I do agree with this as well, but wanted to add a little something that might give a different perspective.
Let’s say you are extremely gifted at being a computer engineer and you don’t know it. Nowadays probably you start fiddling with computers and eventually find out.
Let’s say that you are gifted for this, but instead being born nowadays, you were born in the 1800. There is no way to know you were a gifted computer engineer back then because, well, computers didn’t really exist.
The inverse also applies as well. If you are extremely good at lightning up street lamps, nowadays that skill is not relevant, since no one needs to light up street lamps manually anymore.
I do think these skills have usually some sort of equivalent (even tangentially) and you find out what you can be good at. Is it your optimal skill? I do not think we can effectively know, since everything is not available from both present, past and future, all at once to be exposed to.
That does make sense, but I don’t quite agree. To continue with your gifted-computer-engineer-from-the-1800s example, they aren’t just good at computers-- they have the underlying skills (problem solving, attention to detail, able to apply abstract concepts to concrete objects, taking account of the whole system, good at maths, etc) and if they were born now, they also have an interest in computers. But if they were in the 1800s they would still have all those things (except for the interest in computers) and they’d be able to apply them to be good at other things
I do agree with this as well, but wanted to add a little something that might give a different perspective. Let’s say you are extremely gifted at being a computer engineer and you don’t know it. Nowadays probably you start fiddling with computers and eventually find out. Let’s say that you are gifted for this, but instead being born nowadays, you were born in the 1800. There is no way to know you were a gifted computer engineer back then because, well, computers didn’t really exist. The inverse also applies as well. If you are extremely good at lightning up street lamps, nowadays that skill is not relevant, since no one needs to light up street lamps manually anymore.
I do think these skills have usually some sort of equivalent (even tangentially) and you find out what you can be good at. Is it your optimal skill? I do not think we can effectively know, since everything is not available from both present, past and future, all at once to be exposed to.
That does make sense, but I don’t quite agree. To continue with your gifted-computer-engineer-from-the-1800s example, they aren’t just good at computers-- they have the underlying skills (problem solving, attention to detail, able to apply abstract concepts to concrete objects, taking account of the whole system, good at maths, etc) and if they were born now, they also have an interest in computers. But if they were in the 1800s they would still have all those things (except for the interest in computers) and they’d be able to apply them to be good at other things