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February 20, 2005 Subject: Guardian Unlimited: A genius
explains
Gary Pavek spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you
should see it.
------- Note from Gary Pavek:
Really interesting article & interview with an autistic savant. -------
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site,
go to http://www.guardian.co.uk
A genius explains Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform
mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike
other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he
does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language.
Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities are the key to
unlock the secrets of autism. Interview by Richard Johnson Richard Johnson
Saturday February 12 2005 The Guardian
Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the
stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit,
Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a mathematical
genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi
to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic, which is why he
can't drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with
extraordinary ability and disability.
Tammet is calculating 377 multiplied by 795. Actually, he isn't
"calculating": there is nothing conscious about what he is doing. He arrives
at the answer instantly. Since his epileptic fit, he has been able to see
numbers as shapes, colours and textures. The number two, for instance, is a
motion, and five is a clap of thunder. "When I multiply numbers together, I
see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape
emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without
having to think."
Tammet is a "savant", an individual with an astonishing, extraordinary
mental ability. An estimated 10% of the autistic population - and an
estimated 1% of the non-autistic population - have savant abilities, but no
one knows exactly why. A number of scientists now hope that Tammet might
help us to understand better. Professor Allan Snyder, from the Centre for
the Mind at the Australian National University in Canberra, explains why
Tammet is of particular, and international, scientific interest. "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 are many theories about savants. Snyder, for instance, believes
that we all possess the savant's extraordinary abilities - it is just a
question of us learning how to access them. "Savants have usually had some
kind of brain damage. Whether it's an onset of dementia later in life, a
blow to the head or, in the case of Daniel, an epileptic fit. And it's that
brain damage which creates the savant. I think that it's possible for a
perfectly normal person to have access to these abilities, so working with
Daniel could be very instructive."
Scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest that the right hemisphere
might be compensating for damage in the left hemisphere. While many savants
struggle with language and comprehension (skills associated primarily with
the left hemisphere), they often have amazing skills in mathematics and
memory (primarily right hemisphere skills). Typically, savants have a
limited vocabulary, but there is nothing limited about Tammet's vocabulary.
Tammet is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and
image-rich languages of northern Europe. (He already speaks French, German,
Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto.) The vocabulary of his
language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships
between different things. The word "ema", for instance, translates as
"mother", and "ela" is what a mother creates: "life". "Päike" is "sun",
and "päive" is what the sun creates: "day". Tammet hopes to launch
Mänti in academic circles later this year, his own personal exploration
of the power of words and their inter-relationship.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC)
at Cambridge University, is interested in what Mänti might teach us
about savant ability. "I know of other savants who also speak a lot of
languages," says Baron-Cohen. "But it's rare for them to be able to reflect
on how they do it - let alone create a language of their own." The ARC team
has started scanning Tammet's brain to find out if there are modules (for
number, for example, or for colour, or for texture) that are connected in a
way that is different from most of us. "It's too early to tell, but we hope
it might throw some light on why we don't all have savant abilities."
Last year Tammet broke the European record for recalling pi, the
mathematical constant, to the furthest decimal point. He found it easy, he
says, because he didn't even have to "think". To him, pi isn't an abstract
set of digits; it's a visual story, a film projected in front of his eyes.
He learnt the number forwards and backwards and, last year, spent five hours
recalling it in front of an adjudicator. He wanted to prove a point. "I
memorised pi to 22,514 decimal places, and I am technically disabled. I just
wanted to show people that disability needn't get in the way."
Tammet is softly spoken, and shy about making eye contact, which makes
him seem younger than he is. He lives on the Kent coast, but never goes near
the beach - there are too many pebbles to count. The thought of a
mathematical problem with no solution makes him feel uncomfortable. Trips to
the supermarket are always a chore. "There's too much mental stimulus. I
have to look at every shape and texture. Every price, and every arrangement
of fruit and vegetables. So instead of thinking,'What cheese do I want this
week?', I'm just really uncomfortable."
Tammet has never been able to work 9 to 5. It would be too difficult to
fit around his daily routine. For instance, he has to drink his cups of tea
at exactly the same time every day. Things have to happen in the same order:
he always brushes his teeth before he has his shower. "I have tried to be
more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a
sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time,
and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't
work."
Instead, he has set up a business on his own, at home, writing email
courses in language learning, numeracy and literacy for private clients. It
has had the fringe benefit of keeping human interaction to a minimum. It
also gives him time to work on the verb structures of Mänti.
