“If you do it right,” I argued, “you have to give it everything you have, which doesn’t leave anything left over for a repeat performance.”
“Why would that be the case?” he argued right back. “If you really know something, you should be able to repeat it accurately as often as you want to.”
I think I side more with you – for ‘performances’ like what you’re describing.
For certain ‘atomic’ or ‘small-length’ “something[s]” that one might know, it can or might be the case that a sufficiently knowledgable/capable person would be able to repeat the ‘something’ many many times accurately, nearly “as often as [they] want to”. (But I’m not sure “L” was thinking of repeating something over several hours.)
But even the best people at any particular kind of not-small-length ‘performance’ will find that their very best performances are fairly rare.
This seems very similar to how speedrunning video/computer games works. The best speedrunners absolutely are capable of repeating all kinds of ‘small’ actions or techniques nearly perfectly, and for hours at a time too.
But a ‘speedrunning performance’, e.g. a ‘complete’ run of some game, is so difficult, as ‘a unit’, that it’s not usually possible to repeat a subsequent ‘win’. (There are streaks of new records by the same person, but that’s rare – as fraction of all the games that same person plays.)
Then again, a speedrunner in one sense only ‘wins’ if they achieve a (new) ‘personal best’ run and I don’t think your own ‘performance win’ condition is similar in that way.
But – in some sense – you might be able to practice enough that you could repeat these performances, at least a few times, and still feel you like ‘win’. I imagine you wouldn’t also feel like “you have to give it everything you have” tho.
I will say that L clarified this morning that “repetition begins when something is learned,” which is to say that once you know something, the next step is to repeat what you know.
More on all of this as I continue to collect data...
This is a really good post – thanks!
I think I side more with you – for ‘performances’ like what you’re describing.
For certain ‘atomic’ or ‘small-length’ “something[s]” that one might know, it can or might be the case that a sufficiently knowledgable/capable person would be able to repeat the ‘something’ many many times accurately, nearly “as often as [they] want to”. (But I’m not sure “L” was thinking of repeating something over several hours.)
But even the best people at any particular kind of not-small-length ‘performance’ will find that their very best performances are fairly rare.
This seems very similar to how speedrunning video/computer games works. The best speedrunners absolutely are capable of repeating all kinds of ‘small’ actions or techniques nearly perfectly, and for hours at a time too.
But a ‘speedrunning performance’, e.g. a ‘complete’ run of some game, is so difficult, as ‘a unit’, that it’s not usually possible to repeat a subsequent ‘win’. (There are streaks of new records by the same person, but that’s rare – as fraction of all the games that same person plays.)
Then again, a speedrunner in one sense only ‘wins’ if they achieve a (new) ‘personal best’ run and I don’t think your own ‘performance win’ condition is similar in that way.
But – in some sense – you might be able to practice enough that you could repeat these performances, at least a few times, and still feel you like ‘win’. I imagine you wouldn’t also feel like “you have to give it everything you have” tho.
I will say that L clarified this morning that “repetition begins when something is learned,” which is to say that once you know something, the next step is to repeat what you know.
More on all of this as I continue to collect data...