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Kim Peek, aka Rain Man Focus of NASA Study
Bob Vila's Hammer writes "Kim Peek - an autistic man who has been deemed a "mega-savant" for his astonishing knowledge of 15 grand subjects ranging from history and literature, geography and numbers, to sports, music and dates - is a part of a new NASA study to explore the changes in his brain since MRI images were originally taken in 1988. Not only was he the basis of the main character in the movie Rain Man, but he apparently is getting smarter in his specialty areas as he gets older. The study has scientists hoping that technology used to study the effects of space travel on the brain will help explain his mental capabilities."
While definitely a "savant", Kim Peek is not behaviorally autistic; Rain Man's character was modified to be an autistic savant. (Autism, like many disorders, is merely a set of diagnostic criteria, and Kim may share some in common with classic autism. However, some critical benchmarks for autism are not shared, making Kim not strictly "autistic".)
The above article and the brief wikipedia story are very interesting reads. For example, did you know that Kim was born with "an enlarged head and missing corpus callosum, the connecting tissue between the brain hemispheres, damage to the cerebellum and no anterior commissure"?
After reading the article, that may actualy be a posibility. He has memorized, on first read, over 7600 books. jesus.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
At the risk of sounding like a troll.. Try reading up on paragraphs!
Turns out most of the intelligence originates from proteins stored in the penis. That is why men with large penises are so much smarter than other men.
Definitely. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet him at one point and he was an extremely friendly guy, until people ask him to do a "trick" like calculate the day of the week their birthdate fell on or do some math. Then he seemed to get annoyed, understandably.
Celebrate the finer things in life
It is worth noting that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), is used to clinically define one as having autism (as opposed to the non-clinical term "autism spectrum dissorder" or the clinical catch all term "Pervasive Developmental Disporder-Not Otherwise Specified"). In order to have clinical autism DSM-IV requires...
1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, manifest by at least two of the following:
A. Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors, such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures and gestures, to regulate social interaction
B. Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
C. Lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
D. Lack of social or emotional reciprocity
C&D can often be seen by others as being cold or not loving. However, one could technically be autistic by exhibiting A&B while seeking to share enjoyment and having emotional reciprocity.
I remember watching a documentary or two about autism and something that was repeatedly found was that as an autistic individual tried to remedy their problems with autism (usually getting better with age) their savant like knowledge began to deteriorate. I have always thought that there is almost a finite amount of brain capacity any one individual is able to have. Meaning, while a savant is able to have incredible knowledge of some things, their brain is so devoted to that knowledge that things, like knowing where the silverwear drawer is, get sacrificed. Specifically, I think that the autistic savant's brain begins to lose the amount of speicfic knowledge in their savant areas as they are adapting to a more social lifestyle and expanding the functionality of their brain. (Others have pointed out that Kim doesn't lack the social skills to be considered classically autistic. However I feel that this explaination may still be able to apply to some degree.)
What I'm curious about, it while he may be a walking encyclopedia of fact, how good is he at reasoning?
I know more about intelligence and working memory than autism in general and autistic savants in particular.
However, there is one absolutely fascinating case -- Temple Grandin. She is autistic, but incredibly high functioning. She has a Ph.D and is a leader in animal ethonology. This sounds like a bullshit field, but here's the payoff: she's the world's leading designer of livestock handling equipment. Meating processing plants are pretty inhumane places. She designs the part where the livestock are unloaded from trains and trucks, penned up, and then ushered to the place where the killing happens. Her designs somehow put the animals at ease. I know, I know, it sounds weird. She somehow has high empathy for the beasts, which is especially impressive given that autistics often have profound problems negotiating even trivial social situations.
I don't know about Kim Peek, but I would classify Grandin as a designer of the highest caliber. I encourage you to spend some time learning about her. Just Google for "Temple Grandin Autism" and you'll be on your way.
[Proof elided.]
Your argument is not correct.
The paradox of the expert is this: How can experts have both (1) more knowledge of a domain and (2) faster access to each element of that knowledge?
Cognitive psychologists began answering this question forty years ago, with De Groot's work in the 1960s and Chase and Simon's work in the early 1970s on chess experts. The answer is to notice that the acquisition of knowledge is typically accompanied by the acquisition of better indices on that knowledge. Or, said another way, you get credit for knowing something when (1) you have stored it somewhere in your long-term memory and (2) you can recall it when it is appropriate. Research since the 1970s has applied these early insights to many other domains besides chess, such as reading X-rays.
Another way to think of this is that memories are more akin to hashtables than trees or lists. With the right hash function (i.e., indexing scheme), any single item can be retrieved in constant time. [Think also of radix sort versus comparison-based sorting algorithms.]
Or corrupt prophets trying to put words in the mouth of God, or Lot's daughters getting him stone drunk and sleeping with him, or Moses murdering the Egyptian man, or David abusing his position as King to get a woman to sleep with him when her husband was away (and then getting her husband killed when he was in danger of being found out).
I'm not sure it's the best comparison to make the point you're making, though. The thing to realize is that an awful lot of these things weren't even acceptable in the culture of the day, either. Someone being mentioned in the Bible doesn't automatically constitute an endorsement of their behavior; very often these Old Testament things are in part cautionary tales, going on to show that the same people invariably suffered the consequences of their actions. Even when occasionally the original author of a section does appear to have approved, the consequences are still plain for later readers to see.
Even the polygamy of some Old Testament figures (which was quite acceptable in the culture of their own times) were shown to have adverse consequences for them, their wives, and their descendants. Abraham's experiment in polygamy established two rival claims to the middle east by descendants of his two children; Ishmael (ancestor of the Arab people) and Isaac (ancestor of the Jewish people). With Jacob, in turn, his wives and family suffered as he invariably played favorites and bitter rivalries developed. With that and other examples it's little wonder the Jewish tradition gradually realized polygamy might be a bad idea. The culture permitted David a lot more leeway as King in that regard, but reading the whole store you're left with the sense that perhaps it shouldn't have.
As for Noah.. I guess that mostly just comes down to a rather embarassing family memory and a lesson in responsible drinking. Just imagine coming home from a night out with your brothers to find your centenarian father passed out drunk and naked in the middle of the tent. Or don't. Not the best mental image. :P Probably everybody laid off the alcohol for a while after that one.
These were the stories of the people and situations from which "today's moral values," to the extent that they have "Judeo-Christian" roots, ultimately emerged. "Today's moral values" in that sense are probably closer to "lessons learned".
I think it is an attempt to suggest a notion of morality that doesn't depend on a single culture's ideals. These folks did screw up, whether or not their actions were culturally acceptable to their contemporaries. They hurt themselves, and they hurt other people. But there is another point also; the God described is one that was still willing to deal with them, if they were willing repent and deal with Him. More than caution, it does try to offer some hope, too.
DNA just wants to be free...