I'm about to blow your mind. Do you know of any savant stories? People with one-of-a-kind extraordinary natural mental ability. Well I've looked into basically all of them and my mind was blown to learn that basically all of those claims are fake, without exception. Pic related is an example collage of people I'm talking about. Some of them have real accomplishments, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about claims made about them or by them that make them seem superhuman, specifically extreme natural mental ability in some domain. If you dig into the amazing claims made about each one of these people, which makes them into savants in popular mind, each turn out to be fake. It's really amazing.For example>Kim PeekNo, he didn't remember 98% of everything he ever read. No, he could not remember 12000 books he's read. No, he could not read a page of a book in 12 seconds. All of these are fake. There's actually no evidence whatsoever he had an extraordinary memory at all. His father was just a serial fabulist and a scammer. I know, it's amazing right?>von NeumannNo, he couldn't divide 2 eight digit numbers in his head when he was six. No, he didn't perfectly remember every single book he's ever read. And no, he did not have a photographic memory. And no, he was not superhumanly fast at mental calculations. All of those are fake.> Shankutala DeviNo she couldn't multiply 2 random 13 digit numbers in 28 seconds. That story was a complete lie and a fraud. Turns out she's just a scammer.You can go through the list. It's literally all of them. My mind was completely blown when I learned this, because I used to rely on these examples for my worldview that some people are just born with exceptional mental abilities nobody can ever reach naturally. And turns out literally all of the examples I've had to support this claim have been fake.
>>17034536For those curious, these are the people in the picture:John von Neumann, Jason Arday, Kim Peek, Shakuntala Devi, William James Sidis, Norbert Wiener, Daniel Tammet, Stephen Wiltshire, Nikola Tesla, Chris Langan
Discipline is the only real skill you need
>>17034544Did you also use to believe any of these "savants" had extraordinary mental powers like I did? If so, how surprised were you to learn they were fake?
>>17034536Stop spamming the catalog dumb faggot
>>17034567I'm not spamming the catalog moron this is my first thread on sci in like 6 months.
My quick check on Kim Peek.Open Wikipedia. "NASA Ames Research Center examined Peek with a series of tests including computed tomography (CT scan) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)". Why would they do that, are they stupid, did his father scammed entire NASA? It's hard to swallow.
>>17034571I understand you are being sarcastic, but you're missing the point. The scanned it because they were interested in his brain, not because of any extraordinary mental abilities. And he did have unusual brain anatomy, that much is true. But brain anatomy is not what he's popular for, and it didn't give him any extraordinary abilities. As far as anyone can tell he didn't have any extraordinary raw mental processing abilities whatsoever.Specifically the abilities to:- Perfectly recall 12000 books- Ability to read and remember a book in an hour- Ability to read two pages at the same time with both eyes- Ability to read a page in 12 secondsAre all fake. And these specifically are the headline claims he's famous for.
>>17034536I am a savant... Life is hell, and normal people are cruel to people they don't understand.
Why is nobody responding? This is a big deal!
>>17034575But did he had at least some above-average abilities? Maybe he read 100 books per his life? Or is he a glorified retard? I'm asking you not because I'm sarcastic, or want to debate somehow, but because you did some research.
>>17034536I don't think it's wrong to feel bad for DEI frauds like Arday or Ramanujan. They are scammers, sure, but their scam got way out of their control in the hands of sinister forces trying to advance an agenda
>>17034620As far as I can tell, he did not have any abilities that regular people like you and me don't have. He seemingly was taught by his father the algorithm to calculate the day of a week given any date, which most people can learn, and knew a bunch of trivia facts about history, and memorized a bunch of zip codes. The ability to memorize anything, especially an algorithm and successfully perform it, can be rare for someone who is intellectually disabled. But there's nothing I've seen him able to do that you couldn't teach a regular person to do.>Or is he a glorified retard?Basically yes, it appears that way.
