Different Ways of Knowing with Daniel Tammet (TED TALK)

Perception is a cognitive awareness that is unique to each human life. It is distinguished through the five senses: taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. It allows us to interpret and understand the world around us, determines our character and attitude, takes flight to our life’s purpose, influences mankind, and gives meaning to our interpretation of happiness. But what happens when these senses cross-talk and form different cognitive awareness’?

Daniel Tammet is a rare, real-world example of this phenomenon because of a cognitive disorder called synesthesia, as well as a high functioning autistic savant. In this TED Talk, he elaborates on how words, numbers, and colors are woven together to create a new way of perceiving the world. This rare condition appropriates itself when he stated, “My worlds of words and numbers blur with color, emotion, and personality.” By exploring three individual instances of synesthesia, the audience is allowed to interpret this unique vision of human life as well as explore the nature of perception and how different kinds of perceiving create different kinds of knowing and understanding.

Unlike most, Daniel Tammet solves mathematical problems visually because he interprets number as shapes and character; the number six, in Tammet's eyes, is a "tiny and very sad black hole." I can't help but ask myself is, if the number six is written as a word rather than in numerical form, does he still have this visual experience? Is six still  a tiny and very sad black hole? Through his own emotions, Tammet can interpret the meaning of a word because “Words like numbers,” he states, “express fundamental relationships between objects and events and forces that constitute our world.” He argues that language evolves in a way that creates sound and thus merges with one’s own personal intuitive experience. Tammet interprets words visually. He describes that words together are colors and emotions and textures. As I type this, I can’t help but imagine how much more stimulating the world must be from his eyes.

Daniel Tammet is a prime example of how our personal perceptions are at the heart of how we acquire knowledge. In fact, this blog assignment is a prime example of how perception is a central concern of all art forms. Why else would artists obsessively study the structure of the eye and depth perception, optical illusions, and visual dysfunctions? In this blog, I have included my own perception of his perception of the world. I am learning how to see the world with new eyes.