Why do you think humans in general are more prone to failure than success?

[drankin]

What if you succeed the first time? Does the lack of failure then nullify that success?

I would need an example. Please provide and example of a significant success that was achieved from a first time attempt. If we are going to just playing scenario games, you may never get the point.

 

[GeorginaS]

Discuss. I suppose one person's failure could be another person's success. But In this context, I defined failure as not reaching all of your goals and success as reaching all of your goals. Even seemingly successful people have seen more failures than success.Einstein was said to publish scientific papers prolifically, but most of them never came close to matching the success of his papers on special relativity and general relativity. Shakespeare was said to write at least 40 plays, but I think at least 8 of his plays are considered of any importance to the world. Is it like this for everyone? Could there be genetic reasons for why I believe most humans experience more failure than success.

Going all the way back to the OP, you narrowly define "failure" in an untenable fashion and then ask us to prove that your limited definition by way of a "genetic" component. Sorry, but the entirety of this is absurd.

As an easy example, using your own definition of "failure as not reaching all of your goals", then what if Shakespeare's goal was to write 40 plays? Your definition does not contain an "importance" component.

To carry on further in this thread when "failure" and "success" all of a sudden took on a narrower realm of scientific experimentation, again, define failure. I thought that the goal of scientific experimentation was to observe the reactions and/or results. If an experiment does not yield the result one was looking for, it nonetheless provides some result and one can learn something new from that and that is a success. Not getting the results one may have anticipated does not equal failure. (Unless, of course, one is of the mad-scientist school of experimenting and then, yes, absolutely, if funneling a lightning bolt into the sewn-together pieces of the monster do not reanimate the dead parts, then yes, that's a failure.) (And even then there's something to be learned given that that particular method didn't work.)

I think Drankin wants me to give a specific example of succeeding on first try so that I'll "get the point" in terms of requiring repeated "failure" in order to "succeed". I can't even figure out which ballpark this thread is in given that we've been offered Einstein's and Shakespeare's writings and then the blanket "scientific experimentation". But, okay, what about, say, someone like Audrey Niffenegger whose first published fiction novel was a monstrous worldwide success? (Her first published novel was The Time Traveler's Wife.) Does that fit somewhere within the various and ever-changing-goal-posts of "success" here?

rootx strangely asked if breathing is a success if not preceded by failure. I'm staring at my monitor sideways, here. I'm going to treat this like a sort-of serious proposition (rather than some sort of smarty-pants come back) and say that, yes, if one breathes the first time without first failing to breathe multiple times before that, then, one would have to call that a success. The alternative -- repeatedly failure to breathe -- results in death. So. And while I call dying an inevitable part of life and not a failure on someone's part, not succeeding at breathing wouldn't be considered something positive. I figure.

 

[noblegas]

To carry on further in this thread when "failure" and "success" all of a sudden took on a narrower realm of scientific experimentation, again, define failure. I thought that the goal of scientific experimentation was to observe the reactions and/or results. If an experiment does not yield the result one was looking for, it nonetheless provides some result and one can learn something new from that and that is a success. Not getting the results one may have anticipated does not equal failure. (Unless, of course, one is of the mad-scientist school of experimenting and then, yes, absolutely, if funneling a lightning bolt into the sewn-together pieces of the monster do not reanimate the dead parts, then yes, that's a failure.) (And even then there's something to be learned given that that particular method didn't work.)

Not just scientific experimentation, it could be artisticpursuits , taking financial risks ;In certain contexts, Such as opening up and starting businesses most people fail at keeping their business up and running. The people that do succeed at opening up a business usually sees a bunch of barriers before they hit success. Most people that are stockbrokers don't become billionaires, which might be their goal . I am sorry, but I am talking about specific contexts , not basic human functions such as breathing. I do not know how to make myself any more crystal clear. Many musicians face rejection before hitting success. The Beatles were turned down by many managers before they became a household name . As I already said, The Wright brothers faced a bunch engineering hurdles before they finally came too a model more appropriate to apply to designed an airplane.Before the Wright brothers successful attempt at inventing the airplane, Many people throughout human history try to invent a flying machine but they failed at it. That is an example of the premise of this thread. Thomas Edison was said to have conducted 2000 experiments before hitting the experiment that lead to the invention of the lightbulb , as I already said numerous times. Most music artists on the top of the pop charts are one hit wonders; Why are there not many music artists that produced many hits?

