They Too Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do

 The credibility of claims that mathematical calculation comes from brains is inversely proportional to the speed and capacity and reliability at which things can be mentally calculated. There are numerous signal slowing factors in the brain, such as the relatively slow speed of dendrites, and the cumulative effect of synaptic delays in which signals have to travel over relatively slow chemical synapses (by far the most common type of synapse in the brain). As explained in my post here, such physical factors should cause brain signals to move at a typical speed very many times slower than the often cited figure of 100 meters per second: a sluggish "snail's pace" speed of only about a centimeter per second (about half an inch per second).  Ordinary everyday evidence of very fast and accurate math calculation is therefore evidence against claims that unaided human math calculation occurs because of brain activity, particularly because the brain is totally lacking in the things humans add to constructed objects to allow fast recall (things such as sorting and addressing and indexes). Chemical synapses in the brain do not even reliably transmit signals. Scientific papers say that each time a signal is transmitted across a chemical synapse, it is transmitted with a reliability of 50% or less.  (A paper states, "Several recent studies have documented the unreliability of central nervous system synapses: typically, a postsynaptic response is produced less than half of the time when a presynaptic nerve impulse arrives at a synapse." Another scientific paper says, "In the cortex, individual synapses seem to be extremely unreliable: the probability of transmitter release in response to a single action potential can be as low as 0.1 or lower.")  The more evidence we have of very fast and very accurate calculation occurred by humans unaided by any devices,  the stronger is the evidence against the claim that human math calculation occurs from brain activity. 

It is therefore very important to collect and study all cases of exceptional human mathematics performance. The more such cases we find, and the more dramatic such cases are, the stronger is the case against the claim that unaided human math calculation is a neural phenomenon. Or to put it another way, the credibility of claims that math calculation is a brain phenomenon is inversely proportional to the speed and reliability of the best cases of human math  performance.  The more cases that can be found of humans that seem to calculate too quickly and too accurately for a noisy address-free brain to do ever do,  the stronger is the case that human thinking is not a neural phenomenon but instead a spiritual or psychic or metaphysical phenomenon. I presented quite a few such cases in my earlier post "They Mentally Calculated Faster Than a Brain Could Ever Do." Now let's look at some more such cases. 

On page 54 of the book Mental Prodigies by Fred Barton, which you can read here, we read of a series of very hard questions posed by an examination committee to a calculating marvel named Arumogam. 

The book tells us on page 56 that each of the questions was answered correctly by Arumogam "within a few seconds." Evidently he could do very hard math problems at lightning speeds. 

On page 66 the book tells us of a mental calculator named Oscar Verhaeghe. We read that he could perform the very hard calculations below very quickly:

We are told on the next page that this person was "incapable of devising the slightest calculation artifice," and that the answers seemed to rise up spontaneously in his mind. 

The 1924 article below refers to a "human calculating machine" who can "name immediately the day of the week for any date in the past or future" and who can multiply two forty-digit numbers mentally without using paper or pencil. 

The 1934 newspaper article here refers to people with amazingly rapid calculation ability, saying that many of them had normal or below normal intelligence:

"A boy of sixteen who can tell the day of the week on which any date

occurs, either hack to 1600 or forward to 2000, has been discovered

in a British mental welfare hospital. Youthful prodigies of this kind occur from time to time, but in most cases such powers don't last a very long time. For instance, one youngster who could work out in his head multiplication sums whose answers extended to 30 figures when he was ten years old find no more power of calculation than the ordinary Intelligent person when he grew up. It is also possible, as has been demonstrated In numbers of cases, for a human 'calculating machine' to be below the normal level of intelligence in other respects. Out of thirteen cases described by one investigator, in which those powers wore present during the early years of life, three were of average brain power, four were described as 'low' intelligence, and one as 'very low.' ”

On the page here we have a story entitled "Blind Indian Billed as Adding Machine." We read this:

"As a sort of human calculating machine, a blind employee of the Meenakshi Mills, at Madurai,Madras State, India, can solve intricate mathematical problems in a few seconds.

P. S. Guruswami is the mathematical wizard. His job is to

check and verify calculations made by clerks and accountants."

In the 1921 newspaper story here, we read below of another Indian capable of lightning-fast math calculations such as multiplying together a six-digit numbers and a seven-digit number:

We read in this newspaper article of a boy of only six, Roy Fork, who could perform calculations with astonishing speed:

"He is Master Roy Fork, aged six, son of F. L. Fork, well-driller, residing on Franklin avenue. While bright in all his school work, the youngster is a prodigy in mathematics. He knows the calendar by heart and although given the most severe questions with regard to days and dates, never makes a mistake. If you tell him your age he can tell in a second the year you were born, and if you give him the date of your birth day, and ask him what day of the week it comes on he replies at once, correctly and without fail." 

According to the "Juvenile Wonders" news article you can read here, there were these prodigies:

" 'Marvelous Griffith,' as he was called, could raise a number to the sixth power in eleven seconds. Truman Safford at the age often could multiply one row of fifteen figures by another of eighteen In a minute or less."

According to the press account below, Alfred A. Gamble could multiply two six-digit figures in only four seconds:

The account below is one of many accounts of mental marvels from India. 

The account below (part of the larger account here) tells of an illiterate math marvel named Reuben Fields who seemed to be able to tell the day of the week of any supplied date. He seemed to be a kind of human watch, always able to name the correct time within two or three minutes. He also seemed to have a kind of photographic memory for numbers. The first and third of these abilities has been reported of quite a few other people, but the time-keeping skill is much more rare.