Topic: Episode #231

[jawmo]

So I gotta say I really think you guys have gone a little overboard on this Synaesthesia thing. Here is what I mean.

You spend a lot of time talking about spectrums and how there is no dividing line between one type and another and that there are extremes of most things. Like autism, where there are functional autistics, there are severe autistics who cant even begin to socialize, there are savants and aspies.

With synths its the same, its not some cool super power that bob or jay keep making it out to be. Its really interesting, and some people have it in a way that it helps them with math.

But some don't. For some people synth is a real hassle. I've taught students who cant seem to understand why I would put number up in order and not put the colors together. Forget being able to add them together if the colors dont make sense. IT a frustrating experience for both the student who is experiencing confusion, and for me as a teacher who had a very hard time even begining to know what the student meant when she was asking why I wouldnt put the numbers of the same color together.

just my $0.02

Welcome, and I quite agree. What we call "senses" are more or less arbitrary phenomena -- products of neural connections that on certain occasions get mixed up in exotic ways, but in any event are quite limited compared with other species. To say nothing of the full spectrum of light, sound and other sensory input that we can only detect with machines.

In short, innaresting, but not that big a deal.

[Cats Staff]

Hi everyone!
I'm new here but I don't see I place for introductions so I'll just start here I guess.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but this weeks who's that noisy sounds like the call of a male club-winged manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus) which is a small bird from the western slopes of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador. Instead of vocalization, this bird generates its distinctive tone by rapidly vibrating its wings above its body causing specialized feathers to stridulate which produces a frequency at which the feathers resonate.

Here's a video of it:
Bird Feathers "Sing"

Here's a recent paper on the sound generating mechanism:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/11/06/rspb.2009.1576.full

And here's the story on it from a Canadian science radio program called Quirks and Quarks:
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2009-2010/mp3/qq-2009-11-14_04.mp3

Good job...I thought I'd heard that somewhere, and I was pretty sure I was wrong.  It was bugging me.

[GodSlayer]

What we call "senses" are more or less arbitrary phenomena -- products of neural connections that on certain occasions get mixed up in exotic ways, but in any event are quite limited compared with other species. To say nothing of the full spectrum of light, sound and other sensory input that we can only detect with machines.

In short, innaresting, but not that big a deal.

by "senses" you mean 'sense data' not 'sensory apparatus', yea? (when people speak of "our senses" they tend to mean the later, no?)

[Agent86]

An addendum to my comment about musicians and Synaesthesia. Maybe it is more common in musicians than one would think. In an interview with Jazz vocalist Gretchen Parlato in the December issue of Jazz Times magazine she recounted hearing Saxophone great Wayne shorter talk about Synaethesia stating that "he would hear a chord and see a color".

[tralfaz]

Parasites, synesthesia and Daniel Tammet.

When I heard mention of the fish parasite, a picture flashed in the slide show of my mind.  Like Rebecca said, once you have seen the photo, you can't unsee it.

I'll bring up calendars and synesthesia again.  Time having shape seems to be a common thing.  I had a conversation about this a while ago with some friends.  Most had some sort of shape associated with the calendar or numbers.  To me, January starts at the top and the following months fall lower until August or September lie at the bottom.   The months then climb back up until they reach December.  My friend has an elaborate mental grid that represents a number line.  1-100 are the main body, 101-999 go off at a right angle with a different scale, an so on.

Where does a mental model end and synesthesia begin?


Rebecca mentions mating Daniel Tammet with a woman math genius to produce a little math geniuses (Eugenics War anyone?).  Just remember that Mr. Tammet is a confirmed homo.  Although this doesn't preclude him from reproducing, I had to point it out.  Just as lots of straight people get upset if one of their heroes is mislabeled gay, we gay folks hate it when a gay hero is presumed to be hetero.

[microraptor]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone!

[Slash]

... I really think you guys have gone a little overboard on this Synaesthesia thing. ...

... Its really interesting, and some people have it in a way that it helps them with math.

... IT a frustrating experience ... for me as a teacher who had a very hard time even begining to know what the student meant when she was asking why I wouldnt put the numbers of the same color together.

Why did evolution give us this function? Do you smack the hand of the a child when he/she writes with the left hand?  Do you teach synaesthesia out of children with this tool like it was taught out of me?  As a teacher you should be grabbing this by the horns and not dismissing it as going overboard.  You expect your students to think like you when you won't even try to think like them. 

Maybe these are the people who can best think outside the box. I am beginning to see a pattern.

All in the Mind podcast also finds this a worthy subject for January 30, 2010.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/mind.xml

[keithc]

Why I almost had to stop the podcast:  Repeated mispronunciation of the word "often."  The T is silent, people!

Not everywhere in the world. Here in the UK you hear often more often though you also offen hear offen - though that is generally either deprecated or an affectation.