A Savant Explains His Abilities 930
numLocked writes "Of the few hundred autistic savants in the world, none have been able to explain their incredible mental abilities. Until now, that is. It seems that Daniel Tammet, a mathematical savant who holds the record for the most digits of pi recited from memory, is able to explain exactly how he intuits answers to mathematical problems. Tammet is quite articulate and speaks seven languages, including one he invented. The Guardian is running an article about his amazing abilities."
Well of course (Score:3, Funny)
They're too busy counting...
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:homosexuality (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Informative)
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Funny)
Re:homosexuality (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, yes, theoretically, Hitler could have confessed his sins, been given absolution, and gone to heaven. But not bloody likely, of course any actual "documentation" of the last hours must be suspect in its truth. If a gay person keeps on keeping doing gayness and doesn't ever feel remorse or confess his sins, then yeah, that's hell-bound. If he does, it's not hellbound, likely.
What Christians need to realize is that the Old Testiment and the Jewish laws were pretty much done away with by Christ. There is a new set of laws. Do what he said, and that's fine. He never mentioned gays in the new testement. I don't know what the rules are. Old Testement God was a hard-core bad-ass who killed people. New Testement God is not. Yes, Jesus talks about hell. Yes, I believe there is hell (that Stalin and St Francis would meet the same fate is not something I wish to believe. It makes no sense).
Now, does the fact that Christ did away with it mean that sin isn't there anymore? No, there is sin. But a lot of the shit in the old testiment is just bullshit. Like Kosher. No one is going to go to hell for eating pork. Kosher makes sense in the days before refridgeration and stuff, but now it does not. Et cetera.
Do I think gayness is wrong? Yes, absolutly. But my best friend is gay. Do I believe God created the universe and everything in it? Yes. But Genisis is more of a poem on creation. I believe it may have been divinly inspired (I am a poet and English major and I do believe in muses and things because whether it's a literal thing or not, the principle is sound), but it is not literal truth. Even the notes in the new bible I bought last year (my old family bibles are like, 200 years old and I don't like to handle them) say not to take Genisis seriously (Catholic bible).
The point is that God loves us, Christ died for us, and because of that all sins are forgiven. But as it also is said, "God helps those who help themselves" -- ie, one must ask to be forgiven. It's like how showing remorse effects sentencing phases in trials. In fact, it's exactly the same. Last time I went to confession was a month ago in St Peter's in Rome. In the part of the Priest's schpele were he tells you your penence, part of it is "for your own peace of mind" -- people have a need to confess otherwise guilt builds up. This is a kind of hell. So, whether one believes in an afterlife or not, yes, telling the priest what you've done does help your own peace of mind and makes you feel better. Guilt weighs heavily.
It's lent. I ate meat on Friday. I'm Catholic. I should be going to hell like a fag according to ultra-radical militant puritan fucks in this country who take shit way too seriously. Boo Fucking Hoo. I can go to confession and get away with it. But it's not like the methodist-affiliated college I go to is going to serve fish on friday for 6 weeks to make me feel better.
Re:homosexuality (Score:3, Insightful)
(Contemporary English Version)
Nm 15:15 This law will never change. I am the LORD, and I consider all people the same, whether they are Israelites or foreigners living among you.
Dt 4:2 and now he is your God. I am telling you everything he has commanded, so don't add anything or take anything away.
Seems to me that he didn't have the jurisdiction to do away with anything, at least accor
Re:homosexuality (Score:3, Funny)
No, the priest needs to be clenching his biceps the right way and think of lingonberries to grant an absolution. If he only does the other thing, the patient will "feel" like having given absolution, but will still go to hell.
You atheists fail to grab even the most basic realities of religion...
Can a priest give himself absolution for having sex with the children in his congregation?
"
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Funny)
I may not read much, but I read my Bible, and all I need to know is I don't care what you liberal city boy types think about the Word of God: what's wrong is wrong, what's a sin is a sin, and you degenerate sickos better watch yer asses when you see my pickup comin' cos I'm gonna take a 2-by-4 bash in the head of the next GOLLDAMN PREVERT I see wearing a cotton/polyester T-shirt.
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Funny)
The gay guys I know lie with thier men like men.
Re:homosexuality (Score:3, Interesting)
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14
etc...
I couldn't stop. I would spend hours doing this because it was fun and comforting. I also get very bothered when objects
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Insightful)
Now go look that up in a few other translations. It is quite a bit different.
I've never understood how people can believe that the Bible is true, yet at the same time not find it important enough to read in the original languages.
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Interesting)
Well there's your problem. You need to get the KJV and a good set of translation notes. The NIV and other "modern" bibles are the word of Bob the fallablle translator, not the word of God. I'll never understand why you people waste your time on those things. It's like trying to understand Shakespeare by reading only the Cliff's Notes.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
That's both more accurate to Paul's original text and more beautiful to read. If Paul had intended to say "homosexual", he would have used the well-known word "paiderasste." Instead, he uses, "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai," neither of which have ever had clear homosexual connotation. Do a Google search [google.com] on the Greek words if you want to learn more. It's fascinating.
