5 ms·

The outcomes of historical, national, sporting events are not subjective. It would be easy to check and verify even if you couldn't do it that second you could

by Omnius 10y ago

The outcomes of historical, national, sporting events are not subjective. It would be easy to check and verify even if you couldn't do it that second you could still after the fact check and call out anyone pretending. With or without the exact identical text the "memorizer" used.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
OK, so how can you ever verify with any degree of certainty where and when someone acquired a memory? If I can just look up those details somewhere else, at my convenience, then how can you ever be sure I didn't?
- thereisnospork 10y ago
  By asking for details from a set of arbitrary, random dates, such as people's birthdays. A set of dates the questionee could have no way of knowing. In order for him to know the answer to trivia on multiple arbitrary dates off the cuff would require him to, you know, have memorized the trivia for all the dates -- which kind of proves the point.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
    Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he "enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the front page of major newspapers". I assume he did that throughout his adult life, so when he was in his 30s an 40's, in the 1980's and 1990's, how would the person he approached this way check the news that Peek told them were on the front page of X newspaper? They couldn't very well google it on their iPhone back then. Besides, this is not very clear in his wikipedia entry, but it seems to me like he made a living out of his skills, so you know, it was at least partly entertainment (without trivialising, or in any way shape or form ignoring, the fact that the guy had obvious disabilities). So I'm saying, when a guy tells you he can recall for you a bunch of facts you dont' really remember yourself and you can't very easily verify, and by the way you're welcome to a donation, you can take what he says with a big pinch of salt.
    - matt-snider 10y ago
      You don't seem to get it. These sorts of things are all examples of verifiable facts. Calendar calculations are trivial to verify with a computer, and news archives existed long before iPhones and ubiquitous internet access. You don't think given his fame, that his talents were rigorously tested and verified?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - MichaelBurge 10y ago
      You'd probably get a better discussion from a place like http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/ http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/ .
      - YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
        I've tried skeptics-stackexchange but I was not convinced by the arguments.
        MichaelBurge 10y ago
        At the extreme end, you could try a site like http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/ . If someone bites, you probably can't expect a more rational argument from anywhere else.
        YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
        I could move to lesswrong, but then I'd miss all the posts on deep learning and functional programming :0
    - ajkjk 10y ago
      If you're that skeptical, shouldn't your first step be looking up more details on how he was verified to be legitimate? Rather than saying in a comment thread that there's no way to know?
- jwdunne 10y ago
  It wasn't a parlour trick. He was a savant. If you have read anything on Kim Peek, this would be clear. We wouldn't want that nor could do we do that - he suffered more than hev benefitted.
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
To clarify my original comment - when someone claims they can memorize a certain text, the way to verify the claim is to find the text. If you check the content, but not the source, you are only checking half the claim. Why is it important to check the source? For the same reason that, when someone adds a reference to a paper, or a wikipedia article, people will often follow the reference and look for where it is exactly that it says what the referrer says it does- and complain if it turns out it doesn't. So, for instance, if I mention that the minimax algorithm runs in time exponential to the number of nodes in a game tree, and you ask me how I know, and I reply that I read it in the 3d ed. of "AI: A modern approach" by Russel and Norvig, you are well within your rights to open the book, search for this information and, if you fail to find it, ask me whether I'm sure I got my refs right. And that is true regardless of whether my claim about the running time is true or not- because that's only half the claim. The moment you add a reference your claim goes from "X is true" to "X is stated to be true in Y" and you have to be able to prove that "X is stated to be true in Y", not just that "X is true". And if "X is stated to be true in Y" is not true, but you go on to assume "X is true", then any other claim you make after that is up in the air, because you haven't yet told us how you know that X is true. Which is important to know, because once you screw up your facts, as you inevitabley will, you (and everyone else) can at least trace your error back to all the things that you know, and the sources you drew that knowledge from, and have a glimmer of a hope to identify the error in your thinking. Accordingly- if someone claims that "I memorised X from Y", you can check that X is stated in Y. If it is, then fine. If not, not fine.

