Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Tue Dec 7 07:53:39 2004

grc-

I think the human is born with certain potential patterns that form the deep structure of behaviors includng motor skill acquisition.This is an important part of what makes us human.The mind is not a "blank slate" at birth.These potentials are evolving,not static patterns/attractors/archetypes and somehow related to the actual solutions/specific behavioral solutions of individuals.There are premodern religious as well as postmodern intellectual theories about how this might happen.Modern (now somewhat old-fashioned) materialistic reductionist type science would tend to deny this can happen.

An example would be that as more complex proteins developed,they would undergo complex folding,but although there is no known reason for there to be a preferred pattern,the folding seems to preferentially imitate the patterns the first such proteins fell into.

In hitting this would mean that hitters like Hornsby and Jackson and Bonds would influence motor solutions not only "locally"/by imitation,but also "nonlocally" by making some deep aspect of their pattern not only available,but somehow attracting the new player to implement the evolving pattern via trial and error,given that the environment/goal is the same.Some kind of "spooky action at a distance",not only in space but over time.

This phenomenon is seen ubiqitously once you start looking for it and is as good an explanation as any as to why the successful practitioners do the same thing to succeed (display same "absolutes"/shared deep pattern)even if they got no coaching or good coaching or bad coaching.

If left alone to trial and error throwing and hitting skills will evolve through several patterns in sequence culminating in the rotational pattern as the player matures.Only a few will master the optimal pattern for meeting the mlb type challenge.

Can "good coaching" accelerate/improve the success rate of this trial and error process ?