Eidetic Memory

[LaCroix]

i was making fun of you, you stupid git

then you don't seem to have understood my post

[Slargos]

mentally disturbed neighbour. long story.

[LaCroix]

mentally disturbed neighbour. long story.

i didn't even read that, i saw you (whether jokingly or not) bring up three magical powers in a thread that had nothing to do with magic

[crazy canuck]

this reminds me of when someone here said they thought dyslexia didn't exist. of course there are those who have photographic memories. a professor with aspergers i know has this. she has read a book every day since thirteen, sometimes two. she scans the page "like a photocopier" and then "reads it" later--often when she sleeps (lucid dreaming). she worked at an archive in britain for some time, and to this day people will call her up and ask where a certain file might be located. she has said it usually takes a moment for her to "flip" through the pages in her memory before she can find it, but otherwise she has little difficulty with it

I know a person like this.  If you give give them a page of characters they can recite the characters back in any order you wish.  They can also recite the complete dialogue of a movie - even if they have only seen it once - complete with accents which is really quite cool.

But before someone may be tempted to wish they could do this too, this kind of manner of processing memory has draw backs as well.  For example, if you give them a word list they can spell all the words on the list perfectly but if you get them to write out a sentence that has some of those same words there is a good likelihood they will mispell those words if they have not seen the sentence before.  ie they have memorized the list not the individual words.  It is a question of context.  Once they build up their knowledge of ways in which words can be used spelling improves.

The way you desribe it as flipping through memory and examining those memories is a good description. 

[LaCroix]

The way you desribe it as flipping through memory and examining those memories is a good description.

some people are just able to step back into their heads and view their mental creations (whether recalled through memory or created themselves) with extraordinary vividness and control. the perfect example is nikola tesla, who described his ability brilliantly

http://www.teslaplay.com/autosection1.htm

This I did constantly until I was about seventeen when my thoughts turned seriously to invention. Then I observed to my delight that I could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient. The moment one constructs a device to carry into practise a crude idea he finds himself unavoidably engrost with the details and defects of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle. Results may be obtained but always at the sacrifice of quality.

My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the available theoretical and practical data. The carrying out into practise of a crude idea as is being generally done is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money and time.

[DontSayBanana]

Anecdotal evidence: back in grade school, I went up against a girl in a spelling bee who used eidetic memory; it was kinda weird watching her eyes go back and forth when she was reciting, until my dad realized and explained after the fact that she was reading the entry on the page from memory.

[Iormlund]

I don't see what is so incredible about eidetic memory. One of the key instructions on a database, no less important than creating a new record, is deleting it. We need it to focus on relevant information only.
The same happens in the brain. We forget, because we evolved a tool for it out of necessity. A tool that sometimes malfunctions.

[Admiral Yi]

the perfect example is nikola tesla, who described his ability brilliantly

How do we know he wasn't just talking shit?

[DGuller]

I don't see what is so incredible about eidetic memory. One of the key instructions on a database, no less important than creating a new record, is deleting it. We need it to focus on relevant information only.
The same happens in the brain. We forget, because we evolved a tool for it out of necessity. A tool that sometimes malfunctions.

I fail to see the downside, since it's not like the people with eidetic memory are running out of space. 

[Barrister]

I don't see what is so incredible about eidetic memory. One of the key instructions on a database, no less important than creating a new record, is deleting it. We need it to focus on relevant information only.
The same happens in the brain. We forget, because we evolved a tool for it out of necessity. A tool that sometimes malfunctions.

Nah.  We don't always forget though - we just can't find it.

How many times have you gone "it's on the tip of my tongue", and have ahd the memory flooding back ocne you're prompted about it.

[PDH]

Well, it is known that members of societies that are not majority literate can have very impressive memory capabilities.  Medieval European townsmen are recorded to have known lists that were thousands of entries long.  There were mnemonics to aid in this (the 'walking through the house' one where each room was a shorter list, for example), but it was pretty impressive memory skills.

Reading killed that off.

[DontSayBanana]

I fail to see the downside, since it's not like the people with eidetic memory are running out of space. 

Really?  We're having a hard time finding any hard information, and you can make that statement as if it's a certainty?  How about backing that up with some research on retention rates or time needed to absorb new information before throwing that out there?

[Iormlund]

I fail to see the downside, since it's not like the people with eidetic memory are running out of space.

Because at certain point it affects survival negatively. For example, what do you think would be to relive the death of a loved one forever? To constantly have life-like flashbacks while you are hunting or bashing someone's head in?

A good part of getting over something is losing the index address that pointed to that particular memory. That's moving on. It lets us focus on the present.

[Malthus]

I fail to see the downside, since it's not like the people with eidetic memory are running out of space.

Because at certain point it affects survival negatively. For example, what do you think would be to relive the death of a loved one forever? To constantly have life-like flashbacks while you are hunting or bashing someone's head in?

A good part of getting over something is losing the index address that pointed to that particular memory. That's moving on. It lets us focus on the present.

It is similar to the "doors of perception" issue with taking hallucinogens. If that allows one to see things from multiple perspectives, and this insight is valuable, why not be like that all the time?

The answer is that such a state is very distracting from actually getting anything done.

[Ideologue]

I have to admit I'd just accepted the 10% figure and never gave much thought to whether or not it was true.

+1 for languish today.   

I've always wanted the "I use 100% of my brain" characters you occasionally run across in genre fiction to collapse in a pants-pissing mess because the large scale activation of neurons is the mechanical cause of a a tonic-clonic seizure.