Kim Peek RIP

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:37 am

i've never seen the film but those documentaries he made can only put you in awe of the scope of a human brain. clearly he had developmental problems and limited motor capability but what went on in his head is a wonder and inspiration. well, he died just recently and may or may not be counting the stars in Heaven.

it strikes me that there is an interesting correlation with what we do, although there is perhaps more deliberateness in front of a touchscreen. given his skillset, if Peek had been put in front of SWP with his old man to do the physical stuff, and had had the inclination, he could have danced through the spoilers and left game developers scratching their heads and shaking their fist in the air like wile e coyote.

from what i saw of him (admittedly the media freakshow) he came across as warm and compassionate but what an extraordinary, phenomenal brain.

Hangmanfan · Post by **Hangmanfan** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:56 pm

A great loss.

I watched a programme about him last year in which, among other things, he was on a stage in an American university hall where he displayed his wealth of knowledge to an audience of students. Truly staggering stuff.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:24 pm

This guy had to be seen to be believed, truely amazing!!!

R.I.P

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:22 am

Sad to hear this. I only really became aware of him through Istenem's postings about him on here, but very sad to hear he's died.

I agree with Isty that there's a link here: I increasingly find that when I'm playing a machine seriously my personality becomes highly focused on the game in hand and I find it quite difficult to e.g. have a proper conversation when doing it. The third post on this thread, which I found a while back: http://cognitivefun.net/talk/post/4494 describes a similar phenomenon, and in the specific SWP context as well.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Jan 04, 2010 11:22 am

I watched a documentary about Kim Peek on Youtube last night. As people say, a fascinating stuff, and I'd have preferred a more in-depth focus on the precise scope of his abilities, particularly in the general knowledge arena. It would have been interesting to see whether questioners had to restrict the scope of what they asked Kim Peek (e.g. to questions about baseball, or US history, or from certain book(s)), or whether he really did have across-the-board factual recall. What the documentary did brilliantly was bring across the depth of the relationship between Kim and his (then) 80 year-old father - very touching stuff, and extremely sad that his father has outlived him.