I think Drankin wants me to give a specific example of succeeding on first try so that I'll "get the point" in terms of requiring repeated "failure" in order to "succeed". I can't even figure out which ballpark this thread is in given that we've been offered Einstein's and Shakespeare's writings and then the blanket "scientific experimentation". But, okay, what about, say, someone like Audrey Niffenegger whose first published fiction novel was a monstrous worldwide success? (Her first published novel was The Time Traveler's Wife.) Does that fit somewhere within the various and ever-changing-goal-posts of "success" here?

Did this Audrey Niffenegger produced any more novels that matched the worldwide success of her first novel or did she produced only one successful novel? Just because her first novel might have garnered world wide acclaim does not mean that any of her projects that she works on will garner the same amount of fame. BTW, how do you know that she didn't go through hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts that were tossed into the trash bin before she eventually found the right plot, characters, settings, etc for her manuscript that would lead her to that acclaim?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Not just scientific experimentation, it could be artisticpursuits , taking financial risks ;In certain contexts, Such as opening up and starting businesses most people fail at keeping their business up and running. The people that do succeed at opening up a business usually sees a bunch of barriers before they hit success. Most people that are stockbrokers don't become billionaires, which might be their goal . I am sorry, but I am talking about specific contexts , not basic human functions such as breathing. I do not know how to make myself any more crystal clear. Many musicians face rejection before hitting success. The Beatles were turned down by many managers before they became a household name . As I already said, The Wright brothers faced a bunch engineering hurdles before they finally came too a model more appropriate to apply to designed an airplane.Before the Wright brothers successful attempt at inventing the airplane, Many people throughout human history try to invent a flying machine but they failed at it. That is an example of the premise of this thread. Thomas Edison was said to have conducted 2000 experiments before hitting the experiment that lead to the invention of the lightbulb , as I already said numerous times. Most music artists on the top of the pop charts are one hit wonders; Why are there not many music artists that produced many hits?

Did this Audrey Niffenegger produced any more novels that matched the worldwide success of her first novel or did she produced only one successful novel? Just because her first novel might have garnered world wide acclaim does not mean that any of her projects that she works on will garner the same amount of fame. BTW, how do you know that she didn't go through hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts that were tossed into the trash bin before she eventually found the right plot, characters, settings, etc for her manuscript that would lead her to that acclaim?

You seem to continuously ignore minor successes and the issues of goal oriented success as a measure of success.

Take musicians from your example. Is learning to play an instrument or how to sing well not a success? Getting a band together? Getting a gig even if its in a dive bar some place? Writing your own songs? Getting the attention of a record label? Putting together an album? Getting it on the charts? There are innumerable minor successes along the road to the seemingly larger ones and you seem to only be interested in the seemingly larger ones. Most "great" successes are built on smaller ones and that final step into the major success is simply one more small event in a chain of them. And as I noted earlier if you wish to gauge success by achieving something that by definition only a few people can do then your argument of a massive failure rate vs a small success rate is true by default. I mean only forty bands or musicians make it into the top forty and if anything less is failure then obviously you are correct right?

And a small thing you may want to consider regarding a goal oriented definition of success...
Many people, and quite notably many scientists and inventors, achieved great success by accident. They had certain goals and achieved something else entirely. So by your definition are they failures or successes?

 

[noblegas]

You seem to continuously ignore minor successes and the issues of goal oriented success as a measure of success.

