Man Becomes Math Genius After Head Injury

Stories like these are always intriguing.

This man suffered an attack from thugs and from his subsequent head injuries, develops amazing mathematical abilities he never possessed before.

The question I pose is why are certain segments of our brain are blocked or understimulated to a point where this hidden knowledge refuses to be accessed unless another part of the brain retains deficiencies?

It seems the Pythagorus theorem has an underlying theme to the construct of our realities.

ca.news.yahoo.com...=%252Fvideo%252Fworld-22186928%252Fman-becomes-g enius-after-head-injury-29117136.html

(sorry tried to embed video, did not work)

Another thread that expounds on this phenomenon, is here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This man became a musical genius.

I would like to think we all have untapped knowledge encoded into us but for whatever reason have difficulties accessing.

I would like to think there is a way for everyone to tap in to their true potential without having to smash our heads in.

reply to post by Goldcurrent


S&F! Where shall I hit my head?
Seriously, How EXACTLY was he hurt?

How does the Pythagore Theorem apply to our reality?

reply to post by Goldcurrent


I've heard rumors that head injuries also can give you supernatural powers and abilities but I forgot where I've read that from

It seems to the savants that mathematical equations are embedded everywhere! Similar to Neo in the Matrix seeing nothing but code. The Fibonacci number is an interesting constant in our world as well.

I'm just curious as to the deeper reaches of our collective knowledge and some differing thoughts on how this man was even able to KNOW what he knows, simply from a knock on the head. How is this plausible if he wasn't even much of anything previously?

i've heard of several people who after strokes and or head injury became very good artists, when before they had no artistic talent or drive

strange things

amazing!
as a husband of a life changing head injury from a violent attack in denver in 1995, my wife just got her second degree and graduated from the highest accredited Chinese medical school in the nation recently.

in the 90's after the incident, we had to hire a strategist just to help her go to the grocery store and deal with the light and sound stimulous and how to shop and live a normal life again.

the brain is an amazing, repairing unit.

Just as easy as to obtain these skills, can they easily be taken away by another bump on the head?

Originally posted by starwarsisreal
reply to post by Goldcurrent

 

I've heard rumors that head injuries also can give you supernatural powers and abilities but I forgot where I've read that from

edit on 28-4-2012 by starwarsisreal because: (no reason given)

You may mean Peter Hurkos, a Dutchman who fell off a ladder when he was 30 and gained perceptional and psychic powers instantly (takes yogis and other adapts many months or years of training in order for the body and brain to get to the point where they can handle them), and he did pretty well with them.

As for the math guy, if there is an area of the brain which can "switch on" math ability and comprehension, why can't one of those long sought-after mind machines or a simple "pill" open up the same areas? My best math ability clicked in only once, for maybe five minutes, and it was very interesting to have that experience and get a taste of what people who can do math without effort may be experiencing.

And he changes his politcal stance from Romney to Ron Paul.....

With Romney the math just doesn't add up.

And all those years wasted in school, when I could have just had someone whack me upside the noggin, with a club.

6 People Who Gained Amazing Skills from Brain Injuries
(article from Cracked.com, of all places...)

While all six of these examples are amazing, the guy who started drawing intricate fractal images after his head injury is something else;

Hand drawn - after a blow to the head. Now, where's that ball-peen hammer...?

I think these head injuries remove the interference with such high-level calculations (whether in math, art, music, etc.), instead allowing portions of the brain such as the visual cortex to take a larger role in such abstract thought. The visual cortex is highly developed to deal with complex math at a sub-conscious level - just to coordinate hand-eye movement, for instance, or to calculate the trajectory of a falling object.

There's a small movement in teaching called "math visualization" that tries to tap into the visual cortex's ability to handle complex math and channel it with direction from the cognitive portion of the brain. Perhaps "interference" isn't the correct term to use, rather the frontal cortex is great at cognition and gives us our sense of self, but the larger non-cognitive (i.e., subconscious) portion of our brain handles all sorts of muscle coordination, sound and visual coordination, etc., as well as highly complex calculations routinely, and is just waiting to be tapped into by that small frontal lobe of our brains. We really do have two brains in our head, and sometimes that larger, silent part is just begging to express itself, if only that loud, sometimes obnoxious id of the frontal lobe would let it.

Well, I'm going down to the local ice rink with my bicycle and a bottle of cooking oil, sans helmet. Anyone want to join me? If it doesn't work there's always plan B: go to the roughest pub in town and sneeze in a bikers face.

Originally posted by starwarsisreal
I've heard rumors that head injuries also can give you supernatural powers and abilities but I forgot where I've read that from

I've heard rumors that head injuries can also make you forget things.

Damn, i wanna be a genius too. Like really ! I would like to have a great memory and to have above average mathematics skills. And yes, i would hit my head against the wall if that would work.

reply to post by Goldcurrent


It's also possible that head injuries only make it easier for other entities to enter the human body, giving the appearance that someone has "become" a genius.

i wonder if i could convince him to come to vegas with me for just a few high stake games of 21?
giggity

reply to post by Aleister

Doubt a pill could do anything. From what i understand his math skills are because of the way his brain rewired itself after damage. There is absolutely no way to know beforehand how a brain will rewire and it might have very different results in other people.

I find this seriously fascinating!
Does this imply that everyone (or at least most everyone) has the ability to do some really amazing things, but it is blocked??
I have also seen stories where people have had a head injury or illness and wake up being able to speak another language. What the..?

Originally posted by bastet11
I have also seen stories where people have had a head injury or illness and wake up being able to speak another language. What the..?

This is actually bit more ivestigated than super-math ability . Look up for Glossolalia, there are some other variations also. As every old magic story it has to give away to science scrutiny.

The truth is....
We know much less about our brains, that scientist would like to admit. Imagine brain is a very influential government department, based entirely in one place.
We know the structure of this well managed building, what bricks are made from, we know where the communication lines go in etc etc.
But we dont really know who's working inside and how do they do their intricate job . We certainly dont know what are they capable of.

Quantum physics will give an answers I believe.

It is very possible that a brain injury can cause the pineal gland (third eye) to awaken. Therefore leaving it open for all sorts of information to travel through.

René Descartes, who dedicated much time to the study of the pineal gland, called it the "principal seat of the soul."[28] He believed that it was the point of connection between the intellect and the body.[29] Descartes attached significance to the gland because he believed it to be the only section of the brain which existed as a single part, rather than one half of a pair. He argued that because a person can never have "more than one thought at a time," external stimuli must be united within the brain before being considered by the soul, and he considered the pineal gland to be situated in "the most suitable possible place for this purpose," located centrally in the brain and surrounded by branches of the carotid arteries.[28]

Baruch de Spinoza criticized Descartes' viewpoint for neither following from self-evident premises nor being "clearly and distinctly perceived" (Descartes having previously asserted that he could not draw conclusions of this sort), and questioned what Descartes meant by talking of "the union of the mind and the body."[30]

The notion of a "pineal-eye" is central to the philosophy of the French writer Georges Bataille, which is analyzed at length by literary scholar Denis Hollier in his study Against Architecture. In this work Hollier discusses how Bataille uses the concept of a "pineal-eye" as a reference to a blind-spot in Western rationality, and an organ of excess and delirium.[31] This conceptual device is explicit in his surrealist texts, The Jesuve and The Pineal Eye.[32]

The notion of an inner third eye (attributed mystical significance) also occurs in ancient, central and east Asian, and new age philosophies.

en.wikipedia.org...