Amazing minds

[Starhunter]

The Boy With The Incredible Brain - Extraordinary People - Documentary - YouTube

This video shows a sample of savants and their extraordinary abilities.

We know that these unusual abilities have been found with every facet and talent of human beings, including unusual physical prowess, skills and abilities.

Why is brain damage often associated with these abilities?

A list of these abilities virtually covers every human ability there is and more.

[Starhunter]

People like Rain man as he was called, seem to have an endless memory, it can be filled with millions of pieces of info - all easily extracted.

The education system is about cramming that kind of data into the mind - how come it does not work, and that only a small percentage of info is retrievable?

[back to earth]

Humans have vast potentials but we have to use a lot of them to manage how we 'perform'. Most types of achievements have an aspect of 'focus' ; intense concentration or visualisation. It might require 'narrowing the field' for some.

The 'normal' person has 'normal abilities' - focus ( or genius) may need to sacrifice some 'normality' - even if it is that they work so hard (and stay focused) some one has to help care for them ... to an extent. I doubt Mr Einstein did the cooking washing and ironing much .

Sorry ... what was the aim of the education system again ? (Lately it seems to be how to turn it into a business and make money.)

There are great ways and systems for learning, the best are suited to the individuals 'learning style'. Even better if we can learn from multiple sources. Also, people need to know how to learn efficiently . Both teaching and learning can do with a big overhaul IMO

[Starhunter]

Humans have vast potentials but we have to use a lot of them to manage how we 'perform'. Most types of achievements have an aspect of 'focus' ; intense concentration or visualisation. It might require 'narrowing the field' for some.

The 'normal' person has 'normal abilities' - focus ( or genius) may need to sacrifice some 'normality' - even if it is that they work so hard (and stay focused) some one has to help care for them ... to an extent. I doubt Mr Einstein did the cooking washing and ironing much .

Sorry ... what was the aim of the education system again ? (Lately it seems to be how to turn it into a business and make money.)

There are great ways and systems for learning, the best are suited to the individuals 'learning style'. Even better if we can learn from multiple sources. Also, people need to know how to learn efficiently . Both teaching and learning can do with a big overhaul IMO

Yes, when we think of Savants we often associate it with a disability, but surely, there are some geniuses without disability?

(It used to be called "Idiot savantism," but since they found the idiots running the country we are left with the savants.)

Sometimes Einstein used to turn up as lecturer in his night gown and slippers, or was that contempt for an education system which booted him out?

In the video, there was a brief moment with Chinese students and their calculators? really hard training, but is that how the mind works best?

The savants often love what they can specialize in, a bit different than 'forced' training, and again what about the effects of an education "suited to individual's learning style" as you said?

Would you expect people with similar abilities - say in maths - to have similar methods of calculation?

[back to earth]

Depends how similar the ability is.

ETA - re " what about the effects of an education "suited to individual's learning style" as you said? "

That is how one draws out the 'inherent genius' of the individual.

Edited March 12, 2015 by back to earth

[Raptor Witness]

The Boy With The Incredible Brain - Extraordinary People - Documentary - YouTube

... Why is brain damage often associated with these abilities?

The religious man would say that when God takes something away, He always gives something back in return.

The scientist would say that the human mind is like a computer, which can be programmed to do different things.

The variety that nature provides is not a disability. The true disability is the failure to recognize that diversity is Ma Nature's strength.

She has been programmed to help us. She can also be programmed to hurt us.

The religious man says that two men will be born who can program Ma Nature, but does he really believe it?

The scientists will say that they are merely forecasting the future, using data gained from their five senses.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Raptor Witness

[Starhunter]

The religious man would say that when God takes something away, He always gives something back in return.

The scientist would say that the human mind is like a computer, which can be programmed to do different things.

The variety that nature provides is not a disability. The true disability is the failure to recognize that diversity is Ma Nature's strength.

She has been programmed to help us. She can also be programmed to hurt us.

These are good points, which we could go into detail about - for eg the ability to deny some realities is sometimes used by the mind/nature to cover up a fear or trauma. All part of the programming.

For the moment I just wanted to see what we can come up with about how the brain is programmed to deal with information.

This particular record of savantism is helpful because the person is able to cooperate with scientific research. I'm not saying he is the only one who has, but we notice that he or his mind has found a way of summarizing or simplifying complexity. He calculated with shapes, colors, feelings, landscapes, not figures and numbers, yet somehow he was able to translate that to numbers.

Society has speculated in the past that the mind works like a shopping list, recording info, and it is retrieved or remembered by sorting through the list.

But it seems like the brain does not do it that way, and that rather things are dissolved and or summarized into a single notion like a color or simple shape, which serves as an icon or trigger to reconstruct the info.