Take musicians from your example. Is learning to play an instrument or how to sing well not a success? Getting a band together? Getting a gig even if its in a dive bar some place? Writing your own songs? Getting the attention of a record label? Putting together an album? Getting it on the charts? There are innumerable minor successes along the road to the seemingly larger ones and you seem to only be interested in the seemingly larger ones. Most "great" successes are built on smaller ones and that final step into the major success is simply one more small event in a chain of them. And as I noted earlier if you wish to gauge success by achieving something that by definition only a few people can do then your argument of a massive failure rate vs a small success rate is true by default. I mean only forty bands or musicians make it into the top forty and if anything less is failure then obviously you are correct right?

I see your point. But even with minor successes you come into minor failures. When a musician got a hold of his musical instrument, say a guitarist, He still had to strike the right chord before trying out many different combinations of chords before eventually finding the right chord, through an x amount of hours practiced, the number of hours depending on your musical ability and you eventually mastered the instrument you have been practicing . Forming a band is a success yes, but look how many auditions you might have had to gone through and many musicians you had to reject before you found the right musicians who would fit into your vision of how the band would be. I would considered those minor failures. Look how many record companies might have had to rejected the average band before they were signed onto a record label.

And a small thing you may want to consider regarding a goal oriented definition of success...
Many people, and quite notably many scientists and inventors, achieved great success by accident. They had certain goals and achieved something else entirely. So by your definition are they failures or successes?

Yes, the serendipitous experiment. How would that be an unsuccessful even if it was not their intent to make that particular discovery seeing that their accidental successful discoveries led to a large progression in a subfield of science? I think the overall intention of most inventors is to make an existing product or service that we use better and our lifestyle more convenient. So even though the method they initially thought would work they did not, they still achieve their goal of inventing a new product or an easier way to produce an existing product, but the inventor might have failed more than succeed because he has tried his initial method and many methods that led to his intended invention. I can see minor successes but I can also see minor failures that might have lead up to those minor successes as minor successes lead up to one major(s) success(es)

 

[zoobyshoe]

I am sorry but people are more prone to failure than success, when conducting a scientific experiments.

I repeat: you are coming to this conclusion because you are holding two separate and incompatible criteria for success in your mind at once. And you are mushing them both together in order that everyone can be judged a failure one way or another. When one definition doesn't work to judge people a failure, you silently shift to the other, while falsely maintaining success and failure have been clearly defined.

Think of the example I gave you of Edison trying out 10,000(or was it 2000?) failed experiments before arriving at the experiment that led to the invention of the light bulb.

Edison's preferred method was trial and error, therefore: each material he tried along the way was successfully determined not to be the one he needed.

I think pretending that Every one will be successful effortless at their work without crawling through a pile of struggle and failure and is a big slap to the face of reality.

You're offering a logical fallacy called a "strawman" here. Google it.

Yes, it is true that you cannot objectively judge a person measure of failure based on one set of criteria,

Another strawman.

The emphasis on "objectively" judging "a person's measure of failure", inadvertantly reveals an over riding urge on your part to judge everyone a failure one way or another.

but there are many criteria you can apply because there are many different definitions of success and there are many definitions of success.

You repeated "many different definitions of success". Red flag that you aren't paying attention to what you are saying or thinking.

For example, you might receive straight A's throughout high school or maybe college in their academic studies , but once you enter grad school in your scientific field, you will more like encounter a lot of scientific failed experiments before you reached the scientific experiment that closely described your proposed hypothesis that would eventually transformed into a theory if experiment goes correctly .

Your concluding sentence describes the phenomenon of something being easy at first and then becoming difficult at a later stage. It does not describe or illuminate different definitions of success. It's not a proper concluding sentence to a paragraph about different criteria for success and failure. Again: you're not paying attention to whether or not what you say is logical or coherent.

