal with people.
You could look at it like a 60 watt lightbulb. There are tonnes of different types of 60 Watt bulbs that perform different functions, but they all use the same amount of power. Blacklights make things glow, white lights light up a room so that we can see whats going on, then you have lights that YOU use to make things grow, among many other types of 60 watt lightbulbs. But no matter how vastly different each lights function is, they all draw 60 watts of power. Thats what i am talking about. Actual BRAIN POWER, STUPID people use there BRAINS POWER in different areas than someone that may be considered a GENUIS.
Another quick THOUGHT. Basing someones self worth on the Results of an IQ test makes no more sense to me than the answer to the ULTIMATE QUESTION in 'A Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy'. Don't worry if you don't read that same books as me, that doesnt make me smarter either. Contrary to what alot of Bookworms think.
You could look at it like a 60 watt lightbulb. There are tonnes of different types of 60 Watt bulbs that perform different functions, but they all use the same amount of power. Blacklights make things glow, white lights light up a room so that we can see whats going on, then you have lights that YOU use to make things grow, among many other types of 60 watt lightbulbs. But no matter how vastly different each lights function is, they all draw 60 watts of power. Thats what i am talking about. Actual BRAIN POWER, STUPID people use there BRAINS POWER in different areas than someone that may be considered a GENUIS.
Another quick THOUGHT. Basing someones self worth on the Results of an IQ test makes no more sense to me than the answer to the ULTIMATE QUESTION in 'A Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy'. Don't worry if you don't read that same books as me, that doesnt make me smarter either
. Contrary to what alot of Bookworms think.
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One Pocket is a game of Pure thinking. I wouldn't say it requires less ability, because i have seen alot of 1-Pocket shots that left me thinking 'How'd he do that', but i would say pure ability is required less often in 1-pocket than it is in 9-ball. If you decide on the correct shots in 1-pocket, more often than not execution is simple. In 9-Ball there is ALMOST no thinking, when compared to 1 pocket, and if you let too much thinking CREEP in your screwed. In ONE POCKET if you stop thinking YOUR screwed. In 1 Pocket i would say the smarter person wins most of the time, in 9 ball its still debateable, although i am leaning towards the less intellectual.
I do not think that intelligence can be accurately measured. There are too many types of 'intelligence' that are not tested on the supposedly good IQ tests. Some types of intelligence cannot be measured as well. And the statistics used to develop the tests are flawed, anyway.
Laura
Laura
fxskater said:Nope. I don't really have much time to get into the 1000 pg small print big word books that could help me form a really intelligent philosophy. Till i do have time, I'll post my uneducated, unreadable theory on AZB.
What is the idea behind this book? Is it similar to what i said?
It's a psychology book, not philosophy. It makes the amazing declaration that humans were not conscious thinkers until about 2500 years ago! Before that, we had the same reasoning, physical brain that we have now, but were using it in a bicameral way, not a conscious, integrated way. He demonstrates his theory via archeological evidence and various writings.
What's this have to do with pool? It demonstrates how much more powerful the integrated mind is than the bicameral mind. Exploiting this concept can help put together one's pool shot more effectively.
It also provides you a foundation for protection from those who exist by cheating others and using others for their own gain. They can do this because the bicameral mind is still there and can be unknowingly tapped into various ways. Two ways are poetry and music. These can easily bypass the conscious, moral mind with all sorts of damaging information. Another one might be the "authority" figure taking over the job of critical, good-for-me/bad-for-me thinking. Funny how a dry, psychology book, mostly about archeology can help pool playing, but that's the power of integration.
I've seen it in most college bookstores....I'm sure it's online somewhere.
Jeff Livingston
drivermaker
Banned
chefjeff said:
Makes a lot of sense to me...think I'll start writing some poetry
Roses are red,
Violets ar blue,
If you win this set,
I'll f*#kin' kill you.
F
Fred Agnir
Guest
Whether a person entertains analytical reasoning based on science or math has very little to do with how he actually plays the game. To assume that an "intelligent person" has a tendency to become overwhelmed by a greater number of possibilities in the pool world in my humble opinion has no basis.whitewolf said:
This observation was made by a famous trick shot artist whom we have all come to love and admire. I will not memtion his name here in order not to take anything away from this thread. His reasoning was that a very intelligent person has a tendency to become overwhelmed by a greater number of possibilities.
Sometimes I think this may be true because my engineering buddies on my team who were very smart could never learn the game of 8 ball.
What do you think?
Should it be a surprise to anyone but a few that most here are pool players first and foremost? And that how we arrived at our current skill level had very little do with degrees or IQ's but rather an insane love of the game, the sounds, the smells, the stories, and the history?
Fred
this game isn't rocket science. you could argue that smarter people have the potential to learn the game faster...but (1) the "dumber" people will eventually learn enough to even things out and (2)there are a lot of other more important variables - like time at the table and having a good eye, natural stroke, etc.
peace
-egg
peace
-egg
drivermaker
Banned
Egg McDogit said:
It is for the rocket scientists....they turn EVERYTHING into science. (just makes 'em feel a lot better)