Re:homosexuality (Score:5, Funny)
Lesbians have the lowest infection rate for these things... it seems to me that it's not homosexuality that's harmful... it seems it's more a matter of going anywhere near a penis.
Same for those idiot churches that say AIDS is a punishment for homosexuality... if that's the case it seems lesbians are God's chosen people.
Re:homosexuality (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Homosexuality is not a vector for disease spread. The vector is massive ammounts of sexual activity without proper precautions (such as condoms, limiting partners [to a perferred one], and plain igno
On nuclear families. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, that's quite a leap. Let me start off by saying that my goal is only to analyze this a bit and not attack you.
First, the nuclear family is a relatively modern concept in the grand scheme of Humanity's history. Second, how is a nuclear family more stable, than say, the larger extended family of your village, which is a more traditional family structure? Third, if the nuclear family is so "stable" wh
Re:homosexuality (Score:3, Interesting)
Met any gay parents lately? My best friend and his partner have two children with four parents. Two Moms and two Dads and are their children growing up just fine. Our society is developing new ways of parenting and allowing people express their sexuality as they biologically feel. All the while creating new definitions of families that are arguably stronger than the nuclear family.
It's only in the last 30-40 years since Stonewall and the human rights movement that gay, lesbian and bisexual have had an opp
It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:4, Interesting)
My little sister is autistic, and I think at least a third of her brain is wired for solving jigsaw puzzles. Try working that into a resume.
Resume Puzzle (Score:5, Informative)
The ability to organize complex, structured data (which is basically all a jigsaw is) is a key requirement in database administration. Being able to visualize the optimal structure is a talent people will pay a LOT of money for.
As another person has noted, the ability to reassemble a randomly scrambled structure (such as a shredded document) would appeal very much to certain areas of law enforcement, intelligence and homeland security.
Being able to connect bits of image that are associated by some non-obvious connection may well be of interest to people studying image compression. There may be organizations which can yield better compression, which do not require too much meta-data to explain and which do not take significantly longer to uncompress.
If all else fails, she can simply put "massively parallel combinatorial logic" on the resume and apply as a maths lecturer.
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is the saddest
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:5, Interesting)
You should know then that Aspbergers is quite common in this industry. Maybe you just don't know how to recognize it, but all the stereotypes of geeks being socially inept have Aspbergers at their root. That's not to say that all geeks are high-functioning autistics. But, it is easier to mask in environments where their logical/reasoning/technical skills are valued over skills at socialization. Maybe you just need to look closer at the people around you.
From your description of her as, "busy being a teenage girl" it sounds like she is in the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, because the people in the middle to lower range are barely able to even BE a teenager in a way that society recognizes and avoiding the stigma of geekiness just isn't even a comprehenisble concept to them.
It is easy to say from the other side of the internet, but one of the best things anyone can do for her is to get her as much positive exposure to a wide range of "autistic-excelling" skills so that pattern-matching ability which makes her good at jigsaw puzzles will get the chance to focus on a more (financially) rewarding area. You never know what oddball skill might "click" with her, whatever it is, chances are it won't be what society considers a traditional job so you have to keep open to as broad a range as possible.
FWIW, I am speaking from experience here, one of my closest relatives has asperbergers. Early on he focused on computers and did the rounds as sysadmin/programmer and he was somewhat better than average at it. But what he found is that he is really good at talking about and explaining the processes and logic behind all that stuff - he's got really low communication skills otherwise, zero socialization ability, zero non-verbal communication ability, hardly any empathy, etc. But if you ask him about the way a complex system works he can explain it and he can explain it in a way that regular "non-savant" type people can follow.
He's been able to leverage that ability to "talk about work" into a very high paying career, serving as "resident guru" for companies doing software development. He doesn't do any real work, he just helps the regular developers understand how best to do their work. At first glance, it's not your typcial aspergbers-friendly kind of job because of all the people-interaction. But from his perspective it is a perfect match because it is all technical discourse about stuff he is really focused on with very little non-verbal/emotional content.
It's probably something like talking about jigsaw puzzles with your sister, she could probably talk about them all day and go into the most exruciating detail about them. Just nobody really wants to know about jigsaw puzzles, but knowing how complex hardware and software systems work is a very valuable skill in today's market.
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what I would call a load of crap.
I mean, I realize it feels good to be able to explain away social ineptitude with some magical neurological hand-waving (oh, I'm sorry I'm a dick, it's just that I have Aspergers -- most geeks have it to some degree), but when it comes straight down to it, it just ain't so.