You're basically reasoning according to confirmation bias. Google it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I thought that the goal of scientific experimentation was to observe the reactions and/or results. If an experiment does not yield the result one was looking for, it nonetheless provides some result and one can learn something new from that and that is a success. Not getting the results one may have anticipated does not equal failure.

You are correct: there is no such thing as a failed experiment. An experiment is a carefully controlled procedure performed to see what happens, to find out how things behave.

 

[noblegas]

I repeat: you are coming to this conclusion because you are holding two separate and incompatible criteria for success in your mind at once. And you are mushing them both together in order that everyone can be judged a failure one way or another. When one definition doesn't work to judge people a failure, you silently shift to the other, while falsely maintaining success and failure have been clearly defined.

see last line.

Edison's preferred method was trial and error, therefore: each material he tried along the way was successfully determined not to be the one he needed

Look at wikipedia page on trial and error.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_error

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_error... "Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again." ...[1]

You're offering a logical fallacy called a "strawman" here. Google it.

Don't need to. Strawman is when you try to twist the original meaning or misinterpret an opponent's of a statement out of context , and I did not do that. I always have said that most people experience a lot of failures before facing success. I've already showed you examples of what I mean by encountering lots of failures before hitting success . Look at the examples in my post above. You are trying to redefine the meaning of failure.

You repeated "many different definitions of success". Red flag that you aren't paying attention to what you are saying or thinking.

I acknowledged that many people have different views of success and therefore different interpreations of success. I was more concerned with discussing the popular view of success, you know, society's definition of success. Society's definition of success would be rising to the top of the some ladder, whether it be the financial ladder , the scientific ladder, or the knowledge ladder. Your personal definition of success might be having two kids or achieving a thousand natural laughs for a day. But that's not the kind of success I am talking about.

This article or blog pretty much sums up what kind of success that I am talking about:

from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000576.html ... Success is relative and ephemeral. But failure is a near-constant. If you really want to know if someone is competent at their profession, ask them about their failures. Last year I cited an article on predicting the success or failure of surgeons: ...

. Now can we please get back to the topic of this thread instead of going over the definitions of success and failure please

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

This article or blog pretty much sums up what kind of success that I am talking about: . Now can we please get back to the topic of this thread instead of going over the definitions of success and failure please

People do not agree with your assumption. So their discussion of your topic is going to be regarding their disagreement with your assumption.

Especially if you want to get into a possible genetic component to success and failure. Genetically speaking humans are obviously quite successful. There is no such thing as a gene for being a famous rock star or scientist. The sorts of success you are referring to are far above the realm of genetics.

Edit: And we have pretty much already answered your question...
Q-"Why do you think humans in general are more prone to failure than success?"
A-Because you have defined the terms as such.

 

[noblegas]

People do not agree with your assumption. So their discussion of your topic is going to be regarding their disagreement with your assumption.

Especially if you want to get into a possible genetic component to success and failure. Genetically speaking humans are obviously quite successful. There is no such thing as a gene for being a famous rock star or scientist. The sorts of success you are referring to are far above the realm of genetics.

I never said anything about there was a gene for becoming a famous rock star. I said that it was easier for certain people to because gifted rock musicians for a number of different reasons . Seems like the underylying assumption of the replies I reived so for is that people never encountered failures and every action that they take will result in success. I already acknowledge that there were relative definitons for success but Have you ever read outliers by Malcom Gladwell. He provides good arguments for why certain people experiences the success that I am talking about. For instance , with Bil gatesm he speulates that Bill gates would have never have aided in the progression of the development of computer siftware where with just talent only. The circumstances he was brought up in helped him greatly. If there were not a computer brought into the private school that he attended,his interest in computers would have never developed. Are we just going to pretend that being a billionaire is an equally great financial feat as being a person who works in at the 9/5 job who works with a meager salary in comparison to the salary bill gates receives? Are we going to pretend that everybody job people posses is their dream job and not just taken the job to get by to compared to people who really are truly passionate about their job. For me, Not reaching the financial goal of a million dollars or more and getting into debt is a failure to me. Most people that take full time jobs take it other than fore reasons not related to their passion for the job That would be an example of a failure to me . Another example of failure to me would be a large bulk of the world's population not being able to solved the rubki's cube puzzle and only a few people being able to solved this puzzle. There might be successes in other areas of their life , but when it comes to solving the rubix cube they will be failures at it. Why can't most people solved the rubik's cube puzzle? People inaccurately assume that I am favoring one type of success , which is just not true. This type of success just happens to be the intended topic of discussion.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I think we are failures when it comes to intellectual developments and technological advancements, seeing that most humans embraced mysticism for the bulk of their existence and scientific and technological and yes even moral advancements(ending of slavery, recogniction of women's rights, recognition of natural born rights) have been made and acknowledged like in the last 400 years .