Bump
So what's exactly the claim here? That these famous people are all bullshitters and having their feats cranked up to 11? Or that there actually aren't innately extraordinarily gifted people that we label "savants"?I could buy the first claim - if you would share the entire "list" with the dis-proven claims and all the evidence supporting that conclusion.But to deny there being any savants as all is so ignorant it borders on stupidity. Even in my own life I've come across a person who I consider savant at languages and generally gifted in academics. She was my classmate all through kindergarten to year 9 of elementary school. As early as I can recall she could read, and was an incredibly fast reader - and she was pretty much fluent in English and proficient in both Finnish and German aside from Swedish (native language).From there she picked up more languages every year - pretty much every language offered in our language studies; first Spanish & French, later Italian, Chinese, Japanese.She also spoke Arabic and Farsi - also Thai. It was always amazing to hear her just pull out another language when speaking to different people.But it wasn't like languages consumed her entire life. She was pretty normal in other aspects - was a horse girl, played in the school orchestra, and also sang in the choir. We played a lot of floorball together.I never saw her engulfed in a dictionary or lexicon outside classes - so I can only assume she absorbed all these language skills in her leisure time at home.I'm aware almost anyone can learn multiple languages, and it gets easier the more you learn as well as starting at a young age with high neuroplasticity helps a ton.Basically the speed of acquisition and the retention with seemingly low investment is why I consider her a savant.
>>17035029>That these famous people are all bullshitters and having their feats cranked up to 11?Basically yes. And in cases when they're not the ones making BS claims about their ability (Kim Peek, JvN) they have people around making up BS stories and spreading them.>Or that there actually aren't innately extraordinarily gifted people that we label "savants"?This is another claim yes. The whole savant narrative is a fake basically.And yes your classmate sounds impressive, but I wouldn't necessarily call her a savant. We don't call people savants just because they're good at something. Well some people might but that's not what I meant. Popularly understood savants are naturally extraordinarily good at some particular untrained mental ability, like on a completely another level than anyone else. Very good in a way that regular people can't replicate. And all the examples anyone can bring up for these are the fake claims about people in the OP.Anyway thanks a lot for engaging with my thread! I appreciate the response.
>>17035042>>17035029Savantism is inextricable with savantism narrative, mostly popularized by Treffert, who is a gullible fool or a fraud. He didn't subject those people's claim to any level of serious scrutiny, and just passed down their accounts as his own. It's really really embarrassing. And Treffert is basically the person who legitimized and popularized the notion of savantism, using specific examples such as Kim Peek and Daniel Treffert. Treffert is an outright scammer fraud, very easy to see. Kim Peek is actually intelllectually disabled, but his father massively exaggerated and made up claims about him, the claims that he's known for and the claims that supposedly give him savant status. And it's this way with every single case.Savantism narrative rests on a handful of concrete examples which serve to validate the concept and the narrative, and all those concrete examples prove to be fakes or frauds. It's really amazing.
>>17035029Do you or don't you realize that with this anecdotal example you can go and fuck your ass with a can of surstromming?
>>17035047This person is not me OP. I appreciate the anecdotal example :)The whole theory of savantism rests on anecdotal examples. And for what it's worth, I believe him.
>>17035049I agree with you, I can't distrust something that bright and soothing :) Also, I'm a furry.
>>17034536I understand that claims like Von Neumann dividing 2 8 digit numbers is retarded but if we simply look at his achievements in maths and science we can see that he was one of the best in the modern day. Perhaps even the last great polymath. Is this not enough for us to consider him some sort of savant, I am not sure how savant is even defined or if it is a well defined term at all?
Yeah savantism is a meme. The closest thing you'll get are geniuses like Euler, but they're smart all around rather than in specific areas. I think savantism appeals to the normie cope of believing they may have some unknown mental superpower they can still unlock
>>17034536>all of the examples I've had to support this claim have been fakejust watch a chess super GM take a pattern memorization test and crawl back to your caveiirc hikaru (live on twitch) wasn't able to get a score because he was off the charts (as in, the test ran out of increasingly large patterns to memorize)
>>17036509Did you hear that we use only 5% of our brain?
>>17036533lol i remember when that meme was still circulating around. they even made a shitty movie off of it
>>17036528that's a genius, not a savant. dumbass
>>17034536Well, what about Gauss?
>>17036528What the fuck does that have to do with anything I've said?>>17036578Nobody made up obviously fake stories about him as far as I'm aware. He was just a really smart and capable mathematician doing great work. Do you know something about Gauss that I don't?
Got anything on Einstein?
