The Nonlinear Library LW - Enhancing intelligence by banging your head on the wall by Bezzi
Dec 13, 2023
01:43
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Enhancing intelligence by banging your head on the wall, published by Bezzi on December 13, 2023 on LessWrong.
The Sudden Savant Syndrome is a rare phenomenon in which an otherwise normal person got some kind of brain injury and immediately develops a new skill. The linked article tells the story of a 40-years old guy who banged his head against a wall while swimming, and woke up with a huge talent for playing piano (relevant video). Now, I've spent 15 years in formal music training and I can ensure you that nobody can fake that kind of talent without spending years in actual piano practice.
Here's the story of another guy who banged his head and become a math genius; you can find several other stories like that. And maybe most puzzling of all is this paper, describing a dozen cases of sudden savants who didn't even bang their head, and acquired instant skill without doing nothing in particular.
I vaguely remember one sudden savant story being mentioned on a children book by Terry Deary, presented in his usual "haha, here's a funny trivia" way. But even as a child, I was pretty shocked to read that. Like, seriously? You could become a math genius just by banging your head on the wall in some very precise way?
I don't think that Sudden Savant Syndrome is just a scam; there are too many documented cases and most kind of talent are very, very difficult to fake. But if true, why there are so surprisingly few studies on that? Why is no one spending billions of dollars to replicate it in a controlled way? This is a genuine question; I know very little about biology and neuroscience, but it surely sounds way easier than rewriting the genetic code of every neuron in the brain...
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
The Sudden Savant Syndrome is a rare phenomenon in which an otherwise normal person got some kind of brain injury and immediately develops a new skill. The linked article tells the story of a 40-years old guy who banged his head against a wall while swimming, and woke up with a huge talent for playing piano (relevant video). Now, I've spent 15 years in formal music training and I can ensure you that nobody can fake that kind of talent without spending years in actual piano practice.
Here's the story of another guy who banged his head and become a math genius; you can find several other stories like that. And maybe most puzzling of all is this paper, describing a dozen cases of sudden savants who didn't even bang their head, and acquired instant skill without doing nothing in particular.
I vaguely remember one sudden savant story being mentioned on a children book by Terry Deary, presented in his usual "haha, here's a funny trivia" way. But even as a child, I was pretty shocked to read that. Like, seriously? You could become a math genius just by banging your head on the wall in some very precise way?
I don't think that Sudden Savant Syndrome is just a scam; there are too many documented cases and most kind of talent are very, very difficult to fake. But if true, why there are so surprisingly few studies on that? Why is no one spending billions of dollars to replicate it in a controlled way? This is a genuine question; I know very little about biology and neuroscience, but it surely sounds way easier than rewriting the genetic code of every neuron in the brain...
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org