I wonder why you consider this a failure. Assuming that you (as most) view these advancements as positive (that is, success in the sense of non-failure), then humans would seem to have made great strides and nonhumans none. Of course we have further to go, but surely constantly striving to better ourselves (individually as well as collectively) is desirable?

 

[CRGreathouse]

In this context, I defined failure as not reaching all of your goals and success as reaching all of your goals.

Amusingly, the most* successful in this context are those aimless individuals who have never set goals.

* Only?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Look at wikipedia page on trial and error.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_error

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_error... "Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again." ...[1]

And?

Don't need to. Strawman is when you try to twist the original meaning or misinterpret an opponent's of a statement out of context , and I did not do that.

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
This sentence:

I think pretending that Every one will be successful effortless at their work without crawling through a pile of struggle and failure and is a big slap to the face of reality.

misrepresents what everyone has been saying, and you have never ended up refuting what we actually said.

This article or blog pretty much sums up what kind of success that I am talking about: . Now can we please get back to the topic of this thread instead of going over the definitions of success and failure please

Can't! Is success achieving all your goals or is it achieving success in the eyes of other people? You've offered both, separate, renderings.

 

[noblegas]

And?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
This sentence:

misrepresents what everyone has been saying, and you have never ended up refuting what we actually said.

Now you are claiming that you speak for everyone who has participated in this thread. I already made it clear that this thread would be about one particular type of success , which is the America society's definition of success, of claiming up the economic ladder , not how each individual defines success or your personal definition of success. I already said that each person has their own view of success , yet you are claiming that I am strawmaning you?

And

And you said that the material of edison, I think you mean each experiment edison conducted at attempting to construct the lightbulb was successful because it led to the experiment that would lead to the invention of the lightbulb. But if this claim made sense, Edison would not have had to construct new experiments everytime. He failed at those experiments but he learned from his flaws from his previous failed experiments. He had to encountered a lot of failed experiments before arriving at his grand experiment.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Seems like the underylying assumption of the replies I reived so for is that people never encountered failures and every action that they take will result in success. I already acknowledge that there were relative definitons for success but Have you ever read outliers by Malcom Gladwell. He provides good arguments for why certain people experiences the success that I am talking about. For instance , with Bil gatesm he speulates that Bill gates would have never have aided in the progression of the development of computer siftware where with just talent only. The circumstances he was brought up in helped him greatly. If there were not a computer brought into the private school that he attended,his interest in computers would have never developed. Are we just going to pretend that being a billionaire is an equally great financial feat as being a person who works in at the 9/5 job who works with a meager salary in comparison to the salary bill gates receives? Are we going to pretend that everybody job people posses is their dream job and not just taken the job to get by to compared to people who really are truly passionate about their job. For me, Not reaching the financial goal of a million dollars or more and getting into debt is a failure to me. Most people that take full time jobs take it other than fore reasons not related to their passion for the job That would be an example of a failure to me . Another example of failure to me would be a large bulk of the world's population not being able to solved the rubki's cube puzzle and only a few people being able to solved this puzzle. There might be successes in other areas of their life , but when it comes to solving the rubix cube they will be failures at it. Why can't most people solved the rubik's cube puzzle? People inaccurately assume that I am favoring one type of success , which is just not true. This type of success just happens to be the intended topic of discussion.

