"If this all sounds feasible, or even fun, then I’m afraid my description has been misleading." The description in question is by Sally Rooney, in an essay in the New York Review of Books, and it’s a description of playing snooker, aimed at an American audience familiar with the exponentially easier game of pool.
"'Part of Ronnie’s charm is his complete inability to explain how he does what he does.' But it surely takes nothing away from O’Sullivan’s considerable charm to point out that nobody else can explain what he does either."
This post reminds me a great deal of Plato's 'Ion', where Socrates attempts to pry out of Ion how he can perform so well, including imitating a variety of tradesmen and the like, but he cannot explain himself in the slightest. What is the nature of a skill that you have but can't describe? Like matters of good judgement? And what would be a satisfying answer, more informative than "lots of experience"?
Your advice about tackling questions as to something's possibility is good, and I shall covetously tuck that away, like a cue ball to the pocket.
This reminded me of Hazlitt's Indian Juggler. Think there's also a question of the relation between grace and necessity (btw, Hurricane Higgins was the dude).
Snooker is also, İ think, used as a metaphor in economics: agents act "as if" they knew all the variables/permutations/equations. There is no "why".
Also, very interesting article in the TLS called 'Snookered' on why women don't go for philosophy or economics. What if they can take a step back from 'the table' and see it's pointless (skill without virtues)?
I just read Rooney's essay last night. She's a gem. Every one of her essays is delightfully written and deeply thought provoking. In this case, perhaps the mystery stems from our desire, fueled by a few centuries of the scientific method, to explain everything with numbers. The physicist understands knowledge to be what can be described by mathematics. If a phenomenon can't be described with formulas and equations, it can't be "known". Is O'Sullivan's ability thus outside of knowledge, do we just need better equations, or is our concept of what knowledge is too limited? In which case we are, as you say, back to metaphysics.
İ think we still want to say sports men and women have something beyond technical skill or a calculating mind. Federer (grace), Muhammad Ali (style), Bobby Moore (dignity), Borg (coolness), Seve Ballesteros (flamboyance)..İ don't know if there are equivalents in baseball and American football.
For a while Steve Davis was considered the best snooker player but he wasn't really "the best" because he came across as too mechanical, calculating.
"'Part of Ronnie’s charm is his complete inability to explain how he does what he does.' But it surely takes nothing away from O’Sullivan’s considerable charm to point out that nobody else can explain what he does either."
This post reminds me a great deal of Plato's 'Ion', where Socrates attempts to pry out of Ion how he can perform so well, including imitating a variety of tradesmen and the like, but he cannot explain himself in the slightest. What is the nature of a skill that you have but can't describe? Like matters of good judgement? And what would be a satisfying answer, more informative than "lots of experience"?
Your advice about tackling questions as to something's possibility is good, and I shall covetously tuck that away, like a cue ball to the pocket.
This reminded me of Hazlitt's Indian Juggler. Think there's also a question of the relation between grace and necessity (btw, Hurricane Higgins was the dude).
Snooker is also, İ think, used as a metaphor in economics: agents act "as if" they knew all the variables/permutations/equations. There is no "why".
Also, very interesting article in the TLS called 'Snookered' on why women don't go for philosophy or economics. What if they can take a step back from 'the table' and see it's pointless (skill without virtues)?
I just read Rooney's essay last night. She's a gem. Every one of her essays is delightfully written and deeply thought provoking. In this case, perhaps the mystery stems from our desire, fueled by a few centuries of the scientific method, to explain everything with numbers. The physicist understands knowledge to be what can be described by mathematics. If a phenomenon can't be described with formulas and equations, it can't be "known". Is O'Sullivan's ability thus outside of knowledge, do we just need better equations, or is our concept of what knowledge is too limited? In which case we are, as you say, back to metaphysics.
İ think we still want to say sports men and women have something beyond technical skill or a calculating mind. Federer (grace), Muhammad Ali (style), Bobby Moore (dignity), Borg (coolness), Seve Ballesteros (flamboyance)..İ don't know if there are equivalents in baseball and American football.
For a while Steve Davis was considered the best snooker player but he wasn't really "the best" because he came across as too mechanical, calculating.