Comment by BizarroLand
4 years ago
I would think it's being an megasavant, sort of like Kim Peek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek
Not capable of functioning independently or surviving for any long period unassisted but having a brain and cognition setup that allowed for amazing feats of mental wizardry. If you could have that ability and function normally in society you could do some astounding things.
That's how I understood it.
A great story about a mega-savant who can function is "Understand" by Ted Chiang, if you're interested
I thought that the idea of Mentats (human computers from the Dune novel) were kind of ridiculous, but yeah, when you look at savants like Peek, makes you kind of wonder if such a thing would be possible.
Yeah, if you had the appropriate brain surgery as an infant and took highly specialized drugs to maintain or accelerate your mental functioning, you too could be like Kim Peek.
I like that Frank Herbert imagined that it would be possible and went with it before we had any real proof that it could be, and then he turned out to be right.