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Head injury causes savant syndrome

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Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#21

Post by krick »

Article is very cheesy and full of journalism, but whatever, nothing unusual about it. It's something different I really don't like about that story. He's called "genius", "mathematical marvel" and such, but I don't see any reference to what exactly did he do to be called so, aside of self-promotion. Telegraph.co.uk article says "He is now recognised as a leading maths thinker." Hm. Maybe he is, but what about any references on by whom he is "recognised"? His book title is "Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel". Yeah, I know, marketing is dirty stuff, but have you ever heard real mathematician call himself a "genius"?

Anyway, something even worse: searching for "Jason Padgett" shows many results on some journal sites, facebook, amazon, fineartamerica.com, whatever. And guess what? Nothing on arxiv.org! Searching for "site:arxiv.org Jason Padgett" results are filled by works of "Deborah Padgett, Jason A. Surace" and such, and no "Jason Padgett" on the first 2 pages! Weird, huh.

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#22

Post by PhasmaFelis »

eurleif wrote: post #10
yaddayadda wrote: post #6

I have met one woman like this and had the opportunity to work closely with another. In both of their cases they were in car accidents. I didn't know either of them before their accidents, but I have multiple friends that had known each of them for years or decades prior. In both cases they were described as pretty average before their accidents. Since their accidents they have both become extremely prolific readers…

Sounds like something some people would sign up for. If you compared the injuries between multiple people with similar effects, I wonder if it would be possible to find a way to reproduce it?

Yeah, there's a lot I would give to have those abilities. Especially the one about not needing as much sleep. (Assuming they actually don't need it; waking up after four hours still exhausted would be less fun.)

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#24

Post by toomuchtodo »

yaddayadda wrote: post #17
eurleif wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like something some people would sign up for. If you compared the injuries between multiple people with similar effects, I wonder if it would be possible to find a way to reproduce it?

I absolutely envy my former colleague's gains and would gladly have my noggin knocked if I was guaranteed to have similar results! Unfortunately, because they both led ordinary lives, there were no scans of their brains prior to the accident (yes, I asked). And, there certainly weren't any brain related devices recording their accidents. So, I'm not aware of any easy way to identify the injuries with enough precision…

fMRI imaging while undergoing their savant-based tasks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_i...

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#25

Post by X4 »

I have never told someone about this, but the opposite happened to me. I had been tested because I was different than any other child of my age. And was diagnosed with a very high IQ (you can guess how many friends I had), but after I was attacked and hit heavily at my head by some russians without a reason (for their pleasure), I have lost most of my ability to think as fast as before. I was in coma for 2days at the local hospital and have no memory of what happened, except of what friends told me. I can't explain how life depressing that was for me, but almost 7y later, I started to gain a little in my speed of thought. However I'll probably never be that smart again and it feels like a big loss to me. I'm still quite talented, but nothing comparable to before the attack.

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#26

Post by privong »

krick wrote: post #21

Article is very cheesy and full of journalism, but whatever, nothing unusual about it. It's something different I really don't like about that story. He's called "genius", "mathematical marvel" and such, but I don't see any reference to what exactly did he do to be called so, aside of self-promotion. Telegraph.co.uk article says "He is now recognised as a leading maths thinker." Hm. Maybe he is, but what about any re…

> but I don't see any reference to what exactly did he do to be called so

Agreed. His experience and transformation is interesting, but the article is pretty lacking in details.

> Searching for "site:arxiv.org Jason Padgett" results are filled by works of "Deborah Padgett, Jason A. Surace" and such,

Small world! Jason Surace and I are both members of a collaboration studying galaxies which are forming stars a rates 10s to hundreds higher than "normal" galaxies (like our own Milky Way). Just amused to see his name outside of the normal context in which I see it. :)

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#27

Post by olegkikin »

krick wrote: post #19
yaddayadda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's his gallery at Fine Art America - http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/jason-padgett.html (aren't search engines an amazing thing! )

It doesn't cancel that "what" at all. First off, this is nothing to do with fractals. Second, these "drawings" are nothing to talk about, as their nature is pretty primitive. That means it sure requires a steady hand (if drawn manually), but the pattern itself is really simple (foremost because they are very much regular). Have you ever head of spirograph? "Drawings" made by it are far more complicated than this one…

Just because the images are relatively simple, doesn't mean they are stupid.

Check out this image and its meaning:

http://www.simonsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/a...

http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-t...

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#29

Post by gscott »

X4 wrote: post #25

I have never told someone about this, but the opposite happened to me. I had been tested because I was different than any other child of my age. And was diagnosed with a very high IQ (you can guess how many friends I had), but after I was attacked and hit heavily at my head by some russians without a reason (for their pleasure), I have lost most of my ability to think as fast as before. I was in coma for 2days at the…

Your experience would probably be generally the normal one for all of us. And remember people get rich by taking normal tasks and making them better for example Uploading files, renting apartments, driving people around, etc.

Re: Head injury causes savant syndrome

#30

Post by lotsofmangos »

gojomo wrote: post #23
lotsofmangos wrote: post #7

Who'd have guessed that retrophrenology actually works.

'Concussive orthophrenology' might convey more of the prestige that could get these diruptive treatments into the top journals.

Quick, get a selection of hammers and rent a boutique while the money's still hot. Start with the hollywood elite, then any early failures shouldn't be too obvious.
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