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I generally agree with this, however it doesn't explain the "Rainman" aka Kim Peek, geniuses; this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard wor

I generally agree with this, however it doesn't explain the "Rainman" aka Kim Peek, geniuses; this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard work.

rednum 16y ago
Didn't he have savant syndrome - ie. his brain was wired differently than ours? I am not a neurologist, and I can't explain how his mind worked (I doubt if anyone can) - but I think that question 'how to gain mental abilities of Kim Peek' is similar to 'what can I do to get autism'. I know it sound harsh, I just want to say that you probably can't gain this kind of abilities from any amount of hard work.
- espadagroup 16y ago
  Exactly, but autism doesn't excuse the fact that it is a humanly possible level of intellectual capacity.
  - rednum 16y ago
    Well, we don't know how many 'brain resources' does 'normal' skills that autistic people lack require - and in my opinion they may require as much computing power and memory as Kim Peek's genius skills. We don't know how much of our potential is spent on everyday tasks, like parsing converstaions with other people.
    - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
      You seem to suggest that the brain is a zero sum game. It may be so, but it is a mere assumption.
  - shadowpwner 16y ago
    I don't have a source for this, but I remember reading about how the "autistic" brain dedicates more of its capacity for more intellectual, rather than using it for social purposes.
tokenadult 16y ago
this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard work. Actually, research shows that it can, and has been. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1172019/?site_locale=en_GB http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1172019/?site... An interesting historical study of calculating prodigies turned up evidence that the famous nineteenth century idiots-savants with powerful calculating ability were often no better at calculation than department store clerks from the era when store clerks had to do calculations mentally or by pencil and paper (without any help from a cash register or other machine). Years of drudgery, steadily doing arithmetic in a variety of contexts, can turn into "chunking" ability that speeds mental calculation and results in apparently magical feats of mental arithmetic.

I generally agree with this, however it doesn't explain the "Rainman" aka Kim Peek, geniuses; this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard work.

rednum 16y ago

Didn't he have savant syndrome - ie. his brain was wired differently than ours? I am not a neurologist, and I can't explain how his mind worked (I doubt if anyone can) - but I think that question 'how to gain mental abilities of Kim Peek' is similar to 'what can I do to get autism'. I know it sound harsh, I just want to say that you probably can't gain this kind of abilities from any amount of hard work.

espadagroup 16y ago
Exactly, but autism doesn't excuse the fact that it is a humanly possible level of intellectual capacity.
- rednum 16y ago
  Well, we don't know how many 'brain resources' does 'normal' skills that autistic people lack require - and in my opinion they may require as much computing power and memory as Kim Peek's genius skills. We don't know how much of our potential is spent on everyday tasks, like parsing converstaions with other people.
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    You seem to suggest that the brain is a zero sum game. It may be so, but it is a mere assumption.
- shadowpwner 16y ago
  I don't have a source for this, but I remember reading about how the "autistic" brain dedicates more of its capacity for more intellectual, rather than using it for social purposes.

tokenadult 16y ago

this level of mental strength can't be gained purely from hard work. Actually, research shows that it can, and has been. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1172019/?site_locale=en_GB http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1172019/?site... An interesting historical study of calculating prodigies turned up evidence that the famous nineteenth century idiots-savants with powerful calculating ability were often no better at calculation than department store clerks from the era when store clerks had to do calculations mentally or by pencil and paper (without any help from a cash register or other machine). Years of drudgery, steadily doing arithmetic in a variety of contexts, can turn into "chunking" ability that speeds mental calculation and results in apparently magical feats of mental arithmetic.