Savant Syndrome, What's the best explanation?

Arouet said:
I never doubted that, I just thought that was not what you were specifically expressing in that sentence (ie: your skepticsm (doubt) may be due to the skeptical manner in which you evaluated the cases, but in that sentence you only specifically mentioned the former). In the method definition, skepticsm is not ones ultimate position but rather the method used in reaching that position. Once can be quite confident in the truth of a claim and yet arrived at that conclusion skepticially.
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I agree with what you're saying, but I think people tend to jump to conclusions on the basis of short statements from posters. You might accuse me a snark, but I wouldn't draw further conclusions.

In particular, I would doubt the complete veracity of these stories even if I had never read much about savants. That's because they are popular-press stories, which are quite subject to change and exaggeration over time. Also, people aren't very good at getting the right interpretation. For example, there is nothing in the Daily Mail story to suggest Padgett is a "math genius." He's just incredibly good at patterns and geometrical figures. This is a cool savant talent, but it's hyperbolized.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I agree with what you're saying, but I think people tend to jump to conclusions on the basis of short statements from posters. You might accuse me a snark, but I wouldn't draw further conclusions.
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I agree!

In particular, I would doubt the complete veracity of these stories even if I had never read much about savants. That's because they are popular-press stories, which are quite subject to change and exaggeration over time. Also, people aren't very good at getting the right interpretation. For example, there is nothing in the Daily Mail story to suggest Padgett is a "math genius." He's just incredibly good at patterns and geometrical figures. This is a cool savant talent, but it's hyperbolized.

~~ Paul
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Right, suspecting a claim is false can be a good motivator for engaging in a skeptical review of the evidence. That said, suspecting a claim is true can be equally motivating to engage in a skeptical review of the evidence. (and there's nothing stopping someone from engaging in a skeptical evaluation of a claim that they have no prior opinion on.)
 
Arouet said:
I agree!



Right, suspecting a claim is false can be a good motivator for engaging in a skeptical review of the evidence. That said, suspecting a claim is true can be equally motivating to engage in a skeptical review of the evidence. (and there's nothing stopping someone from engaging in a skeptical evaluation of a claim that they have no prior opinion on.)
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Skepticism relies on knowledge of the subject you are skeptical of. Not a dependence on denial of the phenomena based on your personal prejudices.

My Best,
Bertha
 
David Bailey said:
Well of course we don't because you have never told us! If you stopped confining yourself to cryptic statements, we might have more to go on!
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And if I don't then don't worry about it. Why do the conversations always have to be these annoying meta-conversations about whether people's posts meet content requirements? Discuss the posts that interest you; ignore the others.

You also might pay attention to posts with more content, such as: http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/savant-syndrome-whats-the-best-explanation.2273/#post-67989

~~ Paul
 
OK - I froze the video at a point that showed a blackboard of her equations, and I didn't really like what I saw. I saw a bit of a jumble symbols that looked superficially like maths, but with integers (like 7) with subscripts (what the hell does that mean?), and what were probably square root signs with = inside them! - Try it and see for yourself!

I'd say that this may show some awareness of how maths formulae look - but no awareness of what they mean.

David
 
David Bailey said:
OK - I froze the video at a point that showed a blackboard of her equations, and I didn't really like what I saw. I saw a bit of a jumble symbols that looked superficially like maths, but with integers (like 7) with subscripts (what the hell does that mean?), and what were probably square root signs with = inside them! - Try it and see for yourself!
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Can you post a link that worked for you? The one in the OP doesn't work for me.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
And if I don't then don't worry about it. Why do the conversations always have to be these annoying meta-conversations about whether people's posts meet content requirements? Discuss the posts that interest you; ignore the others.

You also might pay attention to posts with more content, such as: http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/savant-syndrome-whats-the-best-explanation.2273/#post-67989

~~ Paul
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If you make ignorant statements, don't be so surprised when people call you out on them.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
And if I don't then don't worry about it. Why do the conversations always have to be these annoying meta-conversations about whether people's posts meet content requirements?
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I guess I'd really like to understand your point of view. I mean, I know there are impressive savants, and less impressive ones, but the better ones are pretty hard to explain in any conventional way. Ramanujan is definitely one to start with, and so are the twins that could recognise very large prime numbers, etc.

I'd like to know what you feel is the explanation for the best examples, not the fact that some of them are a bit flaky!

