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In a fascinating interview available in Scientific America on Savantism (which I found as a newsletter subscriber from KurzweilAI, we are introduced to the mind of the savant.

Daniel Tammet, an author, linguist and a savant, offers explanations on how he thinks. Tammet, for instance, set the European record for reciting the first 22,514 decimal points of Pi.

The key appears to be that savants think on a different dimension, turning numbers into shapes and colors, for instance.

Here’s what Tammet says:

In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my “friends.” I think this is why my memory is very deep, because the information is not static. I say in my book that I do not crunch numbers (like a computer). Rather, I dance with them.

The dude is not using fingers and thumbs like I do.

But, I wonder could this type of thinking be teachable? Could it be developed? Could it be enhanced?

At one time, people could not read a passage silently. To do so was a great, almost magic skill. But over time people developed it and today, kids can do it.

Let’s go another bold step: What if the skills of the savant are just the surface of the mind’s incredible potential, no more magic than the early silent reader plowing his or her way through the Book of Luke?

Compared to the potential of consciousness, could the Tammet’s power of calculation and inter-dimensional thinking be no more amazing and powerful than the person silently reading to himself or herself a few hundred years ago?

Is a singularity in consciousness possible?

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