

I Became a Savant For a Day - jackchristopher
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22SAVANT.html?ex=1371614400&en=0497e5b30fc4a9d8&ei=5007&

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c3o
This article is from 2003... would be cool to get an update.

Here's the news page of the "Centre for the mind" (but it's mostly about media
coverage): <http://www.centreforthemind.com/newsmedia/WHATSHOT/index.cfm>

And Wikipedia on the technology (with no mention of temporary savantism):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)

~~~
tallanvor
Thanks for pointing that out, I was reading the article on the tram this
morning and didn't notice the age of the article. It would be very interesting
to see if there have been additional research done, or if other teams have
been performing research to help verify the early results Snyder found.

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sofal
_"You're not going to be damaged," he said. "You're going to be enhanced."_

That sounds just like a pre-supervillain scenario in just about every
superhero movie I've seen.

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c00p3r
"You're not going to be damaged," he said. "You're going to be enhanced."

Is that about whiskey, isn't it? =)

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ieatpaste
Apparently, a Medtronic MagPro Compact's street price is around $1000* . I
might try to find me one.

* [https://www.medwow.com/item.php?search_results=&sale_id=...](https://www.medwow.com/item.php?search_results=&sale_id=525012022&xlang=)

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nazgulnarsil
Who wants to start a business? A legal "high" for $25. I know I would pay $25
to try this thing out and I bet hundreds of people in any given town would
too. Only takes 40 people to recoup the cost of the machine.

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ryanwaggoner
Hire a damn good attorney.

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katz
Or just take an ordinary attorney and TMS him...

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eru
But you'll have to do that recursively..

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michaelkeenan
I'm reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, which is about how the human
brain thinks (with the angle of replicating this as artificial intelligence).

In brief, the neocortex has layers. Inputs from senses arrive at the lowest
layer, and the data is propagated upwards through the layers to the top, where
inputs from different senses are combined and - simplifying my already simple
understanding massively - decisions are made. At the lowest layer of the
hierarchy, if it is a visual input, it could be a fragment of a line. This
could be combined with neighboring inputs to be an eye, and with more inputs,
even further up the hierarchy, to be the face you're looking at.

Importantly, data runs down the hierarchy too. This is your brain making
predictions of what to see, hear, feel, etc. Suppose someone says "my hands
are cold so I'll put on my dloves" (not a typo). Say this to an English
speaker and they will hear "gloves"; their mind has predicted the word
"gloves" from context and experience (some Eastern European speakers won't be
fooled, since their languages do have the "dl" sound). Or if you're listening
to a song, your mind is primed to hear the next note at the right time. If I
understand it correctly, cortical columns in some regions basically transmit
the signal "song going as expected" - just passing up a summary, not the
details. If you hear a wrong note, the prediction fails, and the details get
passed up to the next layers instead.

It occurs to me that some of the abilities described might be the result of
impairing the prediction mechanism. Qualities of autistic people/savants/TMS-
enhanced people were mentioned in the article: -Being unable to recognize the
same area when subtle details like shadows were altered. -Being able to draw
accurately -Being able to count hundreds of matchsticks.

As mentioned in other comments, accurate drawing requires us to _not_ use the
mental categorization we're so used to. Without the prediction mechanism,
maybe the details of the inputs propagate higher in the hierarchy, closer to
what we might consider consciousness. Similarly, counting matchsticks might
require us not to group a heap of matchsticks into "a heap of matchsticks" but
instead still see each individual matchstick.

But I Am Not A Neurologist.

~~~
kragen
As I discovered as a child, English speakers tend to hear "dl" as "gl" even
absent any semantic-level clues; words like "dleebs" and "dlabs" get
interpreted as "gleebs" and "glabs". Even the single level above the raw
phonemes, containing the phonology of English, is enough.

...and really that's unavoidable. Absent aspiration, the difference between
the /k/ of "sick" and the /t/ of "sit" is not contained in the /k/ or /t/
itself (almost no sound is being emitted during that time) but rather in the
offglide of the vowel.

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tokenadult
This badly needs to go through the research checklist "Warning Signs in
Experimental Design and Interpretation" by Peter Norvig (director of research
at Google).

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

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jerf
This is not and was not intended to be about "research". This is something
that has already been so well researched that it can be casually demonstrated
on demand to a journalist with no significant concern that it will fail to
impress. This was "mere engineering".

The research has already been done; I've been reading about this for a couple
of years now. It's not fringe science. Cutting-edge, maybe, but not fringe.

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wallflower
"But 'on the machine,' he says, 'you start seeing what's actually there, not
what you think is there.'"

In the world outside the machine and his experiments, I like how this
statement ties in with Zen/meditation/Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's concept of
Flow. I think we can all think of times when we've just been totally aware and
immersed. But those are few compared to the too-many times when I've been
thinking too much, worrying, and not being aware.

~~~
dasil003
This also reminds me of the fact that the reason most people can't draw is
because they don't really see their visual field, instead they translate it
into a series of symbols representing physical information. It makes sense
since that is the higher survival purpose of vision (ie. it makes more sense
to know how big something actually is than how big it appears in your field of
vision). That also explains why it took until the Renaissance for art to
achieve any kind of realistic perspective. Most people's relative lack of
drawing ability is really just a lack of understanding how to see. Fortunately
there are numerous exercises which you can use to break through that barrier
and eventually learn to see as an artist, one good one is drawing the negative
space around a still life. Of course you still need your 10,000 hours to
actually master drawing, but I don't think talent has much to do with the
initial learning curve.

It's unfortunate that most people give up drawing at a young age when the
fundamental difficulty of "seeing" properly is conflated with manual dexterity
issues.

