

On the Savant Syndrome and Prime Numbers - fossuser
http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/yamaguchi.htm

======
ars
Summary: The guy who reported that the savants could generate primes lied - at
least the guy who wrote this article thinks so, since he can not imagine a
human (a savant) being able to do what was reported.

He does speculate on the savant using probabilistic prime detection methods,
but decides that there is no way someone just came up with that on their own.
(Without understanding math in the conventional sense.)

All in all, a worthless article. Long on speculation, utterly absent from
information.

~~~
Kliment
That's a rather careless reading. The most interesting point, and the one that
is the basis for him questioning the report, is that the primes in the report
were supposedly taken from a book listing primes up to a particular number.
However, given the number of digits in said number there is no way they would
fit into a (paper) book or any practical size. Also, Sachs was unable to
identify the book used when directly questioned about this. He does not deduce
that there is no way someone came up with that on their own, but that it's
likely they do understand basic math, just not in the contexts they were
tested in.

~~~
ars
I don't know if he lied or not, but an entire paper that basically boils down
to "he lied" is not actually a very interesting point when you are expecting
to hear about how the brain is able to calculate primes.

> He does not deduce that there is no way someone came up with that on their
> own

Sure he does - he keeps calling that idea "science fiction".

I'm sure it's a very important paper for its field, but very lacking in
conclusions, and therefor of interest only to those in its field.

------
JoeAltmaier
Author doubts the veracity of the reporter. Not very ingenious. When a doctor
named Silliman reported witnessing a meteorite fall, Thomas Jefferson said "I
would more easily believe that (a) Yankee professor would lie than that stones
would fall from heaven."

