Savant Syndrome - Daniel Tammet

This is a short video on an amazing human being, Daniel Tammet from Bristol, England, who apparently has Savant Syndrome and can make insane calculations in his mind (even surpassing several calculators).
Credits to wisconsinmedicalsociety.org and Daniel Tammet for this video.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Savant
• syndrome
• math
• incredible
• superhuman

[ridersofrohan456]

@asiangamer64 we "use" only 10% of our brain is correct, but we're not able to put all of our brain at one task



[ButtSchex]

@ridersofrohan456 Since I already explained it once, you should just save us all the trouble and google '10% of brain myth' and check the wikipedia page. Or any of the other links for that matter..

[JohnnyKubark]

@ridersofrohan456 We use 100% of our brains (but not all at the same time). It's an urban myth that we only use 10% of our brain.

[mckseal]

@LanRous

Effectively, each number appears to him like a shape, when he multiplies for example, the two shapes are placed next to eachother and the gap in between is his result.

[LanRous]

does he say the method he does this,

i mean the way he thinks

[yumeybaconcutout]

@Unrealistix i agree.

[MumblingMickey]

@hardstyle905 yeah i seen the age of the comment after I pressed reply and the original comment.

I think something really has to be done to educate the public as to what technology is and what it is not., otherwise they'll end up like my mother...who at 84 argues over the phone with voicemail and computer answering services. We gave up explaining it to her.

You'd laugh your head off at my voice mail messages in work...she comes in half way through a sentence arguing with the phone system...

[MumblingMickey]

@hardstyle905 Well no having been a devotee of all things techno since I was a kid...and first sitting at a usable computer in 1980 I'm not saying that productive use of technology is not exercising your brain...so long as you get up off the chair and do some physical exercise during the day.

I'm referring to the other several billion people who just vegetate in front of facebook or play computer games.. Not that I'm not a fan of both...but you get my drift...

[Unrealistix]

CONT. Conversely I have also noticed a common phenomena for bright people to be somewhat arrogant... and I can understand why that might be, specifically bright teenagers and young adults.

And this does cause them to be unhappy... which to my mind is the entire purpose of being.

Yet if you look at people who generally aren't too bright the arrogance level falls through the floor... and happiness increases.

Although I'm not obviously advocating lobotomy for the gifted! ;)

[hardstyle905]

@MumblingMickey If by "getting dumber sitting looking at a computer screen" you mean using the computer makes dumber as a general statement, I definitely cannot agree. I've taught myself numerous skills on the computer that many university graduates could only dream of. Programming, electronics, engineering, music production & mastering to list a few. People coming from a university are often just "theorists" with no practical skill whatsoever.

But watching TV definitely makes dumber, I concur.

[Unrealistix]

@yumeybaconcutout But I can tell you where it IS relevant... it's relevant in the average and low scoring samples...where its important to address educational needs.

Anyway intellect is not the summit of living a productive life. I often wonder why it carries such value. Most well respected, productive and wealthy people that aren't very bright at all, and are also pretty nice people.

The entire 'intelligence' debate leaves a bad taste in my mouth... I find it an 'uncomfortable' subject.

[hardstyle905]

@MumblingMickey Assembly is still useful for optimization. But you're right about the "plastic nerds". That's why today, I'm designing my own CPUs, own instruction set, own games ;)

[hardstyle905]

@MumblingMickey At floating point calculations, humans always have, and always will lose against the stupid CPU. But, in my 10 month-old comment I didn't say the brain wasn't powerful at all. I just replied to the comment comparing human brain to a i7 processor.