Few people on the streets have recognised Tammet since his pi record
attempt. But, when a documentary about his life is broadcast on Channel 5
later this year, all that will change. "The highlight of filming was to meet
Kim Peek, the real-life character who inspired the film Rain Man. Before I
watched Rain Man, I was frightened. As a nine-year-old schoolboy, you don't
want people to point at the screen and say, 'That's you.' But I watched it,
and felt a real connection. Getting to meet the real-life Rain Man was
inspirational."
Peek was shy and introspective, but he sat and held Tammet's hand for
hours. "We shared so much - our love of key dates from history, for
instance. And our love of books. As a child, I regularly took over a room in
the house and started my own lending library. I would separate out fiction
and non-fiction, and then alphabetise them all. I even introduced a
ticketing system. I love books so much. I've read more books than anyone
else I know. So I was delighted when Kim wanted to meet in a library." Peek
can read two pages simultaneously, one with each eye. He can also recall, in
exact detail, the 7,600 books he has read. When he is at home in Utah, he
spends afternoons at the Salt Lake City public library, memorising phone
books and address directories."He is such a lovely man," says Tammet. "Kim
says, 'You don't have to be handicapped to be different - everybody's
different'. And he's right."
Like Peek, Tammet will read anything and everything, but his favourite
book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton. "With all those
aphorisms," he says, "Chesterton was the Groucho Marx of his day." Tammet is
also a Christian, and likes the fact that Chesterton addressed some complex
religious ideas. "The other thing I like is that, judging by the
descriptions of his home life, I reckon Chesterton was a savant. He couldn't
dress himself, and would always forget where he was going. His poor wife."
Autistic savants have displayed a wide range of talents, from reciting
all nine volumes of Grove's Dictionary Of Music to measuring exact distances
with the naked eye. The blind American savant Leslie Lemke played
Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No1, after he heard it for the first time, and
he never had so much as a piano lesson. And the British savant Stephen
Wiltshire was able to draw a highly accurate map of the London skyline from
memory after a single helicopter trip over the city. Even so, Tammet could
still turn out to be the more significant.
He was born on January 31 1979. He smiles as he points out that 31, 19,
79 and 1979 are all prime numbers - it's a kind of sign. He was actually
born with another surname, which he prefers to keep private, but decided to
change it by deed poll. It didn't fit with the way he saw himself. "I first
saw 'Tammet' online. It means oak tree in Estonian, and I liked that
association. Besides, I've always had a love of Estonian. Such a vowel rich
language."
As a baby, he banged his head against the wall and cried constantly.
Nobody knew what was wrong. His mother was anxious, and would swing him to
sleep in a blanket. She breastfed him for two years. The only thing the
doctors could say was that perhaps he was understimulated. Then, one
afternoon when he was playing with his brother in the living room, he had an
epileptic fit.
"I was given medication - round blue tablets - to control my seizures,
and told not to go out in direct sunlight. I had to visit the hospital every
month for regular blood tests. I hated those tests, but I knew they were
necessary. To make up for it, my father would always buy me a cup of squash
to drink while we sat in the waiting room. It was a worrying time because my
Dad's father had epilepsy, and actually died of it, in the end. They were
thinking, 'This is the end of Daniel's life'."
Tammet's mother was a secretarial assistant, and his father a steelplate
worker. "They both left school without qualifications, but they made us feel
special - all nine of us. As the oldest of nine, I suppose it's fair to say
I've always felt special." Even if his younger brothers and sisters could
throw and catch better than him, swim better, kick a ball better, Daniel was
always the oldest. "They loved me because I was their big brother and I
could read them stories."
He remembers being given a Ladybird book called Counting when he was
four. "When I looked at the numbers I 'saw' images. It felt like a place I
could go where I really belonged. That was great. I went to this other
country whenever I could. I would sit on the floor in my bedroom and just
count. I didn't notice that time was passing. It was only when my Mum
shouted up for dinner, or someone knocked at my door, that I would snap out
of it."
One day his brother asked him a sum. "He asked me to multiply something
in my head - like 'What is 82 x 82 x 82 x 82?' I just looked at the floor
and closed my eyes. My back went very straight and I made my hands into
fists. But after five or 10 seconds, the answer just flowed out of my mouth.
He asked me several others, and I got every one right. My parents didn't
seem surprised. And they never put pressure on me to perform for the
neighbours. They knew I was different, but wanted me to have a normal life
as far as possible."
Tammet could see the car park of his infant school from his bedroom
window, which made him feel safe. "I loved assembly because we got to sing
hymns. The notes formed a pattern in my head, just like the numbers did."
The other children didn't know what to make of him, and would tease him. The
minute the bell went for playtime he would rush off. "I went to the
playground, but not to play. The place was surrounded by trees. While the
other children were playing football, I would just stand and count the
leaves."
