Posted on 05/20/2012 12:27:30 AM PDT by Nachum
How can we explain “acquired savants” — people with extraordinary talent who’ve miraculously developed artistic, musical, or mathematical abilities as a result of a brain injury, or temporarily from a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) session — since they weren’t born with the talent and didn’t learn it later?
For example, how is it that somebody like Derek Amato (video below), who’d never demonstrated any musical talent before hitting his head at the bottom of a pool, could suddenly handle jazz and classical pieces of astounding complexity without training?
Darold A. Treffert, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and a consultant for the movie Rain Man, speculates that it could be the result of what he calls “genetic memory” (“ancestral memory”) that is triggered by rewiring of the brain to compensate for the injury.
(Excerpt) Read more at kurzweilai.net ...
Geez. Some people will do anything to get a music gig
I had a neighbor that played piano by ear. Her mother tried to give her lessons and it was impossible...she could hear a song on the piano and only once and play it back without missing a note...her teacher gave up on her, she was unteachable...Was born with the ability...
We can DO IT, we need the freedom to just go ahead and do it without the “edumacational means testing” approval of skills.
“If you aren’t a chart success, you must musically suck” is the mantra I read from some on this board.
There is much graft in the filtering process.
We know the body to be a bio-electro-chemical system. It can dispense drugs within the bloodstream in response to trauma and stress, etc.
Just because an eel is considered “electric” does not mean that we cannot similarly discharge electric shocks at will.
It’s all in the know how to tap the ability.
Those people probably don’t listen to metal bands. Unless you’re of the era of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, you don’t chart. But there’s so, so many fantastic, world-class metal bands out there that barely get the attention they deserve.
My friend was surprised last night that at 2AM I know the twists and turns home on a 30 mile journey on only my forth voyage (second after dark).
I didn’t even look for the poorly lit street signs.
Iron Maiden got scant video promotion in MTVs earliest days but I don’t think they got much afterwards (and their videos themselves were pretty weak using stock footage).
BUT even without chart list and radio airplay, they built a following through constant touring.
I saw them at a general admission show opening for the Scorpions, myself.
You should feel lucky. I’m still drinking. Even I don’t know what my brain is like right now.
Mama Cass Eliot claimed that she became a talented singer only after getting clunked on the head by a brick that fell from a building.
Must have been a long time ago. Iron Maiden are absolutely huge now, bigger than they’ve ever been. They tour the world in a customized commercial airliner.
I can get to destinations by routes I have never traveled. I can hear, in my head, the directions. “In 500 feet, turn left”, or “in 1/4 mile move to the right lane” :-)
I think I hear directions too, but they seem to be in some foreign language so I get lost a lot.
My father always said he was born with a compass up his arse. That man never got lost,Idon’t care where he was...I guess we all have different talents. Am 73 and still tring to find mine.........ouchy
“Walk in” ping
I stopped for a tribal Aboriginal at about 0300 as he was walking along the road and offered him alift. He hardly spoke any English but managed to get across to me that he was going to see his sister and that he had only been to her house (and indeed any city) once before. I was sceptical as this area has lots of small streets that all look the same and it is poorly lit. It was uncanny to watch him get a feel for where he was as we drove along - he managed to take me straight there. He seemed to be operating from some sort of internal GPS system that those of us who do not live with nature in the middle of nowhere may have not delevoped.
The brain really is an amazing peice of handiwork.
Mel
The Science Channel has a series called Ingenious Minds that’s featured some acquired savants. It’s an interesting show.... Derek Amato is one of the people they covered.
http://science.discovery.com/tv/ingenious-minds/
Antelope freeway 1/128th of a mile
I thought it was a ham sandwich?
If you lived here, you’d be home by now.
Mama Cass was hit by a brick,
Which made her sing like a bird.
Until one night try as she might,
A ham sandwich laid her down.
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