THEORY: Daniel Faraday has Savant Syndrome

I have a new theory about Daniel Faraday. Initially, I thought that Dan was simply suffering from memory loss, and severe emotional/mental problems.

However, after discussing the autistic spectrum and certain degrees of autism/savants I fully believe that Daniel Faraday has Savant Syndrome. For those who would like a more detailed explanation, please visit Wikipedia. For those that are happy to listen to me ramble on about what it is, please proceed. Having a savant skill does not necessarily make you autistic. Some cases of being savant are on the autistic spectrum but not all. If you have a savant skill you excel in one area expidentially, but you struggle with everything else. Savants are in no means geniuses, though there have been savants who are. Savants may be able to, for example, work out how to send a mouse's conciousness backwards or forwards in time using mathematical equations, but would find it hard to hold a conversation, or to get themselves dressed in the morning.

Savants, similarly to autistic people, need care. As Confirmed Dead's enhanced episode revealed to us, Daniel's caretaker was the woman standing behind him. I believe this woman to be Charlotte Lewis. Charlotte & Daniel have hardly been apart since meeting after the initial travel to The Island. Below are a few more instances that help to back up my theory.

- Daniel & Charlotte play a card memory game in an episode, and Charlotte encourages him afterwards as a person looking after a savant/autistic person would.
- Daniel states that he is not in charge of the packing. He would not be able to pack the items correctly, because he would not have very good spatial dexterity
- Charlotte tells Dan 'You can do this' when in The Tempest and shows encouragment once again
- When Daniel is in The Tempest, he is struggling to enter the correct sequence because he needed Charlotte's help to do it

Daniel excels at mathematical and scientific equations, though he is still astounded by other scientific things outside his area of understanding, such as the scattering of the light on The Island.

So what do you think? Obviously this is just a brief overall view of the theory, but please do comment.

This theory is also now posted at DarkUFO's site.