Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=savants-cognition-thinking&print=true

by makimaki • 18 years ago

13 11 18 years ago

jwesley• 18 years ago

The whole concept of learning to be a savant by reading some interview is ridiculous. You would have better results with Tim Ferriss' Brain Quicken product.

Some interesting bits though. I hate how knowledge gets degraded into self help pseudo-science to sell books.

byrneseyeview• 18 years ago

The bell curve distribution for IQ scores tells us that two thirds of the world’s population have an IQ somewhere between 85 and 115. This means that some four and a half billion people around the globe share just 31 numerical values (“He’s a 94,” “You’re a 110,” ”I’m a 103”), equivalent to 150 million people worldwide sharing the same IQ score. This sounds a lot to me like astrology, which lumps everyone into one of twelve signs of the zodiac.

Does he also object to numerical values for height?

dhimes3• 18 years ago

The debate is whether or not intelligence is one-dimensional. Height is clearly one-dimensional. Intelligence may not be.

axiom2• 18 years ago

Every multi-dimensional measure can be projected onto one dimension. The question is whether it still retains useful discriminating power at that point.

The whole argument in favor of a g factor in intelligence is that when you measure different kinds of intelligence (verbal, analytical etc.) the numbers you get seem to be a function of a single dominant factor. (That's the argument, I'm not saying whether or not I agree with it.)

jmah2• 18 years ago

Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker

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