Most people would assume someone who always sees the number five colored red or who feels pain in an arm that was amputated years ago is crazy, but Wednesday’s Distinguished Lecture Series speaker had a different explanation — it might just be you are not smart enough to figure out why these things happen.

Vilayanur Ramachandran spoke Wednesday night about how the human brain can be altered and what these changes can show about normal brain functions.

Ramachandran is the Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

“One of the things you learn in medicine is when someone is telling you something utterly crazy, very often it means you’re not smart enough to figure it out,” Ramachandran said.

Ramachandran spoke about people who experience the strange phenomenon of seeing numbers as a certain color or having a distinct taste in their mouth when they see a shape. He said this was ignored for hundreds of years by scientists who did not understand how it was possible for humans to perceive things in such a way.

“This is a common tendency of science — if you don’t understand something, and it doesn’t fit the big picture, you brush it underneath the carpet,” Ramachandran said. “Something my colleagues are very prone to doing.”

Ramachandran explained certain areas in the brain that handle different functions of the human body sometimes overlap. He added the areas in the brain which distinguish color and numbers are right next to each other, so it is easy to see how if they became connected when they are not supposed to, someone would see the number five always in red.

Also covered in the lecture was Ramachandran’s work with amputees who still feel their limbs even though they are gone. This experience is described as having a phantom limb. Many patients experience pain in their phantom limbs because they cannot move them, and they become cramped in the patient’s mind.

Ramachandran discovered if he put a mirror next to the patient on their amputated side so it looked like they still had both hands, the patient would be able to feel his or her phantom hand moving.

“The patient started chuckling and said ‘Look, you know I can’t move my phantom arm. I haven’t been able to for 10 years’ and I said just do it for me,” Ramachandran said. “He looked inside and started moving, and he said ‘Oh my god, my hand is moving again.'”

University of Wisconsin medical student David Rebedew said he had read one of Ramachandran’s books as an undergrad. Rebedew thought the book was really interesting, and he wanted to come to the lecture because he knew Ramachandran was a dynamic speaker.

UW sophomores Dan Wirz and Vijay Pai also attended the lecture. Wirz enjoyed how Ramachandran knew a lot about pop culture and made references to Facebook during his lecture.

“The man was a genius; he was really, really intelligent,” Pal said, “I especially liked the first part about the phantom limbs.”