Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Brainman

Have any of you seen this show on the Science channel?

It's very interesting, and it confirms a lot of the stuff suggested by Image Streaming and other methods of mental improvement.

That one is probably the most interesting document ever.

What I'd like to ask from all the advanced photoreaders, can you memorize Pi for 22000 decimals or more? If yes, then how long does it take for you to mentally photograph it? If no (or if it works only unreliably), then how _exactly_ does it fail?

What would be the purpose of remembering anything beyond 3.14? What would be the purpose of adding pi in our lives? My brain would go like "hey, why are you sending these annoying numbers that makes no sense to you, relax, go take a nap, practice qigong, go get a bowl of delicious soup...please stop bothering me with junk when your conscious mind is thinking 'waste of time', 'waste of time'- wouldn't you rather photoread a book that can help you in your life?"

The purpose would be to see if it's possible? If it is possible, then it would also implicate a bunch of other really interesting things. It would be very interesting to know how they are remembered by different people as well. Are the numbers read from the mental photographs or do the numbers pop into the head one by one or something else.

To me it would seem that Daniel Tammet's own personal way of seeing numbers 1-10000 as individual shapes is a result of intuitive practice and photoreaders would hardly experience exactly similar phenomenon.

If remembering Pi decimals by photoreading is clearly not possible, that would be interesting as well (or rather the question why it is not possible).

Why no more comments to this?

Wouldn't it be convenient to remember all the bank password slips? And you could just mark the numbers as used one by one in your head?

I don't know why the brain should say "stop bothering me with this junk" and I don't know if I see a relevant difference to remembering dictionary items which obviously is normal photoreading material.

I think that if we are only talking about mentally photographing the printed page, then the fact that that page contains a bunch of numbers should make no difference.

However one question is, what the subconscious mind will make of a completely irrational number like Pi, that does not repeat itself, has no pattern, and therefore cannot be cognitively "processed" in any way, apart from storage in long-term memory.

Photoreading requires activation, and I'm not sure how Pi to 22000 decimals is supposed to "gel" in the mind if the mind cannot do anything with it, i.e. look for patterns, etc.

Therefore my 2 cents is that this will probably work best if it is approached as a traditional memory exercise, like remembering decks of cards or the telephone book.

Even if it also works with photoreading, for me the most important part of photoreading is to understand something, and with something like Pi, there's not much to understand.

If you recite PI to 22,000 decimal places at one second per digit you would be talking for almost 7 hours non stop. The record holder took more than 6. Even the savant who did this took "several weeks to learn it backwards and forwards" And while he could recite PI his condition makes 'tasks like learning to swim, ride a bike or drive a car "very difficult".'

Sure the mind can take it by PhotoReading however proving it through the conscious mind is pointless. If it takes you 7 hours to recite the number anyway then goodness knows how long to check the accuracy.

PhotoReading is about getting your reading done in the time you have available. If you have time to memorise and recite PI have fun but most PhotoReaders have more practical applications in mind when they set about learning PhotoReading.

Alex

PhotoReading is not a photographic memory. It's a method for reading.

The man on the show Brainman did not memorize PI.

His brain had a way of calculating the number. He could seemingly do it accurately to an unlimited number of digits. One of the most important messages on the show was that this man's ability with numbers came not from memorization, but in the organic system that somehow developed in his brain that allowed him to calculate without using normal methods.

Jean Houston wrote about this one kid who could compute answers to mathematical formulae by sort of moving around and humming.

What's so interesting about this stuff is that it isn't straightforward memorization and recall, but some sort of organic process in which the brains of these individuals create or recreate results.

Richard Feynman said that the way math is taught in schools does not teach mathematics, but a brainless, mechanical way in which to produce predictable results without having to think.

Brainman, with his synasthesias and rich way of representing numbers and their relations, is absolutely amazing to me. Multi-sensory representation and processing seems to be one of the keys to using really amazing brainpower. The guy in the Mind of Mnemonist had synasethestic experiences, too.

babayada,

Daniel Tammet DID memorize Pi. Check out this link from the magazine "Science":
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/414/2

Although in the Brainman program he also demonstrates amazing calculation abilities, from what is reported here (and similar accounts elsewhere) I would say that he did not calculate Pi "on the go". In these reports it is implied that all 22,514 digits were already in his memory. However his memory is synesthetic, as you pointed out, which makes memorizing such a string of digits relatively easy for him.

I personally also find this whole topic fascinating. Especially the "why". There's a theory that these remarkable abilities are a result of damage to the left brain (such as a childhood epileptic seizure, as in the case of Daniel Tammet), resulting in an attempt by the right brain to compensate. In other words, everyone are in principle capable of these abilities, if they could switch one part of their brain "off" for awhile.

I think brain man’s abilities could be used for some much better television. A few episodes ago he learned Icelandic in a week. Could he not apply his learning to something like Taijutsu. Each movement would correlate into a number. A vast matrix of moves, counter moves and any combination of sequenced movements would be calculated in his head to be the ultimate neo. The show would consist of him learning something different each episode. I think he can do this because his mind is moving so much faster than ours, that his time is much different that how we perceive it. As his thoughts increase in velocity, the special theory of relativity says that time will decrease. So his 7-day may actually be something like 50 days, as we would see it, or more. But how could we tell.