What is the mind really capable of?

[NorthenSun]

There is a short article entitled Inside the Mind of a Savant in the December 2005 issue of Scientific American which describes the extraordinary memory capacity of Kim Peak. Peak is the savant who was the inspiration to the creator of the movie Rain Man as played by Dustin Hoffman. Here is an excerpt:

 

He can, indeed, pull a fact from his mental library as fast as a search engine can mine the Internet. He read Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October in one hour and 25 minutes. Four months later, when asked, he gave the name of the Russian radio operator in the book, referring to the page describing the character and quoting several passages verbatim. Kim began memorizing books at the age of 18 months, as they were read to him. He has learned 9,000 books by heart so far. He reads a page in eight to 10 seconds and places the memorized book upside down on the shelf to signify that it is now on his mental “hard drive.”

 

The article details more of his abilities, as well as his disabilities (he has some deterioration of motor skills and a somewhat more severe impairment in his abstract reasoning capacity). Also described are the differences between his brain structure and that of a typical brain. I would recommend this article to anyone interested in the area of brain and mind sciences.

 

The adage that “we only use 10% of our brains” is not true, but when one finds evidence of extreme mental capacity like Kim Peaks, it makes one wonder just how much “hidden” ability the mind contains, and is there anyway to tap into it? One of my favorite movies is Phenomenon in which John Travolta plays a man who gains increased intelligence and mental ability as a result of a change in his brain structure. The movie is fiction, but the idea and possibility of greatly expanded mental capacity in humans is less far fetched when the real life phenomenon of savant behavior is observed.

[NotBlinded]

That reminds me of my favorite movie "Powder". I think it's amazing what the mind is capable of doing. Maybe it's a mutation?

[Samurai Tailor]

Here, for those who have the time and/or resources, is a journal article I am told has some potential implications.

 

Snyder A.W. et al. (2003) Savant-like skills exposed in normal people by suppressing the left fronto-temporal lobe. J. Integrative Neuroscience 2, 149 ? 158.

 

The title is pretty much self-explanatory.

[Zach]

Strictly speaking off the cuff, and with no experience in neurology, I would hypothesize that the reason why "normal" people are unable to use their brains as savants is because it impairs our ability to socialize. This is the major defect in savant development, which is why they virtually have to be removed from society. As humans evolved, they evolved as social creatures. Certainly the capacity for intelligence and memory increased with brain size, but social skills were likely more important to evolutionary fitness than the ability to memorize all minutiae of everything in the environment. The study of human memory has indicated that our brains have a system to "tag" important facts for storage in the memory, while others are, if not lost, not easily retrieved. It's possible that if we are able to understand the changes that occur in the minds of savants, we may be able to relieve some of that suppression, but I don't think it will be easy.

[Dianka]

Wasn't there a study done where areas of the brain were physically touched and it made people more agitated. Then the docs would touch another part and the person would lose the ability to recall information. I think I heard this in a class, I am not sure. But I remember they were prodding the frontal lobes and maybe another lobe.

 

I figure it is easier to inhibit the functions of a lobe than trying to get the area to start functioning properly.

[Guest JPD]

Christ, I spent an hour the other day trying to convince my friend that the myth that we only use 10 percent of our brains was in fact a myth. I hear that bullshit factoid trotted out on the reg, usually by someone trying to bolster their stance on psychic chicanery or some similar nonsense. The brain is indeed capable of a great deal, but that capacity resides in the same tissue we all use everyday, and it will never allow you to bend your grammas spoon collection. I taught a couple of autistic students, none of which were savants in any amazing way, other than having a disproportionate ability to perform math operations as opposed to being able to function in a setting with their peers. Obviously there is great potential in the human brain, who could deny it? But it seems that the brain rarely excels in any one area without accepting some deficiencies in others. Those of us who make the greatest impact on our world seem to be those who occupy some magical middle ground, where breakthrough thought is married with personality, like Einstein.

[Asimov]

I think we only use 10% of our hearts....

[Dianka]

I think we only use 10% of our hearts....

 

Anymore would be a waste