I have worked with autistic kids before; my first girlfriend and my college roommate both specialized in autism and working with such people was/is their profession. It seems to me that some of the self-described autistic people on Slashdot are so high-functioning that describing their state as autism essentially takes the meaning from the word.
The truth is, people have different skills and talents. My brother is exceptionally good at video games, for example, while I lack the attention span and motor skills to effectively play them. I'm better with people than he is. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, because we are not all alike. Serial insensitivity to other people's emotional state and a predilection for consistancy are symptoms of autism, but possession of symptoms is not sufficient for diagnosis.
While I have met at least one person that is actually a bona-fide sufferer of Asperger's -- ie, he was diagnosed as such by someone other than himself or a well-meaning school counselor or "psychologist" who said something like, "Well, you might have a mild-form of Asperger's..." when trying to explain to a confused kid with no social skills and an unsual love of math why he doesn't fit in -- the truth is, the impression I have of most "Asperger's" sufferers is that they're mostly just normal geeks that would rather believe that there is something chemical that prevents them from engaging socially rather than just plain not being good at it.
I mean, when someone isn't good at Math, we don't start saying, "Well, maybe you have a mild form of mental retardation." After all, retards aren't usually good at math! Heck, maybe it's true! Why don't we say this? Because we understand that some people just aren't as good at math as others. This is true of all skills.
I hate to say this, but all this "I have a mild form of Asperger's" or "geek behaviour is a manifestation of Asperger's syndrome" is what I would call, plainly, a load of crap. Pop-psychology at its worst.
So why do we accept it? Why do people keep up this charade? Because we want to believe that there's some more exotic reason for our shortcomings than them being just that -- shortcomings.
Believe it or not, for 99% of us, social ability is something that is well within our reach. All we need to do is work hard at being better at it, practice, and want to get better. It annoys us that frat-boy John that we've always resented and that we privately think beneath us can so easily master a skill that seems beyond us; fearing failure, we find a thousand reasons we shouldn't even try to play his game. But were we to actual set our minds to it, we could overcome these barriers, because despite our fantasies of neurophysiological differences that neatly explain our lack of social skills, we are able to learn these things. We just never bother trying.
It would simply be too embarassing to fail at something that people we discount as morons do everyday with ease. It's painful.
Painful, but possible.
That's the difference, you see. People who are actually suffering from Asperger's are blind, in a way. They can honestly not perceive things like sarcasm, emotional stress, etc. There is a part of the world they cannot perceive. This is not the same as the geek who is frustrated by his dating difficulties. This is a real, bona-fide disability, which is relatively rare and quite difficult to overcome.
I don't have a lot of respect for all the people out there who write off their "inability to be socially adept" as a mild form of Aspergers. I've worked in IT most of my life; most of my friends have been geeks. And while 99% of them are hopeless socially, autistic they most definitely are not.
Just like people who suck at math aren't retarded.
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:5, Insightful)
You're trying to draw a dichotomy where nothing exists. It's all chemical (unless you're a dualist).
Whether you're a moron, a pedophile, an asperger, a socially inept geek, or a low functioning autistic, there's a neurological explanation somewhere, whether genetic, environmental or a combination of both.
You seem fixated by these black and white labels; this person has that disease, but that person is ok, they're just inept.
???
The truth is that there's a broad landscape of ability and disability. For purposes of mental health treatment, it helps to draw circles around certain peaks and call them disorders, but in reality it's all shades of gray on a huge multidimensional surface.
It's extremely likely that some subset of the genes that cause autism/aspergers are active in the socially inept. Why do you take such offense at this? Does it make you feel better to tell these people "no, you're just inept, you don't get to claim that it's because of the way your brain is wired."
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is some hope to be gained from others' examples. I have a friend with cerebral palsy whose pediatrician said he'd never be able to care for himself but is now a successful business owner and head of household, another friend with learning disabilities who's doing well handling repetitive tech-support calls, and a great aunt who was born cyanotic with multiple disabilities but has lived a rather full and rich life. My boyfriend, whose brain hemorrhage several years ago left him unable to care for himself (let alone hold down a job) has ended up as "a burden on the family", but they - and I - still value him for (to put it crudely) what's left of him. A step mother I expected nothing from turned out to be his greatest caregiver. (And I sure as hell didn't turn out like my family expected.)
My point I suppose is that things don't always turn out as badly as you fear they will, and you have to let every situation sort itself out as best as you can. There's no guarantee that everything will all work out, but then there's no guarantee that it won't. Work with that.
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with technical definitions is that it requires someone who is technically competent to apply them. The US has only recognized Aspergers at all only very recently. (It was identified in the 1940s, I believe, but not diagnosed outside of "Old Europe" as a certain politician kindly refers to that part of the world until the 1980s.)
The most practical method of diagnosis is to hang out with autistic people. If you find you think in ways that they can relate to (and vice versa) then you have a working diagnosis. In other words, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you must consider the possibility that it really is a duck.
