geeking out...again

[katekat]

there's this marvelous article over at the Guardian about Tammet, a savaunt who:

...has been able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. 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."

that makes me wonder just what it is we're doing with our brains, and reminds me how wonderfully inexplicable human experience is. I'm probably feeling ultra sentimental tonight, but the parts where Tammet gets to meet Kim Peek (the real life rain man) are particularly touching. Go read it, and wonder just what it is we're really doing with our brains.

Comments

[dara-starscream.livejournal.com]

Are you sure savantisim (I think that's how you put it) is an enviable condition? I read somewhere about a guy who could hear in perfect pitch and whenever he heard music he heard it as colors (not sure how that works either, but hey, the guy was seven or eight I think).
-BJ

[katekat]

oh no! wasn't meaning to imply that. just that, even though there's so much we do know about the mind, there's so much we don't. we have no idea why or how he actually thinks the way he does - at one point one of his doctors in the article calls him a possible rosetta stone for the brain. fortunately or unfortunately, study is advanced by comparing the abnormal to the normal brain.

[dara-starscream.livejournal.com]

True. To use an analogy I read somewhere, in terms of how the mind and thought actually work, we're about where Aristotle was in regards to nature. Some trees are leafy, some are bushy, some animals have legs, some have wings, and the platypus just exists to fuck everybody up (I know Aristotle wouldn't've known about platypi, but you see my point). We know in a vauge sort of way how the chemical and electrical processes work, but how that translates into articulate thought, we're not sure. It's why I'm against certain forms of drugs and electroshock therapy when it comes to mental illness; it's kind of like swinging a hammer into your car's engine in the vague hope that you'll convince it to work again.

Did you ever see the Nova special they did on gender identity? Fascinating stuff.
-BJ

[katekat]

when on earth did Nova do a special in gender identity? That'd be soo cool to watch. And hopefully a little more scientific than some of those discovery channel shows that are a step away from pseudoscientific tabloid journalism...

[dara-starscream.livejournal.com]

Check this out. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gender/) The case study they used as a launchpad was of a baby boy back in the fifties who went to the doctor's for a circumcision and had most of his . . . ahem, damaged beyond repair. Following the advice of a pioneer in the field, the family decided to have his gender surgically altered and raise him as a her. Said pioneer lost track of the case even though he used it as a success story. Nova tracked the child down and found this recreated 'her' living as a man, with a fiance and stepkids, talking with surgeons to have his penis reconstructed. It was really interesting to watch.

I know! The bullshit "documdrama" they did on the destruction of Pompeii? I'm watching this with my roommate, and I ask myself "Self . . . you've got half a dozen unfinished fics on your hard drive. Why are you wasting your eyesight on this?"
-BJ

[katekat]

wow - that's an amazing site! i only made it through a page or so, but so totally informative. and just insane what we do to enforce conformity. thanks though, i'm keeping it bookmarked.

I know! The bullshit "documdrama" they did on the destruction of Pompeii?
For a while I thought it was just me, like I wasn't paying enough attention to the scientific stuff they had buried in the program, until i realized there *was* no scientific stuff. And yeah, unfinished fics? I've heard of those... they're always waiting for you aren't they?