It’s an interesting coincidence that JvN had both eidetic memory and extraordinary powers of mental computation. Given Hans Bethe: “I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man”, does anyone think maybe von Neumann had some kind of unusual hardware-level brain mutation that simultaneously made him super smart and super-good at remembering things? (Any interesting implications for the basis of human intelligence differences and thus the intelligence explosion?) Or was it the combination of extreme memory powers and computational powers that allowed JvN to achieve such fame in the first place?
It’s an interesting coincidence that JvN had both eidetic memory and extraordinary powers of mental computation. Given Hans Bethe: “I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man”, does anyone think maybe von Neumann had some kind of unusual hardware-level brain mutation that simultaneously made him super smart and super-good at remembering things? (Any interesting implications for the basis of human intelligence differences and thus the intelligence explosion?) Or was it the combination of extreme memory powers and computational powers that allowed JvN to achieve such fame in the first place?
Also, how hard would it be to harvest genetic material from von Neumann’s grave and create a zombie von Neumann? Edit: wait, looks like he might have had some worrisome views on nukes. Though is that just hindsight bias on my part?