Synesthesia is not a forced association. It just happens naturally. And I do think this is synesthesia (I explained this above). The not being able to tell left from right is normal, as most of us are ambi-dextrous and quite a few cannot tell left from right. Affinity for language might also be explained with synesthesia - that's how I learned English perfectly within the span of a few years in high-school; even though he is autistic which usually hinders one's language abilities.
Basically, I think he has extraordinary mathematical powers which are made more fun with the synesthesia.
I think he is just awesomely fast at computing those numbers (to the point that he might not recognize that he is doing it). And, in the meantime, his synesthesia kicks in and the shape/color/etc. of his numbers "morph" into the new number.
I am really thinking it's those two different processes at work here. I am a synesthete myself and when I add the black one and the beige two, I get the green three. Or when I add the black-pink 14 and the yellow 16 I get the green-white thirty. The colors appear immediately in my mind. But when I try to do some more complex calculations, I have to do the math first, and then I see the color. That guy is just so good, he multiplies numbers as easily as I add them.
Slashdot Mirror
Synesthesia is not a forced association. It just happens naturally. And I do think this is synesthesia (I explained this above). The not being able to tell left from right is normal, as most of us are ambi-dextrous and quite a few cannot tell left from right. Affinity for language might also be explained with synesthesia - that's how I learned English perfectly within the span of a few years in high-school; even though he is autistic which usually hinders one's language abilities. Basically, I think he has extraordinary mathematical powers which are made more fun with the synesthesia.
I think he is just awesomely fast at computing those numbers (to the point that he might not recognize that he is doing it). And, in the meantime, his synesthesia kicks in and the shape/color/etc. of his numbers "morph" into the new number.
I am really thinking it's those two different processes at work here. I am a synesthete myself and when I add the black one and the beige two, I get the green three. Or when I add the black-pink 14 and the yellow 16 I get the green-white thirty. The colors appear immediately in my mind. But when I try to do some more complex calculations, I have to do the math first, and then I see the color. That guy is just so good, he multiplies numbers as easily as I add them.