Timothy Sandefur links to the video about Stephen Wiltshire, the autistic savant memorizing Rome. I have seen and linked to this video years back but Timothy makes an interesting point:
“The one thing I would challenge is the term “beautiful mind.” Wiltshire’s ability is breathtaking, to be sure, but the capacity to forget, and to not be fixated by tedious detail, is crucial to the function of a normal human mind.”
So really, we all have the latent capacity to remember as good as that of Stephen Wiltshire, but we also have the more important capacity to forget, to sort and prioritize information. This is different from what Tyler Cowen calls in his book “autistic cognitive strengths”. Tyler means “channeling”, concentrating on a certain area, or more precisely tuning out of multiple channels.
I am not sure what Timothy refers to with a “normal human mind”, but for whatever reason we evolved to forget. So if forgetfulness makes us “normal” shouldn’t the ideal education teach us how to forget instead of how to remember?
Further Reading:
Nassim Taleb on Knowledge
Love and the Fear of Death