Best place to find autistic people is over on Starlink [demon.nl]. The Asperger channel is only for people who have been diagnosed, not just self-diagnosed, but there are plenty of other resources there.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not unusual for people with Aspergers to have trouble recognizing the "correctness" of behaviour, facial expressions, etc. Sure, it's not universal, either, but it's definitely not a rarity.
Do I care? No. But, then, I'm not built to care about things like that. This isn't an "I can't help it", because that implies it's wrong to be anything other than a highly socially-aware, socially-structured individual.
I am Autistic. I don't see it as anything to be pitied, or even delighted in. It's just a word that describes how some aspect of the chemistry in my brain differs from the "norm". It is a description, not a definition.
Idiot Savant is the same thing. It is just a description, no different from "hot", "yellow" or "crispy". Someone might get angry with the words, finding them offensive. That's not my problem. How you choose to understand words is entirely up to you.
True, I could be better understood, if I spoke in a language closer to your own. But if I want to be understood by fellow autists, I go join the autistic channel on an IRC network specially set up for such folk. Here, I expect to be understood by geeks, who know how to dereference the pointers of obscure and arcane language.
Well, they must. When karma was still counted in points on Slashdot, my score was in the thousands. Someone out there must have understood me.
Re:Resume Puzzle (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an autistic cousin and uncle through marriage, and it should be noted that both have severe forms of autism. My uncle-in-law can make some affirmative and negative sounds but is completely nonverbal, and my cousin-in-law makes no communicative noises, except for the occasional shriek in anger or confusion. Both of them are completely dysfunctional and must live in skilled care group homes.
When strangers
Re:Jobs and games (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, chess is a problem in combinatorial logic, over multiple-step sequences. It relies on the ability to analyze massive amounts of future data, based only on past experience and present status. A good chess-player would likely do well in meteorology or the stock market. I imagine it is also useful to tacticians. The advisors who set up the form
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, this is a little unspoken crisis in my family. One of us three older non-autistic siblings is going to have to take care of her in a few decades when our parents are no longer around, and although nobody's said anything, it's obvious that nobody wants to be that sibling. This sounds heartless, but if you spent an hour with her you'd understand- she's pleasant enough, but incoherent and unresponsive, so you never really feel like you know her even after you've met her. No one has any idea how employable she'll be when she's an adult (she's in her teens now), or how much of an independent life she'll be able to lead. Right now she's a handful and requires close adult supervision at all times unless a jigsaw puzzle or a DVD player is around- she can't get involved in typical conversations that take place and will try to regain attention by turning off all the lights in the room and laughing at everyone in the darkness. Maybe she'll grow out of it. Right now it's pretty funny at family gatherings- I can tell my brother in law would like to strangle her from the way he groans when the lights go out, but he can't say anything.
She just got a yahoo email account. I should send her an email- she'll be thrilled. Maybe it's possible to have an email conversation with her. I don't even know.
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Try it. It isn't all that uncommon for autistics to be articulate with the written word yet be unable to speak or handle face-to-face communication.
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can also write much better than I can talk, which supports my mother's Aspberger's theory I guess. I can still speak well, but writing well is much, much easier and requires less mental effort. There are these four arrow keys I use to order thoughts when writing, but when speaking you have to order your thoughts before they come out, and mine are usually in the wrong order. And if I write something stupid, I can (and sometimes do) delete it before anyone sees it. Good thing we don't use typewriters anymore.
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Informative)
and we can't see when we misspell things.
I guess what I am trying to say is that there could be worse things: you could be dyslexic too. your sister could be severally downs syndrome and have congestive ht failure at 25.
she is no doubt something special in some wonderful light and i wish you luck in communicating with her. My experience has been puzzling and rather awe inspiring in reference to autistics. Oddly enough, does she have a pet? When I worked with this children's clinic the autistics that had pets that were their own (usually a dog or cat) they seemed better acclimated and better communicators. some also learned sign rather well. Just things to look into (sorry if this is redundant to your situation).
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.neurodiversity.com/robotics.html [neurodiversity.com]
http://www.aurora-project.com/ [aurora-project.com]
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll throw my chips in with the above poster and agree that this is a great idea, many autistics light up when they have access to non-verbal communication, and for some strange reason computers have that glow about them that is attractive and addictive. I really think there needs to be some sort of standardized computer based learning system fo
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I should kick your ass, AC.
Although I don't think my sister will be going into porn. In fact I can't imagine a career more laughably unsuited for an autistic person. One of the main problems in people with autism is that they don't find it very motivating to look at other individuals. And even when they do, they can't seem to assess information about that individual's importance, intentions or expressions. [dukemednews.org] That pretty much rules out a career in the porn industry- in front of or behind the camera.