by Omnius 10y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

OK, so how can you ever verify with any degree of certainty where and when someone acquired a memory? If I can just look up those details somewhere else, at my convenience, then how can you ever be sure I didn't?

thereisnospork 10y ago
By asking for details from a set of arbitrary, random dates, such as people's birthdays. A set of dates the questionee could have no way of knowing. In order for him to know the answer to trivia on multiple arbitrary dates off the cuff would require him to, you know, have memorized the trivia for all the dates -- which kind of proves the point.
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  Unfortunately, just having someone tell you something doesn't prove anything, unless you have a way to check that the fact is true- and for most of Kim Peek's life this was not the case. For instance- his article on wikipedia mentions that he "enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the front page of major newspapers". I assume he did that throughout his adult life, so when he was in his 30s an 40's, in the 1980's and 1990's, how would the person he approached this way check the news that Peek told them were on the front page of X newspaper? They couldn't very well google it on their iPhone back then. Besides, this is not very clear in his wikipedia entry, but it seems to me like he made a living out of his skills, so you know, it was at least partly entertainment (without trivialising, or in any way shape or form ignoring, the fact that the guy had obvious disabilities). So I'm saying, when a guy tells you he can recall for you a bunch of facts you dont' really remember yourself and you can't very easily verify, and by the way you're welcome to a donation, you can take what he says with a big pinch of salt.
  - matt-snider 10y ago
    You don't seem to get it. These sorts of things are all examples of verifiable facts. Calendar calculations are trivial to verify with a computer, and news archives existed long before iPhones and ubiquitous internet access. You don't think given his fame, that his talents were rigorously tested and verified?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    You'd probably get a better discussion from a place like http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/ http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/ .
    - YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
      I've tried skeptics-stackexchange but I was not convinced by the arguments.
      - MichaelBurge 10y ago
        At the extreme end, you could try a site like http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/ . If someone bites, you probably can't expect a more rational argument from anywhere else.
        YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
        I could move to lesswrong, but then I'd miss all the posts on deep learning and functional programming :0
  - ajkjk 10y ago
    If you're that skeptical, shouldn't your first step be looking up more details on how he was verified to be legitimate? Rather than saying in a comment thread that there's no way to know?
jwdunne 10y ago
It wasn't a parlour trick. He was a savant. If you have read anything on Kim Peek, this would be clear. We wouldn't want that nor could do we do that - he suffered more than hev benefitted.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

To clarify my original comment - when someone claims they can memorize a certain text, the way to verify the claim is to find the text. If you check the content, but not the source, you are only checking half the claim. Why is it important to check the source? For the same reason that, when someone adds a reference to a paper, or a wikipedia article, people will often follow the reference and look for where it is exactly that it says what the referrer says it does- and complain if it turns out it doesn't. So, for instance, if I mention that the minimax algorithm runs in time exponential to the number of nodes in a game tree, and you ask me how I know, and I reply that I read it in the 3d ed. of "AI: A modern approach" by Russel and Norvig, you are well within your rights to open the book, search for this information and, if you fail to find it, ask me whether I'm sure I got my refs right. And that is true regardless of whether my claim about the running time is true or not- because that's only half the claim. The moment you add a reference your claim goes from "X is true" to "X is stated to be true in Y" and you have to be able to prove that "X is stated to be true in Y", not just that "X is true". And if "X is stated to be true in Y" is not true, but you go on to assume "X is true", then any other claim you make after that is up in the air, because you haven't yet told us how you know that X is true. Which is important to know, because once you screw up your facts, as you inevitabley will, you (and everyone else) can at least trace your error back to all the things that you know, and the sources you drew that knowledge from, and have a glimmer of a hope to identify the error in your thinking. Accordingly- if someone claims that "I memorised X from Y", you can check that X is stated in Y. If it is, then fine. If not, not fine.