Poll: Which extraordinary but non-comic-book ability would you choose?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I haven’t started a pointless poll in a while, so here goes:

Given the choice, which of the following extraordinary talents would you choose to have? Assume there’s no overlap between them except as is logically necessary?

1. Photographic memory: I chose this term rather than “eidetic memory” because I wanted to restrict it to visual memory. If you choose this ability you’ll be able to glance at a page in a dictionary for five seconds and be able to recite what was on every line days or weeks later, and instantly call to mind any visual image you’ve seen. Assume it’s completely under your control: you don’t get flooded with visual imagery except when you will it. But you don’t hve any better than normal recall for sound, smell, etc.

2. Phonographic memory: Similar to the above, but restricted to sound. You can play back entire symphonies in your head with the same fidelity as you’d have if you were listening to a CD. Hearing a song arranged in a new key sounds like a whole new composition, and you can imitate other people’s voices precisely. You can recite the entire text of “Thanatopsis” from memory though you last heard it twenty years ago. Like #1, this incredible recall is restricted to just the one sense. You also have no greater creative musical talent than you have now: in other words, though you can replay the Eroica in your head at will, you’re no more capable of composing it than you are now.

3. Lightning calculation: You can perform calculated arithmetic, algebraic, geometric, and calculus computations in your head, and you master new maths twenty times faster than normal. But, aside from being able to memorize long lists of numbers you’re using in a calculation, your memory is otherwise average.

4. Extraordinary language skills: You speak French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, and Japanese as well as you speak English. You soak up new languages as easily as a toddler. But your memory for non-linguistic matters is no better than average. You have no greater creative language talent than you have now.

6. Enhanced ambidexterity: Not only are you as comfortable using your left hand as your right, but you can perform distinct tasks with each hand simultaneously–writing two unrelated letters, say, or typing with one hand while you strum a guitar with the other.

I predict most people will choose 3. But I could easily be wrong.

2

I, of couse, should have chosen the ability to count from 1 to 5. :smack:

3

I have always wished for Photographic memory.

4

I’d go for #4 in a heartbeat. Languages fascinate me.

I hate myself for being too lazy all my life to ever seriously bear down and learn at least one other. :wally

But several? Ah, that would be magnificent!

5

1. Photographic memory:- For every image I want to see again in my mind, there are many that I don’t. Google indexes crap for me. So do libraries. I have a camera and it is selective and enhanceable.

2. Phonographic memory - See above. MP3 player. There are tons of really bad voices out there.

3. Lightning calculation: I will take this one like you deftly calculated according to all possible scenarios. Is this the one you have?

4. Extraordinary language skills: - If it is worth hearing or reading it will get translated into God’s language. I also don’t want to get stuck translating stuff for people either. I have travelled the world and it hasn’t been a problem thus far.

6. Enhanced ambidexterity: Hell no. It makes a good party trick but I like a subservient hand. They would probably fight if they both thought they were equal.A third hand might be cool (but very unattractive)

6

Number 4, it is the only one that can’t be replaced by technology or taking a little more time. Sure everything can be translated, but that doesn’t help you speak with people or understand them or get allong with them.

7

Not anymore, and not to the degree described in the OP. As a child and teenager I could do basic arithmetic and light algebra in my head very quickly; I remember surprising my Algebra II teacher, for instance, because I could derive square roots in my head; and when I was working as a cashier I made some customers very nervous (until management told me to stop) because I could recite their social security numbers perfectly after hearing them once. But the ability waned as I got older; I don’t know whether it’s because I’d stopped using it or if it would have atrophied anyway. I don’t know if I’d have been able to do differential equations in my head, because I lost interest in maths after calculus.

I still have twinges of the enhanced memory: I surprised someone at work yesterday by reciting a couple dozen lines from Beowulf. That too is mostly gone–that is, I can no longer soak up new info–but I’m actually glad, because I never had good control over it; I’d get flooded with memories when someone else triggered me.

To answer my own question, I’d take the lightning calculation skill as I described and periodically hit the casinos (taking pains to devise strategies to not get caught counting cards, of course).

8

#4 without a doubt. I can carry a camera and an iPod for the first two and a calculator for the third. I would want the language ability because with each new language comes a new map, a new way of looking at the world. That insight into the Human Condition would be priceless.

9

Strong artistic aptitude, especially for sketching/drawing/cartooning.

Everybody else in my family is either a painter or a musician, at least as a hobby. Except me. :frowning:

10

Extraordinairy language skills > photographic memory > lightning calculation > phonographic memory > enhanced ambidextrity.

11

For the extraordinary language skills one, if you can really think in, and get deep inside, the new language, then it seems like it’s not just a skill, it’s also an entire mindset. To make things fairer (ie, it’s just a skill like the others) it could be more like you have a Star Trek universal translator… you could go anywhere in the world and talk to people there, but you’d just hear a very good translation of what they were saying in English, and they would hear a very good translation of what you were saying in their language.
Anyhow, I’d choose the ability to fall asleep instantly, and get by on relatively few hours of sleep (or effortlessly build up my sleep debt to the weekend so that one massive binging of sleep-until-3-p.m. on Sunday sets me up for the week).

12

I’d love to be able to sing well. Not *Pavarotti * well – just decent, like say, Paul McCartney.

I’d also enjoy the ability to do impressions, accents, and cartoon voices. I’ve always been in awe of people like Billy West, who did the voices for half the cast of Futurama (Fry, Farnsworth, Zoidburg, Brannigan, Nixon’s head, etc.) as well as Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Popeye, among others. He’d be a fun guy to have at a party.

There’s nothing wrong with my speaking voice – it’s fairly normal – but whenever I try to do anything interesting with it, it falls apart pretty quickly. I just wasn’t meant to do anything but talk with it. :frowning:

13

Oops, I didn’t realize this was multiple choice rather than essay. I’d have to go with the language skills.

14

Fight all day and fuck all night.

If pressed I can pass on the fighting part.

15

Oops, excessive wine consumption prevented me from reading the entire OP before running off to post my little bon mot.

On closer examination of my optons in light of the OP’s limitations…

I’m still going with the, “Fuck all night.”

16

Nah. I like long responses. Go on with your essays.

17

Language skills, definitely. To be able to communicate with nearly everyone in the world? I’d learn so much! My social skills aren’t as polished as I’d like, so skill with languages with go a long way towards easing that particular anxiety.

18

Language skills, without a doubt. I learned a fair bit of Latin and ancient Greek when I was in college, but it was a struggle and the vast bulk of my skills have long since faded. But there is no substitute for being able to read literature in its original language, and even the limited international travel I’ve done would have been much-enhanced by uber language skills.

19

#4 (Multilinguisticity - is that a word?) for me, as well. In fact, I had this very thought last weekend. Clearly, you’re poaching my thoughts. I shall have to adjust my aluminum foil hat.

#1 (photographic memory) was my close second choice.

20

4, both because it’s the one technology is least able to duplicate, and the most easily marketable ( for the same reason ). Closely followed by # 1.