incredible brain

Last night I watched an amazing documentary: The Boy with the Incredible Brain.

All about Daniel Tammet:

a British autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematics problems, sequence memory, and natural language learning.

He’s not that autistic though, he communicates very well and that’s why he is considered so important:

“Savants can’t usually tell us how they do what they do,” says Snyder. “It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That’s why he’s exciting. He could be the Rosetta Stone.”

There’s a review here and a news story here.

The documentary also subjects Mr. Tammet to a series of tests intended to amaze viewers and convince scientists that he’s not, somehow, cheating. When, after only a week of language study, he appears on Icelandic television, chatting in the native tongue like a pro, the skeptics appear to be silenced.

It’s amazing. He does the complex maths, well he doesn’t, his brain does it unconsciously, then the answer comes to him:

‘I’m seeing the numbers,” he explains. ”But I’m not seeing them. It’s strange. I’m seeing pictures, shapes and patterns. Almost like a square, like the texture of water. Drops — ripples, almost. Like something reflective. It’s something you can look through, almost metallic. Like bubbles. Then a bit like a flash.”