>>17037378No. I'm not aware of anything to debunk about Einstein. I didn't hear anyone seriously claim he had 200IQ, or had perfect/photographic memory, or was able to perform impossible feats, or anything else really. If you have something I can look into it.
>>17034536That guy who goes head to head with the bank teller or stenographer or whatever she was is pretty neat. Mostly because she's smug as fuck, but the guy immediately lets her know she's made a mistake and tells her where she made it.I don't think he's a savant though iirc he was just good at mathematics.When I first heard about savants it was in some /x/ type book when I was about 13 and it really interested me. Information was sparse and they said it was because it was rare, but it was also really difficult to find footage of anyone showing these superpowers despite them being named. A lot of it started to feel similar to Clever Hans in a way.I have seen people display extraordinary mental feats, but the tradeoff seems to be they're completely socially autistic so it's a bit of an odd balance.>>17034544I don't know if you know who Harry Lorayne was because he's a magician which isn't really /sci/. He had this gimmick where he would meet everyone in the audience before a show and be able to remember all of their names throughout. He said the same thing as you basically. He did have genuinely amazing recall, but it was because he practiced a lot. I have one of his books and it more or less starts with "unless you have discipline this isn't going to work" because there's no trick to it and you have to put the effort in.He still does the best version of the magic square I've seen at least.
>>17037378That guy was pretty humble and told that he's bad at math.
>>17037394>That guy who goes head to head with the bank teller or stenographer or whatever she was is pretty neatWho was it?>I have seen people display extraordinary mental featsExample?
>>17037400>Who was it?I think it's Scott Flansburg, but I can't find the video I was talking about.>I have seen people display extraordinary mental featsDerek Paravicini is cool and so is Stephen Wiltshire. I would say Jason Padgett too, but his was after a brain injury so I'm not sure if you're counting it.I like music and art though so those things would be extraordinary to me, but not necessarily to you.
>>17037406Stephen Wiltshire is one of the people in the OP and nothing about his ability is extraordinary. I would count him as a fraud or at least heavily exaggerated. He does not have photographic memory, he gets things wrong constantly. And also flying over a city with a helicopter to memorize the landscape to prove your ability? Does anyone take this shit seriously. There exist thousands of images on the internet of the very same cityscape that anyone can look up and memorize, there's absolutely zero need for the helicopter.He does not have photographic memory or anything like it. He does not appear to have any extraordinary abilities whatsoever, despite what he and people around him have claimed.
>>17037413Forgot to attach pic
>>17035029how did you not marry your polyglot horse girl childhood friend savant? you could have had genius kids anon
>>17037486>was a horse girlShe had her clopping needs filled before he could even tie his shoes.
>>17037493>cult of passion is into horse pornUnsurprising
>>17037394> He did have genuinely amazing recall, but it was because he practiced a lotNot how memory works unfortunately. Everybody would be geniuses if just practicing was abled to greatly improve your memory.
>>17034536My dog can 100% tell which shoe has the cheese. He is never wrong. Never.I have no idea how he could do this if he wasn’t a savant.
>>17037621The secret is never learning how to forget.
>>17037622Why do you store cheese in shoes? Is this a Dutch thing?
>>17037622He has mouse admixture
>>17037619Equally yoked is equal.
>>17034536So what's the dealio then with Johnny von Sneedman? Which of the claims are fabrications or exaggerations and which are legit and how did you come to your conclusions? I know you touched on some already, but he is a curious case for me and would like to hear more.
Here is a thought: what if all existence is just abstract structure, and the only thing real is our minds?How about this:* All consistent causal structures exist abstractly.* Some implement conscious observers.* Those observers cannot distinguish abstract existence from "physical" existence.* We are conscious observers in a causal structure.* Therefore we have no evidential basis for claiming we possess a special kind of existence absent from other abstract observers.* Why all structures? How can something be prevented from being possible? If a math structure is possible it's consistent. A causal graph rich enough to support observers will feel like a reality which follows the exact laws of the casual graph. No special magic universe machinery required, we inherit a functioning universe by our position inside this causal manifold.
>>17034536What about HSAM. Have you looked into this?
>>17034536Von neumann next to that fraud is hilarious. His accomplishments speak for themselves
