Re:Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
by bane on Thursday February 13, 2014 @12:31AM
(#7229657)
Yeah sure, just trying to peel back the layers and have an honest conversation without getting bogged down by layers of social niceties intended to minimize my singular interesting attribute.
> Holmesian as it gets
Yeah, it wasn't a great example, just sprung to mind. But I think you got the basic gist of how it works. I think the difference is that Holmes deduces his conclusions by following clues, but Groundhog Day aggregates information to find patterns...which can then be used to make deductive guesses. I guess it's more of an inductive approach at the beginning.
> Do you find that this comes easily to you?
If I don't put effort into turning it off, which I do most of the time these days because I associate doing it with bad feelings, it's just part of the normal process my brain goes through when I'm getting to know somebody. So about as much effort as having a bunch of conversations and remembering a few things. I have a terrible memory so I have to spend some effort reinforcing a few key facts. But I can then usually derive the rest with reasonable accuracy without having to remember it all.
Why remember things when I can just figure them out each time?
It's actually part of the classic "gifted curse" I personally deal with. I never really bothered to learn good memorization techniques because I can usually figure things out from the few kernels I do remember. But when topics get too complex, or I'm just outright missing data, the jenga pile falls over and I'm rather lost.
I'm also slightly dyscalculic and dyslexic (took a few tests and everything for formal and second diagnoses), which provides their own sets of challenges -- this is surprisingly common among the very gifted, but we usually "solve" it ourselves internally and thus the research on it is pitifully poor. I didn't personally find out about it conclusively till I was well into my mid-twenties, though some early childhood tests raised the possibility.
> Holmesian as it gets
Yeah, it wasn't a great example, just sprung to mind. But I think you got the basic gist of how it works. I think the difference is that Holmes deduces his conclusions by following clues, but Groundhog Day aggregates information to find patterns...which can then be used to make deductive guesses. I guess it's more of an inductive approach at the beginning.
> Do you find that this comes easily to you?
If I don't put effort into turning it off, which I do most of the time these days because I associate doing it with bad feelings, it's just part of the normal process my brain goes through when I'm getting to know somebody. So about as much effort as having a bunch of conversations and remembering a few things. I have a terrible memory so I have to spend some effort reinforcing a few key facts. But I can then usually derive the rest with reasonable accuracy without having to remember it all.
Why remember things when I can just figure them out each time?
It's actually part of the classic "gifted curse" I personally deal with. I never really bothered to learn good memorization techniques because I can usually figure things out from the few kernels I do remember. But when topics get too complex, or I'm just outright missing data, the jenga pile falls over and I'm rather lost.
I'm also slightly dyscalculic and dyslexic (took a few tests and everything for formal and second diagnoses), which provides their own sets of challenges -- this is surprisingly common among the very gifted, but we usually "solve" it ourselves internally and thus the research on it is pitifully poor. I didn't personally find out about it conclusively till I was well into my mid-twenties, though some early childhood tests raised the possibility.