Why are we even equating physical differences to "talent"? Any attempt at a formal definition of talent completely ignores this for very good reason. It's a degenerate argument and goes completely against the spirit of the debate. Of course a cripple won't be able to play basketball in the same way MJ will be able to.
A person who's had all their arms and legs amputated simply won't be capable of playing osu in the same way as cookiezi (ignoring the possibility of prosthetic limbs because the use of them could arguably considered to be cheating anyways). If I agreed in the existence of talent (playing devil's advocate here) I would argue that person might still be more talented than cookiezi. They could be infinitely more talented than cookiezi, capable of obtaining rank 1 in less than 1k plays but simply incapable of applying this talent due to the loss of limbs. By your arguments for talent this person is a worthless untalented PoS which completely contradicts the notion of talent to begin with.
Since it seemed to fly over people's heads at the start of this debate, I wasn't ever arguing against certain players improving faster than certain other players. Talent is not even necessary for this and you seem to not understand this nuance of the talent debate. If you've ever worked with machine learning you'd understand how non-trivial concepts as simple as "objects" are to learn. There are many many layers of abstraction that pure sensory data passes through before even simple concepts are extracted. You don't even need to play osu! to get a head start on building and reinforcing the necessary layers. It's a pretty silly and obvious example but consider top mania players who have been playing mania-like games for years. They will tend to improve at osu much faster than people who have never touched a rhythm game in their life. The nuance here and reason this example isn't the best is that there are things completely unrelated to rhythm games that you might never think of that contribute to skills you never realize are used in a rhythm game (similar to what I brought up when talking to winber1 earlier). When defining talent I would certainly want to avoid this sort of "talent" as it certainly isn't something you are just born with.
On top of that, sensory data obtained earlier on in the learning process influences how connections are made and reinforced much more than data obtained later. When people talk "environment" in debates on nature vs. nurture they very often are looking at environments of the children after they have exited the womb. There is very little known about brain development that occurs during the various stages of development inside the womb and the impact it can have later in life. Reviews of these studies almost always end by concluding that studies in no way collect sufficient quality of information to support concrete conclusions for either side. While it's been determined that actual practice doesn't account for more than about 30% of what goes into things like chess the other 70% is completely undetermined (ie. could be environmental things, could be genetic things, etc.). These numbers are very specific to chess and are purely reasonable estimates backed by survey based studies.
I think the issue with this thread is that we are talking about something completely different from talent. Instead of talent we are talking about one's foundation and potential to improve which, if "talent" exists, would take "talent" into account among other things. It would also include many other variables that were possibly completely out of your control (ie. environment starting from conception up until the point where you could actually choose your own environment) and also the things that are within your control (choosing to avoid anything to do with rhythm games up until now). Most of the evidence provided in this thread has also been completely anecdotal (one of the main issues plaguing the debate over the existence of talent) and contributing stories of "I didn't study and my friend did but I still did better" isn't helpful because it doesn't take into account the insurmountable number of other factors that could have allowed for this occurrence.
If you guys want to instead bicker over this then go ahead but I don't really see a point when like half of the top 1000 (same for top 100) is inactive and/or simply doesn't care about farming to their true potential. As shortpotato has pointed out, if your only goal is like top 100 or something all it takes is the right mindset and playing several hours every single day without many breaks for RL stuff. I really don't think many people give a shit that it took rrtyui 3000 plays to SS the big black when cookiezi fc'd it in 41 because an SS on big black is impressive as fuck regardless. The same applies to high rank and most accomplishments in life.
I just want to finish by saying that while I don't necessarily agree with winber's argument we have both pointed out that there really is not enough data obtained with a sufficient amount of scientific/mathematical rigor to actually support either side of the debate at the moment (most experts in this field will cede this much and call for people to set aside their differences to collect better data in order to further the debate). Until sufficiently rigorous data is collected there is no point in further argument with him so it is more efficient to agree to disagree until then.
