Ability in the context of "Experience"

⭐ In the context of experience, what distinguishes an 'experienced' hiker from one with only theoretical knowledge?

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⭐ Core Definition: Ability

Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and executing them successfully results in an action, which is not true for all types of powers. They are closely related to but not identical with various other concepts, such as disposition, know-how, aptitude, talent, potential, and skill.

Theories of ability aim to articulate the nature of abilities. Traditionally, the conditional analysis has been the most popular approach. According to it, having an ability means one would perform the action in question if one tried to do so. On this view, Michael Phelps has the ability to swim 200 meters in under 2 minutes because he would do so if he tried to. This approach has been criticized in various ways. Some counterexamples involve cases in which the agent is physically able to do something but unable to try, due to a strong aversion. In order to avoid these and other counterexamples, various alternative approaches have been suggested. Modal theories of ability, for example, focus on what is possible for the agent to do. Other suggestions include defining abilities in terms of dispositions and potentials.

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πŸ‘‰ Ability in the context of Experience

Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented. In this sense, seeing a yellow bird on a branch presents the subject with the objects "bird" and "branch", the relation between them and the property "yellow". Unreal items may be included as well, which happens when experiencing hallucinations or dreams. When understood in a more restricted sense, only sensory consciousness counts as experience. In this sense, experience is usually identified with perception and contrasted with other types of conscious events, like thinking or imagining. In a slightly different sense, experience refers not to the conscious events themselves but to the practical knowledge and familiarity they produce. Hence, it is important that direct perceptual contact with the external world is the source of knowledge. So an experienced hiker is someone who has actually lived through many hikes, not someone who merely read many books about hiking. This is associated both with recurrent past acquaintance and the abilities learned through them.

Many scholarly debates on the nature of experience focus on experience as a conscious event, either in the wide or the more restricted sense. One important topic in this field is the question of whether all experiences are intentional, i.e. are directed at objects different from themselves. Another debate focuses on the question of whether there are non-conceptual experiences and, if so, what role they could play in justifying beliefs. Some theorists claim that experiences are transparent, meaning that what an experience feels like only depends on the contents presented in this experience. Other theorists reject this claim by pointing out that what matters is not just what is presented but also how it is presented.

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In this Dossier

Ability in the context of Skill

A skill is the learned or innateability to act with determined results and good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both.Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. Some examples of general skills include time management, teamworkand leadership,and self-motivation.In contrast, domain-specific skills would be used only for a certain job, e.g. operating a sand blaster. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used.

A skill may be called an art when it represents a body of knowledge or branch of learning, as in the art of medicine or the art of war. Although the arts are also skills, there are many skills that form an art but have no connection to the fine arts.

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Ability in the context of Shapeshifting

In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture. Examples of shape-shifters include changelings, jinns, kitsunes, vampires, and werewolves, along with deities such as Loki and Vertumnus.

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Ability in the context of Spatial visualization ability

Spatial visualization ability or visual-spatial ability is the ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. It is typically measured with simple cognitive tests and is predictive of user performance with some kinds of user interfaces.

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Ability in the context of Potential

Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability. The term is used in a wide variety of fields, from physics to the social sciences to indicate things that are in a state where they are able to change in ways ranging from the simple release of energy by objects to the realization of abilities in people.

The philosopher Aristotle incorporated this concept into his theory of potentiality and actuality (in Greek, dynamis and energeia), translated into Latin as potentia and actualitas (earlier also possibilitas and efficacia). a pair of closely connected principles which he used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, and De Anima, which is about the human psyche. That which is potential can theoretically be made actual by taking the right action; for example, a boulder on the edge of a cliff has potential to fall that could be actualized by pushing it over the edge.

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Ability in the context of Balance (ability)

Balance in biomechanics, is an ability to maintain the line of gravity (vertical line from centre of mass) of a body within the base of support with minimal postural sway. Sway is the horizontal movement of the centre of gravity even when a person is standing still. A certain amount of sway is essential and inevitable due to small perturbations within the body (e.g., breathing, shifting body weight from one foot to the other or from forefoot to rearfoot) or from external triggers (e.g., visual distortions, floor translations). An increase in sway is not necessarily an indicator of dysfunctional balance so much as it is an indicator of decreased sensorimotor control.

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Ability in the context of Agility

Agility or nimbleness is an ability to change the body's position quickly and requires the integration of isolated movement skills using a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance. More specifically, it is dependent on these six skills:

  • Balance – The ability to maintain equilibrium when stationary or moving (i.e., not to fall over) through the coordinated actions of our sensory functions (eyes, ears and the proprioceptive organs in our joints);
  • Static balance – The ability to retain the center of mass above the base of support in a stationary position;
  • Dynamic balance – The ability to maintain balance with body movement; an equal distribution of weight;
  • Speed – The ability to move all or part of the body quickly;
  • Strength – The ability of a muscle or muscle group to overcome a resistance; and lastly,
  • Coordination – The ability to control the movement of the body in co-operation with the body's sensory functions (e.g., in catching a ball [ball, hand, and eye coordination]).

In sports, agility is often defined in terms of an individual sport, due to it being an integration of many components each used differently (specific to all sorts of different sports). Sheppard and Young (2006) defined agility as a "rapid whole body movement with change of direction or velocity in response to a stimulus".

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