Talent Development, Physics and Biology

Our bodies and minds are creatures of adaptation and given that biological systems are in continuous state of adaption, our current state of being can be represented as the phase space that we currently inhabit. On a larger scale it is this process that forms colonies of organisms that have been subject to similar interactions. In this way we converge on a phase space as a result of the continuous interaction between organism and environment in a process involving thermodynamic flow of energy. That is to say that both the environment and the organism produce entropy, entropy is the thermodynamic flow that allows us to predict the systems current state of organisation and all potential future states. For example if the organism continuously follows the path of least resistance to a local source of energy it will reach a state of maximum entropy production. In this example the entropy producing organism has overwhelmed the entropy in the environment and will eventually transit towards a state of decline because this is the only direction currently available to it.

Managing upward directional transits in relation to talent development is clearly a fundamental concern for those working within the process. Whilst all of the above may seem like a complicated way of explaining the obvious it is in the rule based detail of these principles that I believe provides the greatest opportunity for successful talent development. Hopefully as the emerging fields of ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory reach the mainstream we will see a greater number of performers/teams reaching their full potential.