In theory this means that every time we remember something we may recall it (reconstruct it) slightly differently, or with different aspects of the event or info.

While this may be true, is it true for the person who has memorized every name in the phone book, and which can be double checked. How come that system seems to be fail safe or is it?

Have you ever had a memory, or even a whole day come to mind when you incidentally smelled a certain perfume?

Has your brain summarized that day or event by this smell and used it as the prime icon or trigger?

[XenoFish]

Certain mental abilities can be trained to a peak, but you have to really focus on it with the exclusion of all other skills. I could read a book a day if I decided to learn and master speed reading. Same with developing my memory. I'd have to constantly train it.

Edited March 14, 2015 by XenoFish

[Raptor Witness]

One theory is that the brain's sensory filter is broken, or functions in a different way.

[SHaYap]

I was told photographic memory can be trained ... my question is why it is not part of the basic syllabus of every educational facilities there exists as of now ...

[Starhunter]

Certain mental abilities can be trained to a peak, but you have to really focus on it with the exclusion of all other skills. I could read a book a day if I decided to learn and master speed reading. Same with developing my memory. I'd have to constantly train it.

So are you saying that brain damage allows one or another aspect of the brain to excel?

[Starhunter]

One theory is that the brain's sensory filter is broken, or functions in a different way.

So the sensory filter confuses analysis by the brain?

Synesthesia - mixed sensory perceptions? Such as associating maths figures/numbers as objects/colors?

Does our wiring have it wrong or does the brain have another capacity which we don't use for a reason?

[Starhunter]

I was told photographic memory can be trained ... my question is why it is not part of the basic syllabus of every educational facilities there exists as of now ...

Training can produce amazing results, but how come a savant seems to be able to do it without training?

We can understand how training is progressive - a learning process, yet many savants have picked it up after a trauma or even after a good event, or by birth.

For instance a person who has never touched a piano, is allowed to play, and presto - they can play skillfully - even the fingers work like a professional. Then we find out that they can play any piece of music - even very challenging compositions - just after one hearing - to perfection.

We heard about the person who suddenly knew the weather - and date corresponding to how many years in the past?

I have heard that our brain gathers the data of every day.

[jmccr8]

Photo-graphic memory is nice but whether the person has the ability to interpret the information or not is another question.Kind of like loading up a thumb drive,it's useless until it's mated with something to process the data.

jmccr8

[XenoFish]

So are you saying that brain damage allows one or another aspect of the brain to excel?

Yes, but I'm also saying that the average person can excel at a given skill if they completely focus on developing it. It's all about the neural wiring. Making those skills a hard wired habit.

[Starhunter]

Photo-graphic memory is nice but whether the person has the ability to interpret the information or not is another question.Kind of like loading up a thumb drive,it's useless until it's mated with something to process the data.

jmccr8

Could all of us have photographic memory, but our processors are not updated?

[Starhunter]

Yes, but I'm also saying that the average person can excel at a given skill if they completely focus on developing it. It's all about the neural wiring. Making those skills a hard wired habit.

No doubt about that at all, we all do it with everyday skills as well as what we want to specialize in.

But the savants are a bit of a mystery, because they can have an instantly acquired skill, without previous training or development or even exposure to it.

Could this be a result of collective memory skills, i,e, inherited tendencies and propensities?

So grampa used to play the piano, and after Johnny fell off his bike, he can now play the piano, whereas before, he could not even do up his shoes laces.

Or could it be that our minds are capable of doing anything?

Which would raise the question, what is able to 'call out' that ability, how is it bought forward into the life?

Some would say training, but again not all people can be trained to do a certain skill, it comes down to preferences and abilities.

Then how come people are able to be given a skill they had no interest or ability in before?

[Frank Merton]

I am interested in the idea that seemingly completely forgotten things can in fact be remembered given the right clues or environment or practice. Its like going to a "classic" movie one has no remembrance of and five minutes into it realizing you have seen it before when you were much younger. It seems the memories are all there, just the links to them are buried along no-longer searched paths, or something like that.

One spends hours trying to remember the name of some celebrity, and it is unavailable, no matter how much one does whatever one is doing when one searches one's memory. Still, the memory is there and active, or you would not know it is right or wrong when someone else tells you.

[back to earth]

Memories are like fish in he water of he unconscious. Sometimes they jump out, sometimes the consciousness has them on the line and a struggle ensues, but they just wont pop out through the surface. You need to let them run a bit and not 'try too hard to remember' - they will surface.

One could reverse he process and stick your head underwater. One still needs a filter though, as in that world I think the 'senses' would be overloaded. Even those with amazing abilities seem to have them focused on specific areas.

I have a niece who is autistic. Nothing much was interesting her. Until she got some keyboards, she has never had a lesson but her tinkerings are beginning to sound like classical music, it is unknown where she 'picked it up' from.