~~~
wallflower
What do you think of this book?

"The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards.

Has glowing testimonials like: "I have a degree in commercial art and learned
more about drawing from this book than I did in four years of undergraduate
instruction. If you practice everyday what Ms. Edwards teaches you will be
drawing as good as any professional artist in six months. This really is the
best book on drawing ever published!"

[http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-
Brain/dp/087477...](http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-
Brain/dp/0874774241)

<http://www.drawright.com/>

~~~
dasil003
I think one of my undergrad drawing teachers incorporated elements from this
book in her lesson plan, but I've never read it myself.

It strikes me that different people need different approaches to learn how to
make the mental shift. The very fact that it's a right-brained thing means
it's impossible to give someone a process. You can explain it at a meta-level,
but I think the only thing that really produces the desired result is some
sort of suggestive technique--like a koan.

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wallflower
One of my artist friends has always told me that 'Drawing is about learning to
see.'

I am starting to believe him. Since I do fantasize about being able to pull
out a sketchpad in a public park and draw convincingly and/or do caricatures,
I've ordered the book. I feel like I can be open to a non-traditional
approach.

Just ordered the book along with another book I've always wanted to get 'Impro
by Keith Johnstone'

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JabavuAdams
Amazing!

I've often wondered whether it would be possible to temporarily re-engineer
myself into a tool for solving a specific hard problem.

I'm just re-reading On Lisp, and I'm struck by the similarity to the bottom-up
programming paradigm. You build the language up to your problem, as well as
breaking the problem down to your language.

This reminds me of the Focused in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. In
that case, they were no better than slaves, but one could imagine voluntary
focusing. Like the book's protagonist, I was at once horrified by the
conditions of the subjects, but thrilled by the prospect of human automation.

~~~
erik
It's generally a bad idea to give away major plot points of a story without
first providing a spoiler warning.

~~~
JabavuAdams
This so-called spoiler is on the back cover.

The book is full of surprises, of which that's one of the least. Oh, did I say
too much?

In any case, I'd be more interested in discussions of my main points.

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martythemaniak
For those curious about mescaline (mentioned in the article) and how it
supposedly removes mental filters to allow you to see the world "as it is", I
recommend Aldus Huxley's Doors of Perception.

<http://mescaline.com/huxley.htm>

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notrealname
Why not do it in reverse order? First drawing with the machine and then
without.

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wyday
Or better yet, have a control test. Tell a person their mental faculties will
be enhanced, but don't actually run the test. See if just that knowledge
increases their ability.

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jwesley
I'm sure the scientists behind this are on top of that. Just does not make
sense for someone writing an article to be part of the control group.

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wyday
Fair enough, but the article doesn't mention control tests at all. The
"transcranial magnetic stimulator" is touted as voodoo magic.

I feel like I just read a 3a.m. infomercial.

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rsheridan6
It's the New York Times. That's what they do.

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10ren
I often have instantaneous insights that take minutes (or months) to
understand conceptually. Maybe it's a temporary connection to the raw data?

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ars
Since a computer based singularity is not arriving, I wonder if a human one
might - can you imagine if this got good enough that large numbers of people
were using it routinely?

*I am aware that that would not meet the typical definition of singularity. I'm referring more to a leap in technology, then technology inventing itself.

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herval
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the the bush"

I could find the double 'the' at first sight - am I a savant or what?

~~~
misuba
I could too, but I think I've just been exposed to this trick too often.

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tectonic
Don't try this at home.

<http://transcenmentalism.org/OpenStim/tiki-index.php>

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josefresco
Why didn't he draw 4 different common animals instead of the same one 4 times?

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Ardit20
Some of it sounds wishfull thinking and widely exagerated.

"I'm not sure I see how TMS can actually alter the way your brain works" Thats
a renown scientist apparantly. Has he not read about the experiments that the
main scientist has been doing. WHy can he not see how TMS can alter the way
our brain works. How can these renowned scientists not believe the work that
the times is reporting, whats wrong with it, why is the times not saying
anything about the seemingly contradictory reporting of the views of these
scientists?

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c00p3r
The simple idea that less is more (in terms of so-called brainpower) is as old
as the world itself. The cows are holy animals in India because people belive
that they are wise. Buddha told that you should cease all your mental
activities to gain ability to see the things as they are. It is why Buddhas
eyes is half-shut. And every one know that 100% idle is better (allows faster
responce) than 100% load. =) Just think that computer is a weak and primitive
model of our neourology.

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c00p3r
_By shutting down certain mental functions -- the capacity to think
conceptually, categorically, contextually -- did this impairment allow other
mental functions to flourish? Could brain damage, in short, actually make you
brilliant?_

isn't cannabis works the same way?! =)

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Calamitous
Apparently not :\

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c00p3r
..and your sources are..? =)

