ACCIDENTAL GENIUS (savants) video

A savant is a person with an overall ability level extremely low but who excels in one specific area, for example memorizing populations of cities by simply reading them once but otherwise, mentally impaired. We saw examples of savants like George who can calculate the day of the week of any date in seconds; he is a prodigious savant who knows things they have never learned, his brain works completely different than ours. The different types of savants are gifted and prodigious. Kim, the most famous savant in whom the movie rain man was based, has memorized nine thousand books. This is amazing, most people can’t even read 9 thousand books but he memorized them. All the information that goes inside his brain stays there. Kim reads this fast because one eye reads one page whiles the other eye reads the next one. It may be that some savants are not able to tie their shoes or even talk, but these persons have amazing brains with amazing abilities that no one else could even imagine to have.

MADE GENIUS video

Even though many “genius” who excel tremendously in an area are born this way, it doesn’t mean that one can’t be created. For example, in the video we saw the story of this woman called Susan who is extraordinary playing chess. Her father began teacher her how to play since she was just a little girl and with so much practice, she became the first female chess master at a very young age; beating even men. In a test made to understand how Susan’s brain functioned while playing chess, scientists realized Susan could recognize a chess game in almost as little time as one recognizes a familiar face. In my opinion the crucial thing for one to be made into a genius at something is to love the thing you are doing. If you do, time stops to exist and everything comes easily.

BORN GENIUS video

Of all the kids in the world, no one can accurately say some are the same as others because all of them are different in their own way. Even though, some kids might be even more different than the others, having remarkable traits that no other person has demonstrated. For example, a kid might be born with skills that have never been taught to him before such as knowing how to play the piano by only hearing the melody of a song. In my opinion these are gifts with which some kids are born with and eventually learn to love. The part of their brains which they use while exercising these traits grow bigger than usual. I believe having a kid with a genius mind like the Chinese kid in the video is a blessing, but at the same time it may be hard for the kid to fit in with the rest of the children of his same age since others’ brains may not be as developed or their interests will probably be completely different.

The question regarding why homosexuals exist, either made by nature or transformed after born, has still one of the most intriguing unknown answers of humanity. Life constantly throws at us thousands of questions, many of which humans can’t find an answer to. Nevertheless, one always ends up choosing a theory, although not perfectly accurate, to believe in. This video contains studies of cases of child-gender-non-conformity, which means a person of a given gender is interested and has behaviors of the opposite sex. One of the cases was about twin brothers with exactly the same genetic makeup, except one of them was gay and the other one straight. If gay people are born this way, why aren’t twin brothers or twin sisters both gay and both lesbian? On the other hand, why would a normal person decide to be gay? In my opinion, the decision of either being gay or not is SOMETIMES optional. Like the 18 month old boy who picks up a Barbie instead of a toy soldier, their makeup pushes them towards things they like, not things they are supposed to choose because of their sex. At this small age the child doesn’t even know what being gay or straight even is. Sometimes, this only means the boy is feminine, but not necessarily gay. Although, feminine boys most of the time turn out being homosexuals. After a kid is born if she or he has a psychological trauma like getting raped by a person of their opposite sex, might probably look for a partner of their same sex because of fear. In conclusion, a person cannot be judged because of their sexual orientation; after all, the important thing is to accept a person by who they really are, not by whether you understand their decisions or not. “Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?” –Ernest Gaines. I believe this is probably because people in the world rather see and do murders than accept change and difference. I believe these people are too close minded to open up their hearts to something dissimilar to what they see every day in the mirror.  

Criminal Minds Video

Recent studies made on patients who have committed terrible crimes show that most of these criminals have something wrong going on in their brains. Many years ago, before these studies had been made, people usually believed that murderers or rapists followed the devil or did these things out of pure evil boiling inside them. Dr. Louis is a famous psychiatrist who has met the most terrifying criminals out there and her studies have proven that all of them have a cause to the effect of their behavior. Whether mistreated, abused, or exposed to harmful deeds since childhood, or by suffering brain damage, the delinquents have an explanation. In the video we saw the story of a man named Terrance who killed his whole family simply because of a small fight with his spouse. When interviewed, he made jokes about the murder. This means that his brain does not know how to react to the situation at hand; it doesn’t know how serious or grave the circumstances are. It was later on figured that Terrance, before the murder, had a serious case of bipolar disorder and depression. As a child, his mother used to hit him with telephone cords and belts. When a child is raised in a violent home, just like Terrance did, they will probably grow up to be brutally aggressive without understanding why this is wrong. The video portrayed another situation in which a rapist and murderer of 11 women had suffered sexual abuse as a child. As a result, we can now understand these people are not born being criminals, they are created because of the type of environment they live at home. So before judging them depending on their acts, one must understand the life they had to endure with before exploding.

Brain Damage Video

It is unbelievable how a simple mistake can change someone’s life so much they no longer will recognize any aspect of it. Out of a simple fight or an accidental car crash a bang in the head can hurt the brain and therefore take our lives, as we know them, away, giving us in return a new way of life that we can do nothing but deal with. The various examples we saw from the Brain Damage video showed us the three possible injuries on the brain; contusion of the brain, axonal injury, and hematoma. Whichever one of these, horrible consequences follow. These horrible consequences in which the people who suffer from brain injuries are doomed to live with include the way other people will look at them. In other words, it alters the society’s acceptance because these people never saw the injured patients as the humans they used to be, they can’t see past the injuries; these become their focal points. I think this is probably one of the hardest parts of the patients; feeling the stares of shock from society. They may look in the mirror and find deep inside a shadow of what they used to be but since the accident, since their brains suffered the damage, nothing is the same.

Mind Reading Video Response

The only things we can really keep to ourselves are those which we don’t speak, those which we lock up inside our minds with ball and chain so as for no one else to reach. But what if someone, or something for that matter, is able to attain all the thoughts inside our heads and truly read out minds? In the Mind Reading video we saw machines that could know if a person had been in places shown by the computer because of their brain activity. During another type of test a person is shown images and the computer is able to attain the name of the object being shown in the image by reading the person’s brain. Who would imagine a computer being able to extract information from our minds without us even realizing how it’s capable of doing it? And to what extend is this even legal? It’s predicted by scientists that in about 5 years a machine perfectly able to read minds will be completed. Although these machines could actually help detectives solving crimes, I personally stand behind the ideal that every human being has the right to keep their thoughts to themselves. If not, it’d be the brutal eradication of freedom of rights. Reading minds may be cool but it can also be considered an illegal invasion of personal space.