Edit: Oh, quick reminder, correlation does not imply causation. Useful to know for all sides of this argument.
A person who's had all their arms and legs amputated simply won't be capable of playing osu in the same way as cookiezi (ignoring the possibility of prosthetic limbs because the use of them could arguably considered to be cheating anyways). If I agreed in the existence of talent (playing devil's advocate here) I would argue that person might still be more talented than cookiezi. They could be infinitely more talented than cookiezi, capable of obtaining rank 1 in less than 1k plays but simply incapable of applying this talent due to the loss of limbs. By your arguments for talent this person is a worthless untalented PoS which completely contradicts the notion of talent to begin with.
Since it seemed to fly over people's heads at the start of this debate, I wasn't ever arguing against certain players improving faster than certain other players. Talent is not even necessary for this and you seem to not understand this nuance of the talent debate. If you've ever worked with machine learning you'd understand how non-trivial concepts as simple as "objects" are to learn. There are many many layers of abstraction that pure sensory data passes through before even simple concepts are extracted. You don't even need to play osu! to get a head start on building and reinforcing the necessary layers. It's a pretty silly and obvious example but consider top mania players who have been playing mania-like games for years. They will tend to improve at osu much faster than people who have never touched a rhythm game in their life. The nuance here and reason this example isn't the best is that there are things completely unrelated to rhythm games that you might never think of that contribute to skills you never realize are used in a rhythm game (similar to what I brought up when talking to winber1 earlier). When defining talent I would certainly want to avoid this sort of "talent" as it certainly isn't something you are just born with.
On top of that, sensory data obtained earlier on in the learning process influences how connections are made and reinforced much more than data obtained later. When people talk "environment" in debates on nature vs. nurture they very often are looking at environments of the children after they have exited the womb. There is very little known about brain development that occurs during the various stages of development inside the womb and the impact it can have later in life. Reviews of these studies almost always end by concluding that studies in no way collect sufficient quality of information to support concrete conclusions for either side. While it's been determined that actual practice doesn't account for more than about 30% of what goes into things like chess the other 70% is completely undetermined (ie. could be environmental things, could be genetic things, etc.). These numbers are very specific to chess and are purely reasonable estimates backed by survey based studies.
I think the issue with this thread is that we are talking about something completely different from talent. Instead of talent we are talking about one's foundation and potential to improve which, if "talent" exists, would take "talent" into account among other things. It would also include many other variables that were possibly completely out of your control (ie. environment starting from conception up until the point where you could actually choose your own environment) and also the things that are within your control (choosing to avoid anything to do with rhythm games up until now). Most of the evidence provided in this thread has also been completely anecdotal (one of the main issues plaguing the debate over the existence of talent) and contributing stories of "I didn't study and my friend did but I still did better" isn't helpful because it doesn't take into account the insurmountable number of other factors that could have allowed for this occurrence.
If you guys want to instead bicker over this then go ahead but I don't really see a point when like half of the top 1000 (same for top 100) is inactive and/or simply doesn't care about farming to their true potential. As shortpotato has pointed out, if your only goal is like top 100 or something all it takes is the right mindset and playing several hours every single day without many breaks for RL stuff. I really don't think many people give a shit that it took rrtyui 3000 plays to SS the big black when cookiezi fc'd it in 41 because an SS on big black is impressive as fuck regardless. The same applies to high rank and most accomplishments in life.
I just want to finish by saying that while I don't necessarily agree with winber's argument we have both pointed out that there really is not enough data obtained with a sufficient amount of scientific/mathematical rigor to actually support either side of the debate at the moment (most experts in this field will cede this much and call for people to set aside their differences to collect better data in order to further the debate). Until sufficiently rigorous data is collected there is no point in further argument with him so it is more efficient to agree to disagree until then.
Edit: Oh, quick reminder, correlation does not imply causation. Useful to know for all sides of this argument.