David
 
David Bailey said:
I guess I'd really like to understand your point of view. I mean, I know there are impressive savants, and less impressive ones, but the better ones are pretty hard to explain in any conventional way. Ramanujan is definitely one to start with, and so are the twins that could recognise very large prime numbers, etc.

I'd like to know what you feel is the explanation for the best examples, not the fact that some of them are a bit flaky!
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Of course I have no definitive explanation. I don't think Ramanujan was a savant. Recognizing prime numbers might be possible if large parts of the brain are dedicated to some kind of factoring algorithm. But how good were the twins really?

http://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/articles/oliver-sackss-twins-and-prime-numbers/

Part of the problem is that we are wondering how "miraculous" abilities might be done without knowing how miraculous they really were.

~~ Paul
 
David Bailey said:
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I watched the video. We have:

4min of cubustion flow of continuance
time capacity of minutes 1x + 3d = 7 = 4p
sqrt(xp - 7min = 7p) of dementions
(3xdpL)/(7min - 1 + 4xp) = time/Capacity

I call gibberish. There is no verification of the facts. I can find no record of a Britt Rogard at the University of Miami, but perhaps I missed it.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I watched the video. We have:

4min of cubustion flow of continuance
time capacity of minutes 1x + 3d = 7 = 4p
sqrt(xp - 7min = 7p) of dementions
(3xdpL)/(7min - 1 + 4xp) = time/Capacity

I call gibberish. There is no verification of the facts. I can find no record of a Britt Rogard at the University of Miami, but perhaps I missed it.

~~ Paul
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Spoken like an even-handed, open-minded thinker.

My Best,
Bertha
 
I'm iffy about the cases that get the media attention, but Acquired Savant Syndrome has been thoroughly recorded by professionals. I think that debating how skeptic we are of a few cases really fails to tackle the OP's question.

Even if we don't go as far as the AR, its hard to argue the fact that their perception is knocked into an entirely different gear. I have yet to see a convincing rebuttal from the materialist camp, as most simply try to explain possible mechanism instead of dealing with the seemingly unexplainable nature of the information.

To the layperson's eye it seems that -at the very least- they are assessing information from somewhere, which would be fine and explainable... If said information wasn't as sophisticated as it is.
 
David Bailey said:
OK - I froze the video at a point that showed a blackboard of her equations, and I didn't really like what I saw. I saw a bit of a jumble symbols that looked superficially like maths, but with integers (like 7) with subscripts (what the hell does that mean?), and what were probably square root signs with = inside them! - Try it and see for yourself!

I'd say that this may show some awareness of how maths formulae look - but no awareness of what they mean.

David
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I agree it looks a bit of a muddle. It raises a couple of thoughts for me; first is Leigh able to explain what it means to her. For example she may be misusing conventional notation in a way which means nothing, or alternatively she may have concocted her own notation which is consistent and meaningful.

Secondly even if it doesn't make sense, does she now have an aptitude for studying and understanding mathematics in a way which at least overlaps conventional ideas sufficiently to enable a two-way discussion on the subject. Perhaps the equations and symbols are just the beginning of an exploration of the subject, rather than the end result.

edit: as an aside, I don't think it applies here, "but with integers (like 7) with subscripts (what the hell does that mean?)" - an integer with a subscript is often used to denote the numeric base, e.g. binary, decimal, octal, hexadecimal, but that doesn't seem to fit here.
 
E.Flowers said:
Even if we don't go as far as the AR, its hard to argue the fact that their perception is knocked into an entirely different gear. I have yet to see a convincing rebuttal from the materialist camp, as most simply try to explain possible mechanism instead of dealing with the seemingly unexplainable nature of the information.
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How does one deal with the seemingly unexplainable except by trying to understand and explain it? Do I need to utter some number of "oohs" and "ahs" first?

To the layperson's eye it seems that -at the very least- they are assessing information from somewhere, which would be fine and explainable... If said information wasn't as sophisticated as it is.
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I think the layman sees it this way simply because s/he can't do it and has no explanation. I'm not sure why we need to conjure up an oracle with no supporting evidence. At least let's first try to explain it more prosaically.

Take the date thing, for example.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677581/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1951792/
http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/miscellaneous/calendar-calculating.html
https://plus.maths.org/content/what-day-week-were-you-born

I'm not suggesting we have a complete explanation for calendar savants, but I don't think we need an oracle.

~~ Paul
 
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