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

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

[Earthdweller]

Wow! Who resurected this thread from three months ago?

I thought the subject was interesting because I have many "Aspies" around me also.

Are you familiar with the term?

[Earthdweller]

"Social skills can only be learned to a point."

You are so right.

My Aspie friends and relatives suffer from what they call "living on another planet" even after much sought after skills training.

Hence the name Earthdweller;

...the product of an "Aspie" and a socialite...a "halvesie Aspie".

It's my job to keep everyone grounded so to speak.

(Tee Hee...now I have been pegged!) ;)

[Aquinasfan]

The number two, for instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of thunder. "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."

Wow!

""There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

his favourite book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton.

Excellent choice.

[Yaelle]

Yes, I am familiar: I live with a 13-yr-old Aspie. Got to say, as long as they are happy, gotta love 'em!

[Yaelle]

You might enjoy your status as a halvsie but I think one is either up on that spectrum or not very far from the bottom! Those who can fit in socially, even if at times you don't want to, are not really auties or aspies! You might not qualify. LOL!

However, I am stunned at the amount of highly-functioning auties that there are out there. It seems every classroom has at least one these days. And since they either talk or act quite weirdly, at least in the early grades, I know there weren't any in my classes all through elementary. I really do think there are more of them now, and WHAT the devil is causing this?

[ubergroov]

I get a similar impression. Beyond the memory access and OCD aspect, I'm guessing that savants are taking advantage of the massive processing power of the brain's visual system. Consider how normal people are able to instantly recognize patterns and distinguish faces, even those of identical twins. We all do this without conscious thought. When we look around us, our minds make instant calculations about the distance, speed and angle of all the objects in our environment. Our brains are also capable of generating realistic, changing imagery on the fly while we dream. Furthermore, our dream imagery is sometimes completely novel and unrelated to anything from memory. I don't think any computer today is even close to being able to perform any of these feats. I appears to me that certain savants somewhow manage to tap into the remarkable imaging abilities of the primate brain to perform intantaneous, uncalculated, visual "mathematics".

[5050 no line]

I do not like to talk whilst driving. It is a distraction and every distraction can compromise your exercise of an ability/skill. Ask any professional pilot.

Also, I am not homosexual, as we seem to be drawing a lot of 'non sequiters'.