This past Thanksgiving, my mother was excited and took pictures of all of us and our spouses, since we were all there at the same time (we live all over the country). My autistic sister erased them all so she could take pictures of the floor and the ceiling. Can you imagine paying for a porno tape and the camera quickly moves from the bed to the ceiling? I don't know what industry she might work in but it certainly isn't going to be porn.
Although my little sister is quite attractive- that's one thing she's definitely got going for her in life. She looks like me.
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:4, Insightful)
While that might possibly be the case for the most profoundly affected autists, most people on the autism spectrum don't see the world like that. They have a "theory of mind", as it's known, it's just that their theory is that others' minds are incomprehensible. If autists didn't believe that others had minds, the common autistic trait of averting eye contact wouldn't exist.
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:3, Interesting)
He's another story himself. He's a mentally ill mainframe programmer. He may be crazy, depressed, alcoholic,
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel your pain. I have a son who is autistic and though he isn't yet a teenager, he is at about the same level as your sister. He may never get any better. Treatment can cost $30,000 a year and may or may not work. If it does work, the end result will be that he is trained like a dog, to respond on command. Some people I know who have kids like mine are working two jobs each...both husband and wife...so that their child will be taken care of when they can't any lon
Re:It makes one wonder.... (Score:3, Informative)
"Scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest that the right hemisphere might be compensating for damage in the left hemisphere. While many savants struggle with language and comprehension (skills associated primarily with the left hemisphere), they often have amazing skills in mathematics and memory (primarily right hemisphere skills)."
Savantism (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Savantism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Savantism (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes he'll get obsessed with a particular person -- when its me for instance, he will send me several emails *per minute* until whatever it is about him passes.
Id hate to think of where he would be without the memory though, its clear he doesn't really understand the interactions between people, or emotions. He sent me a picture of himself with some of the budweiser girls (he met them at a promo thing), and he's got this mean scowl on his face in the picture. He was horribly excited about the whole thing and he waited days and days for the photo, but simply doesn't *know* to smile. He can *remember* the thousands of little things that his family has told him over the years, and usually remembers a short phrase that tells him what to do, "My grandfather said when somebody gets real mad the best thing to do is let them cool off for a bit and then go talk to them." And he does that thing.
Re:Savantism (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Savantism (Score:4, Interesting)
So I guess each of us has this 'automatic' process of thought which we arent aware of, and if we dont then we must use some complex large internal flow chart to work things out.
Its a bit like each person has their own OS in their heads, but with only so many built in 'tools' and 'apps'. If we dont have it, we must 'create' a shell script for it which is why its slow and not automatic.
What we need to do is work out how to 'recompile' our slow shell script flow charts in our minds into the automatic background util that runs at compile exe speeds and gives results in 1 second with out even knowing how it works, kinda of like running photoshop or whatever.
Our brains are like a newly found uber OS, that we just dont have the manual to or even know how to interface with it well. We must do more hardcore analytical brain process understanding, deconstructing thought patterns just like disassembling op codes.
What? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autistic_savant [wikipedia.org]
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
I can imagine the two...
Ali: What you're sayin' is like.. They is smart, 'cos they got brain damage?
Simon: Well, not quite. A savant isn't quite what we usually mean by..
Ali: An' drugs? Theys give ya brain damage?
Simon: Yes, they can..
Ali: So if me was to like, drop a pile of E, I could, like, do maths and stuff?
Simon: Well, I wouldn't..
Ali: RESPECT!!
So let's see (Score:5, Funny)
So presumably 69 is Jenifer Lopez, and 303 is the goatse guy?
Braining my Damage (Score:5, Funny)
FTA: "Savants have usually had some kind of brain damage. Whether it's an onset of dementia later in life, a blow to the head...
Item 1, check. Item 2, check.
So how come I aren't a genius now?
This is clearly false advertising.
Pfh, languages (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pfh, languages (Score:4, Interesting)
And can you keep horses and cows in the same building?
What about llamas?
Re:Pfh, languages (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly the sort of thing where I'd imagine that synthetic languages would trip up. Personally, I'd say that evolution, interaction with various dialects and corruption is invaluable to the usefulness of a language. How does Esperanto deal with this?
(n.b. not attempting to flame: I'm genuinely interested)
Re:Pfh, languages (Score:4, Interesting)
...other people have been able to describe this (Score:5, Interesting)
The program seemed to conclude that we all, to an extent, are synesthetic. Quite a large number of people assosciate colours with days of the week, and we all use words like a "soft/sharp sound", a "bite" to a tase, and so on. Although these words are ones of touch, we use them in other contexts. Cross-referencing the senses in a similar war to more advanced synesthesia.
Re:...other people have been able to describe this (Score:3, Interesting)
You jogged my memory with the colors for the days of the week thing. It's something I hadn't thought about forever but when I was a kid, I saw the days of a week as colors and shapes and you're post brought this back to me. I'm sitting here recalling the days and their associations as I type.