No one has said that failure does not exist. People have challenged what they believe is a flawed and rather limited definition of success coupled with with very broad and overgeneralized definition of failure.

As for the type of success you are referring to you might better word your question "Why are so many people failures when measured against the most successful people in the world?"
You might see that your question answers itself.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Now you are claiming that you speak for everyone who has participated in this thread. I already made it clear that this thread would be about one particular type of success , which is the America society's definition of success, of claiming up the economic ladder , not how each individual defines success or your personal definition of success. I already said that each person has their own view of success , yet you are claiming that I am strawmaning you?

Looking at the responses in this thread you may wish to reconsider how people in general define success.

 

[GeorginaS]

My congratulations to zoobyshoe and TheStatutoryApe for having the patience and persistence to wade through those virtually incomprehensible, long-winded posts. I just plain wore out trying to get through them.

 

[noblegas]

My congratulations to zoobyshoe and TheStatutoryApe for having the patience and persistence to wade through those virtually incomprehensible, long-winded posts. I just plain wore out trying to get through them.

And I am sorry that you still couldn't comprehend that the whole topic of the thread was to be about one definition of success even after I made this point clear numerous times.

 

[noblegas]

Looking at the responses in this thread you may wish to reconsider how people in general define success.

Go look at the first few posts of the thread. There were many users that knew what type of success that I was talking about.

 

[noblegas]

No one has said that failure does not exist. People have challenged what they believe is a flawed and rather limited definition of success coupled with with very broad and overgeneralized definition of failure.

You have not properly defined what failure is, if definition of failure in the context of climbing up someone ladder of success . There are areas in life that people tend to fail out more than they succeed in. There are areas at life that people equally succeed in and equally fail at. There are areas of life where people succeed more than they fail at. I am talking about the area where people fail more than succeed at their given task. This area might be paying all all of your bills. Most americans are in debt rather than debtless. Therefore, most people fail when it comes to saving and balancing their personal budget.

 

[GeorginaS]

And I am sorry that you still couldn't comprehend that the whole topic of the thread was to be about one definition of success even after I made this point clear numerous times.

I can promise you there's nothing wrong with my comprehension skills.

And with that, I'm done with this.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You have not properly defined what failure is, if definition of failure in the context of climbing up someone ladder of success . There are areas in life that people tend to fail out more than they succeed in. There are areas at life that people equally succeed in and equally fail at. There are areas of life where people succeed more than they fail at. I am talking about the area where people fail more than succeed at their given task. This area might be paying all all of your bills. Most americans are in debt rather than debtless. Therefore, most people fail when it comes to saving and balancing their personal budget.

Personally I think that a decent general use definition for "failure" would be lack of completing the process of attaining a goal (any goal, not just a major long term goal) or doing irreparable harm to the process of attaining a goal. Simply not getting something right on the first go is not a failure (in my estimation) unless the individual gives up after that first try. Most things in life are a process, a series of multiple steps/events, and I would not consider every single misstep or accident along the way to be a failure. Nor would I consider landing short of an ultimate goal to be ultimate failure, such that a person who wishes to become a billionaire only attains the status of a multimillionaire is still a success just not as big a success as they wished to be.

You seem to be making a sort of Zeno's Paradox of success where depending on just how minuscule a level of micromanagement we use to analyze the process of attaining the end goal we can come up with such a large number of "failures" that the success appears insignificant in comparison. Rather you might realize that as far as attaining the goal is concerned Achilles wins the race.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

My congratulations to zoobyshoe and TheStatutoryApe for having the patience and persistence to wade through those virtually incomprehensible, long-winded posts. I just plain wore out trying to get through them.

I'm just an argumentative bastard. :-)