A genius explains - [an autistic savant describes how he thinks]

Guardian (U.K.) ^ | February 12, 2005 | Richard Johnson

[Happygal]

Ditto! :-)

BTW, if it helps, I can speak three languages. (Does that improve my score? *L*)

[Earthdweller]

I'm not sure you want to improve that score.

BTW, I was in Ireland last spring. I almost fell of a cliff going around the ring of Kerry the wrong way. Scared the cr@p out of me!

[Happygal]

Haha..you were on the Pass (the exact name of which I cannot remember at this moment in time! *L*).

Yup, the Ring of Kerry can take your breath away...quite literally at times. Lovely part of the country though. :-)

[patton]

LOLOL. I have to take my shoes off to count to six.

[The Westerner]

Fascinating. Temple Grandin wrote a book called Thinking in Pictures. She is an autistic who specializes in animal husbandry. She describes with incredible clarity the way an autistic person thinks--in pictures. An amazing lady who can see the way the cow sees the world, and thus developed devices for ranchers to help calm and control the cows. Also memorable was the stanchion she uses to calm herself.

[ErnBatavia]

3n+1 Problem Statement The 3n+1 conjecture, due to Collatz, is that any positive integer, n, iteratively operated upon by two simple rules leads to 1, having visited a possibly lengthy series of integers. The rules are that n, if odd, is converted to 3n+1, and, if even, is divided by 2. Each new n is treated by the same rules, repeatedly, until 1 is reached. The conjecture remains unproven. Its mathematical proof is the challenge.

Is there some problem with this? Get this theory nailed and you'll know immediately how much gas it will take to drive from L.A. to Des Moines and back, taking the southern route up and the northern route back....Taxes and tips included.

[benjaminjjones]

not diagnosed with anything but were seen as brilliant, eccentric, absent minded, socially inept

I'd like to respond in depth, but find myself weeping about the loss of a brother to cancer this past May, who had an un-diagnosed but similar-sounding mental disease as well, probably OCD, Aperger's might be a possiblity now.

I thought I had got over it, but his last, favorite, movie, "Master & Commander", showed up on cable and I was compelled to switch to it.

Big mistake, brought it all back.

[unlearner]

He met the great love of his life, a software engineer called Neil, online. It began, as these things do, with emailed pictures, but ended up with a face-to-face meeting. "Because I can't drive, Neil offered to pick me up at my parents' house, and drive me back to his house in Kent. He was silent all the way back. I thought, 'Oh dear, this isn't going well'. Just before we got to his house, he stopped the car. He reached over and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. I only found out later that he was quiet because he likes to concentrate when he's driving."

Is this a casual mention that Tammet is a homosexual?

At first glance I thought I misunderstood. No. Daniel is male. Neil is male. Neil is the "love" of Daniel's life. They exchanged pictures. Neil brought flowers.

Did I miss something?

Why is no one else noting this being part of the article?

It also says he is a Christian. Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible.

I am starting to think this is the real point of the article to casually mention his homosexuality as if it means nothing. I feel cheated after having read the whole thing. Disgusting.

[Earthdweller]

Sorry for your loss. Prayers going up for ya.

[patton]

Errr, ah, um, welll......32

[Melas]

The test is great food for thought though. Even though it's nothing to do with autism, have you ever noticed in your typical university/college, how much more stilted the engineering students (to pick an example from the hard sciences, no slam on engineers) are socially, than say the lit students?

One of the recurring questions in the test dealt with the inability to socialize. Makes one wonder if an autisitic mind isn't really just too much of a good thing. The arithmatic ability is an exageration of the aforementioned engineering student, and so is the social ineptness. I personally find this fascinating.

[TX Bluebonnet]

bookmark

[patton]

The questions were wrong.

Or, at least, the correct answers were not there.

[xm177e2]

One of the recurring questions in the test dealt with the inability to socialize. Makes one wonder if an autisitic mind isn't really just too much of a good thing.

Being logical, I'd rather study this phenomenon from a disinterested perspective.

But then, if that were the case, I suppose I wouldn't be so rational. And if I wasn't so rational, I might prefer to study the phenomenon from a much closer perspective (for instance, having it).

If I wasn't so rational, I wouldn't find this paradox so amusing...

[Maigrey]

23 for me, because I am a girl. We're more social.....

[xm177e2]

I am starting to think this is the real point of the article to casually mention his homosexuality as if it means nothing. I feel cheated after having read the whole thing. Disgusting.

Let's see:

When they hype someone's homosexuality, you gay-haters: flip out and proclaim it's part of the eeeevil gay agenda to slap homosexuality in our faces

When they mention homosexuality casually, you gay-haters: flip out and proclaim it's part of the eeeevil gay agenda to normalize homosexuality

When they don't mention homosexuality at all, you gay-haters: get to thinking that all normal people are straight and only freakishly deranged people are homo

Since there's never a positive result, maybe you should just stop reading newspapers?

[patton]

For instance, there was something there about multitasking.

That is an interesting topic - my boss (PhD, Nuclear Physics), is a master of this. I have watched him hold three conversations simultaniously, without missing a beat. He focuses concurrently.

I can do this to a lesser extent, but it annoys me. I have to focus in slices.

And I have friends that attempt to do it, are extremely bad at it, and tend to piss people off. But insist that they are great at it. As far as I can tell, they only catch triggers, and otherwise don't focus at all.

[snarks_when_bored]

Is this a casual mention that Tammet is a homosexual?

Yes, as was noted earlier on the thread.

I posted the article because it contains an autistic savant's own descriptions of his thinking processes. Having never seen that before, I found it quite interesting and thought others might be find it interesting, too.

Dick Johnson*, the writer of the article, could've left out the information on Tammet's personal life and I wouldn't have been unhappy; but he didn't...

 

 

*Hey, check for yourself...I'm not making that up!

[snarks_when_bored]

Grammar correction from previous post: "Having never seen that before, I found it quite interesting and thought others might find it interesting, too."