"Autistic savants have little to no
social skills and very low IQs, and yet they display supernormal capacities of
memory, musical talent, artistic talent, or lightning fast mathematical or
calendar calculations (Dossey, 2012; Cowan & Frith, 2009; Welling, 1994).
The Academy Award-winning 1988 movie Rain Man was based partially on the life
of savant Kim Peek, who among other things could correctly and instantly recall
every word of the estimated 12,000 books he had read. Psychiatrist Darold
Treffert, discussing autistic savants, wrote that 'Kim Peek possesses one of
the most extraordinary memories ever recorded. Until we can explain his
abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition.'
"Treffert described the case of Leslie Lemke, who 'is blind, severely cognitively impaired and has cerebral palsy. Yet he played back Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 flawlessly after hearing it for the first time at age 14.' (Treffert, 2010, p. 288) If one were to test normally healthy pianists who had not previously heard this concerto, it is safe to say that precisely none of them would be able to do this.
"Treffert also described the even stranger phenomenon of what he termed 'acquired savants,' in which, as the result of an accident, a normal person suddenly gains savant skills. As an example, he offered the following case: ‘A 54-year-old surgeon gets struck by lightning, which he survives. After several weeks of mild memory impairment, he develops an obsessive interest in classical music, which was not present pre-incident. He learns to play the piano but has a recurrent, intrusive, unrelenting tune in his head, which he subsequently transcribes into a major sonata; he now performs professionally. His medical skills remain unaffected’ (Treffert, 2010, p. 330)."
"One theory about autistic savants has
been proposed by Allan Snyder (Gobet et al., 2014). He proposes that the brain
is essentially a filter that actively reduces the 'blooming, buzzing,
confusion' of the external world into a few understandable concepts and objects
based on one’s prior experience (James, 1890, p. 462)."
Dean Radin, “Reductive Materialism Explains
Everything, Except for Two Small Clouds,” Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie;
Woollacott, Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a
Postmaterialist Paradigm, (p. 327-341). AAPS. Kindle Edition.
Cowan, R. & Frith, C. (2009). Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 364 (1522), 1417-1424.
Delorme, A. Beischel, J., Michel, L., Boccuzzi, M., Radin, D., & Mills, P. J. (2013). “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased.” Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 834.
Dossey, L. (2012). Fractals and the mind. Explore (NY) 8 (4), 213-217.
Gobet, F., Snyder, A., Bossomaier, T. &. Harre, M. (2014). Designing a “better” brain: insights from experts and savants. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 470.
Heilman, K. M. (2016). Jews, creativity and the genius of disobedience. J Relig Health, 55, pages 341–349.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York City: Henry Holt and Company.
Lingg, A. M. & Frank, H. (1973). Mozart, genius of harmony. Port Washington, N.Y: Kennikat Press.
Pandey, S. N. (2001). Millennium perspectives on A.K. Ramanujan. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.
Schwartz, S. (2010). Nonlocality and exceptional experiences: a study of genius, religious epiphany, and the psychic. Explore, 6, 227-236.
Treffert, D. A. (2010). Islands of genius: The bountiful mind of the autistic, acquired, and sudden savant. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Welling, H. (1994). Prime number identification in idiots savants: Can they calculate them? J Autism Dev Disord, 24 (2), 199-207.
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