As Tammet grew older, he developed an obsessive need to collect -
everything from conkers to newspapers. "I remember seeing a ladybird for the
first time," he says. "I loved it so much, I went round searching every
hedge and every leaf for more. I collected hundreds, and took them to show
the teacher. He was amazed, and asked me to get on with some assignment.
While I was busy he instructed a classmate to take the tub outside and let
the ladybirds go. I was so upset that I cried when I found out. He didn't
understand my world."
Tammet may have been teased at school, but his teachers were always
protective. "I think my parents must have had a word with them, so I was
pretty much left alone." He found it hard to socialise with anyone outside
the family, and, with the advent of adolesence, his shyness got worse.
After leaving school with three A-levels (History, French and German, all
grade Bs), he decided he wanted to teach - only not the predictable,
learn-by-rote type of teaching. For a start, he went to teach in Lithuania,
and he worked as a volunteer. "Because I was there of my own free will, I
was given a lot of leeway. The times of the classes weren't set in stone,
and the structures were all of my own making. It was also the first time I
was introduced as 'Daniel' rather than 'the guy who can do weird stuff in
his head'. It was such a pleasant relief." Later, he returned home to live
with his parents, and found work as a maths tutor.
He met the great love of his life, a software engineer called Neil,
online. It began, as these things do, with emailed pictures, but ended up
with a face-to-face meeting. "Because I can't drive, Neil offered to pick me
up at my parents' house, and drive me back to his house in Kent. He was
silent all the way back. I thought, 'Oh dear, this isn't going well'. Just
before we got to his house, he stopped the car. He reached over and pulled
out a bouquet of flowers. I only found out later that he was quiet because
he likes to concentrate when he's driving."
Neil is shy, like Tammet. They live, happily, on a quiet cul-de-sac. The
only aspect of Tammet's autism that causes them problems is his lack of
empathy. "There's a saying in Judaism, if somebody has a relative who has
hanged themselves, don't ask them where you should hang your coat. I need to
remember that. Like the time I kept quizzing a friend of Neil's who had just
lost her mother. I was asking her all these questions about faith and death.
But that's down to my condition - no taboos."
When he isn't working, Tammet likes to hang out with his friends on the
church quiz team. His knowledge of popular culture lets him down, but he's a
shoo-in when it comes to the maths questions. "I do love numbers," he says.
"It isn't only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do. I really feel that
there is an emotional attachment, a caring for numbers. I think this is a
human thing - in the same way that a poet humanises a river or a tree
through metaphor, my world gives me a sense of numbers as personal. It
sounds silly, but numbers are my friends."
=======
Subject: savant abilities
Dr. Pournelle,
Thanks for posting up that article on autistic savants
on your mail page. It struck a personal nerve. When growing up, I found I
had a talent for structured computer programming. I could "visualize" how a
program fit together before even getting going on the actual coding, like
puzzle pieces. Except I could shape the pieces to fit the programming
paradigm I was using. Often the toughest part for me getting going was the
simplest basics of programming, setting the headers and getting the simplest
syntax down. Once I had a start however, my chore was usually simply making
the code match the structure I could already see in my head. I never
questioned why or how I did this, I just did it, and it amazed my college
roomate on occasion as we plugged through the same projects. On a few
occasions, I would get so engrossed in what I was doing that I'd completely
lose myself in a project and do nothing for up to10 hours at a time
sculpting my project to match what I saw was the solution.
This might also explain why I seem to have a natural
resistance to object oriented programming. I understand how it works, but I
have never visualized how to actually do anything useful with it. "My brain
doesn't work that way" is a lame excuse, but I had more success solving the
typical maze or towers of hanoi problems on a massively parallel machine
using C than I did writing "hello world" in a generic OOP environment.
Once, in the middle of a tough mid-term project, I
dreamt that I was coding and solved the core problems in my head. On a whim,
on awakening I wrote it all down before I was fully awake, expecting to read
nothing but nonsense when I had time later on to read what I'd written. To
my suprise, my notes described the solution, including a full line of
fortran (format and all), that did the work in half the lines of code of
almost everyone else's program. I've never had this happen again and as
structured coding isn't in favor right now and I haven't written more than
10 lines of code in the last 8 years, I seem to have lost touch with
whatever talent I had in this area.
I therefore found the savant's description on how he
does calculations very illuminating. Maybe everyone has a unique way of
doing things on a subconscious level and we can occasionally tap into those
abilities without the filters and conversions we're impressed with as we
grow up, but most people never limit their focus on a problem enough to
bypass all the "noise". Maybe savants are simply able to bypass their
education and actively access the inner workings of their mind. The lucky
ones can run the results back through their conscious filters and converters
in order to express the results.
Sean Long
More on this when I recover from the TSA abuse.
=
k
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