Saturday was a green rectangle with a fringe.
Sunday was a half moon with a yellow gradient.
Tuesday is vaguely brown but I can't see the shape.
Anyway, I can't remember them all, but they're comin
On slashdot we have (Score:4, Funny)
What is mathematical genius (Score:5, Insightful)
If he solved Fermat's theorem over breakfast, that would be mathematical genius!!
Re:What is mathematical genius (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is mathematical genius (Score:5, Interesting)
And if we are on the topic of raw computing ability - and we decide that computing ability _is_ interesting - could we *please* have them try computations in a more general number field? Could we *please* have them solve problems that we can't yet solve efficiently by any known algorithm? (And, could someone also study how fast this guy computes factorisations as a funtion of the input size? Fr instance, could we find out how fast his brain's process works - O(n) ? O(log(n))? This question could at least be answered experimentally.
Re:Parent is right. (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it's not generally called "mathematics" once you get past arithmatic, until you get to the sign on the college department's door.
Which means that a majority of us don't think "complex equations" when we think "mathematics." Which means that the word is getting itself re-defined, just like "hacker" or "gay."
Crypto (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Crypto (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting tidbits about Asperger's and Autism (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say it's natural to be depressed every so often, but we still have such a thing as "clinical depression". I'd wager that lots of people falsely decide they need treatment/medication for their depression too, when they don't really have a mental problem.
Even defining an "alcoholic" seems to be rather difficult. I remember reading the list of "signs" back in school, and the running joke was that "Hey, we're almost ALL alcoholics and we didn't even know it!"
It seems to me, Aspergers is just a definition of extremely mild autism -- and the diagnostic criteria have to be broad, because it's nearly impossible to draw an absolute "line" as when this transcends "slightly geeky" and crosses over into the territory of an actual disease/illness.
Truth is, these things only become "problems" for an individual when they interfere with their daily lives to the point where they're unable to overcome them on their own.
So yeah - if you're simply not making an effort to overcome some problem you're having, then you're correct. It's time to stop with the excuses and time to take a little responsibility to change.
But I can certainly see value in parents being made aware that something like Asperger's exists. I'm pretty sure I have a touch of it myself, actually, but nobody ever brought it up as I was growing up. I struggled quite a bit with social skills and to some extent, with physical clumsiness. To this day, I have a habit of rocking back and forth in my chair while thinking, reading, or trying to work on a project, and I have a tendency to twiddle pens or pencils and so forth. I also tend to "hyper-focus" on specific problems or items of interest. I put up with a lot of teasing in school, until I got much of the way through high-school, and started making a real conscious effort to "fit in" and to succeed in being more "social" with other people.
To this day, I naturally want to avoid eye-contact with people when I talk to them, and I have to pretty much force myself not to do that (reminding myself each time about it).
I suspect that what I've really done over the years is teach myself how to cope with and work-around my own problems. That's fine, but I might have gotten to this point a lot more quickly if someone helped me along a little bit when I was a kid. About the only "advice" I got was that I was "shy".
Does not Compute! (Score:5, Interesting)
"When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think."
I don't understand. There is nothing intrinsic in the number 2 and the number 5 that will tell you what they will equal when they are multiplied.
The way we arrive at the solution is extrinsic, namely in the form of the operator (multiplication in this instance).
But if it's extrinsic, I don't understand what the author of the article means by "instinct" and "shapes" and that sort of thing. As far as I can understand, the only explanation would be the ability to compute those operations at much higher speed, then any "non-savant."
If that's the case, then, theoretically, would there not be a limit associated with the physical properties of the nervous system that would cap out at a certain number of such operations per unit time? So theoretically might we not be able to test such a thing by running him through a long list of operations? That'll let us know if he's really just making those calculations really, really fast, or if he really is viewing the mathematics in such a fundamentally different way (something I find rather unsettling).
Then again, how would we design such a test? I fear that the number of operations we can demand his brain to perform per unit time will be limited by his powers of cognition (i.e. by the time he reads/hears all the stuff he needs to hear, we'll already be beyond that critical operating time interval).
Eh, I think I come off as somewhat difficult to understand. Oh well, I wanted to make sure my question appeared in the main thread of discussion (rather than being posted after most people have moved on).
Re:Does not Compute! (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct. I think he has shapes for each of the numbers he's multiplying and he has learnt the shape that they turn into when you multiply them. Because the visual powers of the human mind are quite powerful he's able to do that fast.
It's kinda like using your computer's graphics card to do matrix multiplication. If you feed the info in the right format you can get the answer out faster than using the main processor, because the graphics processor actually has more computing power; but it's not as general purpose.
Re:Does not Compute! (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of this then: (Score:5, Interesting)
When you use the framebuffer memory to do ordinary calculations, seemingly random crap will appear on the screen when the program is run, and the answer will technically appear as an image as well.