[Starhunter]

I am interested in the idea that seemingly completely forgotten things can in fact be remembered given the right clues or environment or practice. Its like going to a "classic" movie one has no remembrance of and five minutes into it realizing you have seen it before when you were much younger. It seems the memories are all there, just the links to them are buried along no-longer searched paths, or something like that.

One spends hours trying to remember the name of some celebrity, and it is unavailable, no matter how much one does whatever one is doing when one searches one's memory. Still, the memory is there and active, or you would not know it is right or wrong when someone else tells you.

It's interesting that people who teach and practice memory abilities such as names, use whatever comes to mind when they first enter the name, and the thing which comes to mind with the name or face, is the trigger used by the mind. Our dreams while asleep are very similar, in that the mind uses its own interpretations of events, feelings and people.

Do you have some names or faces that you remember by something which relates to them and or even not at all?

And when you finally remember a name, what came into mind that you were able to bring it back?

Edited March 16, 2015 by Starhunter

[Starhunter]

Memories are like fish in the water of the unconscious. Sometimes they jump out, sometimes the consciousness has them on the line and a struggle ensues, but they just wont pop out through the surface. You need to let them run a bit and not 'try too hard to remember' - they will surface.

One could reverse the process and stick your head underwater. One still needs a filter though, as in that world I think the 'senses' would be overloaded. Even those with amazing abilities seem to have them focused on specific areas.

I have a niece who is autistic. Nothing much was interesting her. Until she got some keyboards, she has never had a lesson but her tinkerings are beginning to sound like classical music, it is unknown where she 'picked it up' from.

The overloading of the senses can be disastrous, as you would understand with your niece.

And it's very interesting that having the other stimuluses toned down and the mind focused or relaxed is the key to many abilities.

As you have pointed out, the memory often works best when we don't try too hard to retrieve the info, but it usually happens when we let it go - so to speak.

It is very likely that sometimes brain damage, cuts off these other stimuli and allows the mind to do its work.

It's almost like we interfere with our own minds, by our need to be too rational and successful, by trying too hard.

When a person has a talent, we expect them to use it with joy and ease. If we find them trying too hard we wonder if they are cut out to do the job.

Excelling in a talent has a lot to do with contentment and love for the task.

[back to earth]

Then it becomes a joy and not a task at all. Some say that indicates an expression of one's 'true will' ; the individual purpose and fulfilling we have ... not what we came here 'to learn' , as such, but what we came to reveal about our specific 'genius' and how we contribute that to our society, whether it be to be a builder, baker, mother , soldier, helicopter engineer ....

When one is fulfilling their true will and it is one's profession, one can do their most favourite thing in the world ... and get paid to do it! That is what brings happiness and contentment imo.

[Starhunter]

Then it becomes a joy and not a task at all. Some say that indicates an expression of one's 'true will' ; the individual purpose and fulfilling we have ... not what we came here 'to learn' , as such, but what we came to reveal about our specific 'genius' and how we contribute that to our society, whether it be to be a builder, baker, mother , soldier, helicopter engineer ....

When one is fulfilling their true will and it is one's profession, one can do their most favourite thing in the world ... and get paid to do it! That is what brings happiness and contentment imo.

You have given a few examples of applied genius such as baking a good loaf, hardly recognized as an outstanding achievement, nevertheless it is outstanding.

We could say that remembering whole listings in phone books is quite silly, especially if you only need a couple of contacts.

Women run a household, with children, a multitask career, involving anything from skilled labor, nurse, manager to CEO.

Hardly given the Nobel prize.

There is intelligence in using just enough of it for the job. I would hate to think that someone uses 100 % of their brains to make breakfast.

Somehow I believe the brain is designed to do just that, to summarize complexity to an essence, that can be stored as a trigger for reconstruction and creativity.

[XenoFish]

I think it was Bruce Lee who said in a interview that any skill should be so integrated that it can be done without conscious effort. You just do it.

[Starhunter]

I think it was Bruce Lee who said in a interview that any skill should be so integrated that it can be done without conscious effort. You just do it.

Doing something without conscious effort is a result of habit isn't it? The ability to have habits is really amazing, something which people who have to start all over, such as after an accident or disease, understand.

So the first time we tied up our shoe strings, it may have taken a much longer time than now, - when we don't even think about it.

I read a story recently of a man who fell into a coma, and afterwards was able to fluently speak a foreign language. That does not seem to be an acquired habit, but an integrated skill which was there already. I doubt that a bump to the head induces skills, but perhaps the process of healing does.

Do our habits/skills abilities come from a source that is able to provide those necessities upon demand by the user, and even randomly give those skills without the users consent or ambition?