Friday, October 14, 2011
An interesting quote from www.DanielTämmet.com
"World-class mentathlete, memory sport pioneer, personal empowerment coach, spiritual development teacher and speaker and a leading authority on Mindpower and Human Potential"
- a self-description from a 2001 version of the website www.DanielTämmet.com which was once found at www.danieltammet.com and which can be viewed in past incarnations using Internet Archive Wayback Machine http://www.archive.org/
This crock of crap is surely red flag alerting all to the possibility that the owner of that website is the type of bloke who will try just about anything to make an easy buck. Is this the type of person who should be taken at face value by scientific researchers or documentary-makers? Of course not!!!
Tammet's writings from those days are interesting!
ReplyDeleteAs a diversion, take a look at Tammet's efforts to explain that his "Optimnem" website wasn't really about memory improvement, although the name "Optimnem" was clearly conceived with this in mind, as this link shows:
http://www.epinions.com/content_15335919236
Now compare and contrast a post in 2000, advertising his "Mnemon" club, explaining that "Mnemon comes from the Greek word for Memory"...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/universityunderground/message/481
..with his explanation for the name "Optimnem" in "Born on a blue day":
"After some thought, I chose the name "Optimnem" for the site, from "Mnemosyne", the inventor of words and language in Greek mythology.
It's the first time I've seen Mnemosyne, the personification of memory in Greek mythology, referred to first and foremost as "Inventor of words and language"!. Tammet goes to some lengths to distance himself from anything to do with memory or memory improvement.
Mr Anon
Its way past my bedime now, but this sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose you have any credible info about the original synaesthete mnemonist, Solomon Shereshevskii, beyond what is in Luria's book? I don't think I even have a date of death for "S", and I've never seen any photo of the man. A lot of rubbish has been written about "S", but I'd love to know the real facts.
Yes... given the case of Daniel Tammet, the case of "S" is interesting. Was he a one-of-a-kind genius? Or was he one of the many people in history who have used training in standard memory techniques plus some clever sounding stories to make themselves look like a one-of-a-kind genius?
ReplyDeleteIt's a while since I read Luria's account of "S", so I've just ordered it from Amazon; it will be interesting to read it again.
Mr Anon
I personally don't have doubts about Shereshevskii's synaesthesia or sincerity, but I still have plenty of unanswered questions about the man, and I find it frustrating that apparently the only source if info is the one book, which is a second-hand account written by a non-synaesthete.
ReplyDelete