If we think of our brains as highly sophisticated computers, it makes sense that somewhere inside exists the "circuitry" to do complex calulations like a computer in the blink of an eye, however, we somehow can't accesse these mechanisms, as hypothesized somewhere in the article. Perhaps (I'm just taking a random stab here) something happened to these people where some of the "wiring" of their brains got messed up so that they can actually use different parts of their brain. These "images" might not have anything "intrinsic", but might just be the effect of something else, like the example above.
Sounds like he has synesthesia (Score:5, Informative)
The upside is that this can make it easier to remember things- it means you've got more things about the thing to connect to other things- his description of how he remembered pi as a story is a *classic* description of the mnemonic technique for remembering things- you basically turn what you want to remember into a series of pictures that you string into a whacky story. It works really, really well; people easily get upwards of 90% recall using it. And he has a built in picture or sensation to help him with this; which is the hardest bit of the technique.
The brain of a savant (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it possible that knowing how to drive a car, wire a plug, tell right from left, and other banal things that we do require a ton of processing power? Since he cannot do these things, all that processing power goes to processing numbers and memorising words.
It we would be cool if on a math test we cold forget our ability to drive cars and concentrate on processing numbers.
Give this guy his own GUI. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm wondering, do you think that perhaps if we could present someone with this man's abilities an interface to some kind for a programming language that he could also achieve amazing things?
maybe vocal recognition or a motion-capture interface? He did say he is making his own language.
For instance, if he combines these abstract ideas in his mind in a mechanical way he is showing the ability to visualize details of und use complex concepts with amazing precision.
what is a chunk of code if not merely an amazingly complex concept?
Funes, The Memorious (Score:4, Interesting)
Daniel's life story is not the same as Ireneo Funes' fictional life, but in a way they both lead to the same question - what does it mean to think?
Without effort, he had learned English, French, Portuguese, Latin. I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details.
In March 2001, there was an article in Science, "The Art of Forgetting" which touched on these issues, and more current research begins to detail the chemical methods of action for the brain's 'forgetting system'. Indeed, life would not be possible if we remembered everything. Human cognition seems to be defendant on removing details, as much of what we do is through abstracting away the differences... this allows us to generalize. Of course, over-generalization is a failure-point for human cognition as well, as we all know.
All of this will be very useful to AI research, especially if we are trying to model computer minds after the ones nature evolved.
I sometimes describe myself... (Score:3, Funny)
memorizing Pi like memorizing a song? (Score:4, Interesting)
Geek Syndrome, Silicon Valley & Ausism (Score:3, Interesting)
The "shyness about making eye contact" is a symptom of austim and is used as a dianostic criterion.
Did anyone else read this bit and double take? (Score:4, Interesting)
and say "Wha
A gay, churchgoing autistic savant in fact. That's a tough call for someone trying not to stand out.
Re:Did anyone else read this bit and double take? (Score:5, Insightful)
A gay, churchgoing autistic savant in fact. That's a tough call for someone trying not to stand out.
As a gay, formerly-churchgoing, neurotic genius (i.e. a bit like like him but not as "out there"), I'm jealous that he has a boyfriend.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
I envy him (Score:4, Interesting)
Qabbala (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the language genius. This guy seems a lot like somenone who might have been one of the inventors of Qabbala and influenced Judaic mysticism. There is no reason to expect that people of his kind weren't around back then.
Lame Article summary (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/david.shanks
I am a teacher and have had nearly a dozen autistic students (none of whom were savants). There is a huge increase in Silicon Valley, and it is a fascinating, frustrating, and a lot of work for most of the support staff.
For anyone interested, I'd also recommend the book "Thinking in Pictures" by Temple Grandin (an autistic woman who has redesigned livestock handling machinery). She is quite eloquent and probably the most famous autistic person (she has also been interviewed by Terry Gross, which I suppose is online).
Finnish (Score:5, Informative)
Tammet is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe. (He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto.) The vocabulary of his language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships between different things. The word "ema", for instance, translates as "mother", and "ela" is what a mother creates: "life". "Päike" is "sun", and "päive" is what the sun creates: "day". Tammet hopes to launch Mänti in academic circles later this year, his own personal exploration of the power of words and their inter-relationship.
Disregarding the misspellings, all those words are straight from a Finnish or Estonian dictionary. "Mänty" is a pine tree, "päivä" is day, "pälke" means glimmer or glint. "Emä" and "elä" are the root words of mother and life, respectively. And "tammi" (tammet) is oak.
Finnish is a weird but logical language with a lot of nuances and forms that are not present in other languages. I'm not sure what Tammet is trying to do, but he's apparently just exploring the relationships between words in Finnish. Anything else would either not make sense, or be simple plagiarism. Too bad the reporter got stuck on the words and made such a big issue of it.
