The Boy With The Incredible Brain
 

I'm not sure if this should be in the Media section but I thought this was really interesting... makes you wonder the capabilities of the human brain - and what's preventing us from using its potential.

But here's a documentary of Daniel Tammet and a few other "savants".

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/...ble_Brain.html

Wow! I really hope they will find out how to emulate these interesting brain processes, though I doubt it will be anytime soon. It's probably insanely complex...
Reminds me of the movie with Bruce Willis and some authistic kid. I guess this is where they got the idea from.

I remember watching that many months ago on the Science Channel. Very interesting.

That's incredible. If I had the choice I would rather have the language "gift" over the math one. Learning one language in one week? Amazing. And here I am slaving over the Japanese language for God knows how long.

Why has he only learned 9, though? I'm positive he'd be able to store infinite amounts, so if I were him I'd be learning one every month or so. Eventually you'd be so smart it's just unfathomable.

That is truly amazing, but at the same time scary. Any person that can do that math in their head is just phenominal.

I wonder what kind of place the world would be like if everyone had synesthesia. It seems like such a fortunate blessing to be able to comprehend complex concepts so easily and retain all that knowledge. I also wonder if he'll grow up to be one of those eccentric persons that have nothing better to do than try to further develop string theory and other things beyond the grasp of normal people. You just know the scientific community will have their claws sunk into him real fast.

It would be exactly like our world now, except we'd be wondering how someone might "See" colors as opposed to the normal of tasting them ;)

Utterly impressed here. The fact that the autism factor is out amazes me more.

Pretty rigged. Why hasn't be been plugged into some massive science experiment to do us all some good instead of showing off to the the BBC or something? And it also seems there are no drawbacks to this synethnesia of his. I wonder if this condition of his is can be genetically isolated...

If you watched the whole video Yggdrasil, you'd see him crawling into one of those MRI tubes (if that's what they're called -- medical n00b I am). They left with him at that institute that studies savants like himself.

I saw this documentary on him about two years ago. It is exceptional to be born with a form of autism and still retain one's social skills. I bet a lot of smart people have a form of less-pronouced autism and don't even know it.

I just watched the entire thing from start to finish. I love these kinds of subjects. I frequently see colors in sound, especially music. It's nowhere near as crystallized and vibrant as his synaesthesia is though.

Actually that was the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin.

...And your basis for this weird-ass assertion is?

No basis as of yet. But as more time passes and more research done on autism, I wouldn't be surprised if they conclude a lot more of us have some autism, able to retain social skills, and live a generally normal life to never warrant diagnosis. We never know now, I mean this Daniel person exists!

Then I think autism would have be completely redefined to include such people, since currently they in no way fall under its current definition, except for intelligence, which shouldn't immediately be attributed to autism to begin with.

Oh, in no way am I trying to pin intelligence on autism, but it can very well be a possibility in the future. And yeah, I think that we'll one day completely see autism in a different way, especially in the United States. We actually have the highest rates of autism in the world for some reason, so I'm sure devoting more research to the why and how will uncover surprising things we could barely have fathomed today.

I'll throw a concept out there -- if they're gonna link intelligence to autism, then where will the line be drawn between autism and the social outcast syndrome?

To clarify, it's usually true that a student with a higher intelligence will be shunned by his/her peers, which could result in a pseudo-autism. Then again, I don't know the full spectrum of what autism covers, so my theory might be too general.

SouthJag... its possible that this said super intelligent person would have rather casted himself AWAY from these said peers because not the lack of intelligence but the lack of understanding... or to follow to what he's thinking or saying. I'm sure its possible for someone so intelligent to be frustrated to communicating these ideas to these people simply because some of these people could be rather close minded due to religion, upbringing, and even culture. :\ That's just a whole mix bag of reasoning that intelligence has impact on.

It's possible, but the power of social acceptance -- especially in a school setting with students near the same age as each other -- is often stronger than the frustration of not being able to communicate with them.

it seems that many times, people with disabilities have some other kind of gift..like playing the piano, or in this case, learning a new language easily. It's really amazing though that he isn't affected by the normal problems of autism

If evolution grasps this ability, I can't even begin to image mental capacity and ability in future stages of the human being.

Kim Peek is another person with savant syndrome, although his sociological/physical complications are more severe. Get this: Kim can read a page from a standard non-fiction book (that would normally take you and I 2-3 minutes to read) in 8-10 seconds. His left eye reads the left page, while his right eye reads the right page. Once a book is completed, he can accurately remember about 98% of what he read.

Have you ever heard of Asperger's syndrome? It's basically described as having a dash of Autism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

This guy could be out there, saving the fucking world. But instead, he's showboating around, sucking it up, and all the while loves the cock.

What a worthless fag.

He actually does a lot of work with brain-imaging researchers to help them understand why his brain works different from other people and if there's any way to get to that kind of potential in other people without the drawbacks he has. But, you know, going on the talkshow circuit and trying to raise awareness of these issues is such a waste of time.

Also, any reason this was revived from March?

I just stumbled across the Youtube video, and wanted to discuss it.