Tammet's not the first one to ponder on the Finnish language. It's well known that J.R.R Tolkien got hooked on Finnish at an early age and re-used some ideas [www.sci.fi] in his works.
--Bud
(Temporarily) turning people into savants (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
As remarkable as the cat-drawing lesson was, it was just a hint of Snyder's work and its implications for the study of cognition. He has used TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits of our own intelligence -- and the functioning of the human brain in general.
Snyder's work began with a curiosity about autism. Though there is little consensus about what causes this baffling -- and increasingly common -- disorder, it seems safe to say that autistic people share certain qualities: they tend to be rigid, mechanical and emotionally dissociated. They manifest what autism's great ''discoverer,'' Leo Kanner, called ''an anxiously obsessive desire for the preservation of sameness.'' And they tend to interpret information in a hyperliteral way, using ''a kind of language which does not seem intended to serve interpersonal communication.''
In a 1999 paper called ''Is Integer Arithmetic Fundamental to Mental Processing? The Mind's Secret Arithmetic,'' Snyder and D. John Mitchell considered the example of an autistic infant, whose mind ''is not concept driven. . . . In our view such a mind can tap into lower level details not readily available to introspection by normal individuals.'' These children, they wrote, seem ''to be aware of information in some raw or interim state prior to it being formed into the 'ultimate picture.''' Most astonishing, they went on, ''the mental machinery for performing lightning fast integer arithmetic calculations could be within us all.''
And so Snyder turned to TMS, in an attempt, as he says, ''to enhance the brain by shutting off certain parts of it.''
Sketchy science (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand it appears that he at least exists, and that his story is not fabricated from whole cloth: http://www.usyd.edu/news/newsevents/articles/2004
Finally, in reference to the Guardian article, I find the parroting of autistic savant folklore such as the tale of the savant able to play Tchaik 1 without having taken a piano lesson (or touched a piano depending on the retelling) extremely galling. Playing a piano concerto depends on technique, muscle memory, and many other things besides pure mental contortion. To think that someone who has never played scales would be able to wrap their untrained fingers around a concerto of non-negligible complexity is positively ridiculous in my mind. I suspect that the story arose as a vast but innocent exaggeration initially and has taken up a life of its own through repeated retellings by reporters too lazy to check the source material of their stories.
Re:Sketchy science (Score:3, Informative)
Savant-like skills exposed in normal people by suppressing the left fronto-temporal lobe [google.com] (Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 2003)
Alas, I have no idea how reputable a journal the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience is.
I do agree that there may very well be some fishiness. Hopefully some more noted neuroscience will try replicating the experiments. Unfortunately, experiments of some
Re:(Temporarily) turning people into savants (Score:3, Insightful)
Dangerous Abilities in Today's Legal Climate (Score:3, Funny)
a really interesting field (Score:5, Interesting)
When you get down to it, though, we do most of our "thinking" in sounds or visuals. Everything else is translation. For instance, LANGUAGE is incredibly complex, but we can do it with ease since our brain has such an amazing "processing chip" for sorting sounds. Reading is simply converting things to sounds (or visuals - when you "remember" a quote you will normally either remember it by sound or by a visual memory of the words.)
Even math is, at it's root, visual for all of us. Take 2 + 2 = 4. There is cold memorization of the result, but if you were learning math for the first time, you would break it down to:
|| + || = ||||
ie. a visual representation, or counting fingers etc. The reason many people have so much trouble with math is they end up doing too much cold memorization - the brain remembers associatively, so this doesn't work well (but it explains why mneumonic devices DO work well). Unfortunately, that's how they teach it.
I tend to believe that we have an amazing ability to remember sound and sight (makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint) but we're NOT hard drives and "cold memorization" just doesn't work. By knocking out some part of the brain, the brain is forced to take in math through the visual/sound process, inventing a network of logic that handles all the work in the subconscious.
I am a Stock Picking (anti) Savant (Score:3, Funny)
I can't explain it, it is just a natural ability I have.
Savants and jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure it'd be welcome to many.
How do other savants get along with one another?
huh-- I speak 8 languages (Score:5, Funny)
Jerry Newport, Donna Williams, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Daniel Tammet's web site (Score:5, Informative)
Daniel Tammet's web site is here [optimnem.co.uk] and looks quite nicely done.
A relative of mine... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's sort of impressive, but it's also a horrible condition. I'd rather lack that ability and at least be more able to function normally in the world. He's still a great person but obviously life is much more difficult for him.
How about the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of this story is that modern medicine may develop a basis for understanding savantism and then maybe autism. The real goal with this guy is to get him to write a diary, so shrinks can pick his brain. This guy may be the greatest discovery made by psychology ever. And it seems to have been completely missed by everyone here on /.
Re:3... 2... 1... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Intuitive... (Score:3, Interesting)