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Neurologist and Author Oliver Sacks Dead at 82
Physician, writer and humanist Oliver Sacks has died of cancer at age 82. Sacks was famous for "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" and other books, including his account in "Awakenings" (later made into a well-recieved film) of administering treatment which resulted in several patients emerging from their comas. The Guardian reports: When he revealed that he had terminal cancer, Sacks quoted one of his favourite philosophers, David Hume. On discovering that he was mortally ill at 65, Hume wrote: “I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.
“I am ... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.”
I mistook my sock for a wife once.
Seriously though, the dude wrote some great stuff on human perception of music and the brain's processing of musical information.
http://www.oliversacks.com/boo...
Plus, he was kind of a badass:
https://rhystranter.files.word...
http://media.jrn.com/images/b9...
It's sad when one of these bright lights goes out.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you browse around you'll find substantial criticisms of his work by his colleagues. I for one was quite surprise about it for I did not see in his books any disrespect to his patients [one of the accusations] nor did I detect that he had twisted the stories or made them Hollywood-style to sell more [another accusation]. SO I don't know.....
What I do know is that his books opened a world for me so fascinating [and at the same time terrifying] that it changed my general perception about neurophysiology and the many bizarre illnesses that can suddenly manifest themselves due to dysfunction of a few hundred nerve cells. It also thought me compassion and understanding of people like this. For instance I used to look at Turrets as "crazy people", shy away from them, even be scared of them....not any more. I understand now and understanding heals fear and distrusts [and disgusts].
Moreover, it was simply unbelievably interesting to learn about those illnesses and people. Some of the stories made me think about profound philosophy questions. Like the one about the lady without a sense of body, the first recorded by medicine "zombi". And yes, she started doubting her own existence [the question here being can you have a sense of self if you are just a thought without a "carrier"].
Or that incredibly funny and insightful story about the patients that have no concept of words and speech while being so attuned to body language, melody of the speech and so on that many people would think they are mute, but understand everything you say to them. The story is about those people listening to president Regan's speech and how they laugh their asses off [probably] because they sense the discrepancy between his body language and the melody, tone and so on of his speech. In the same ward there were patients with the exact opposite issue - they understand only pure sense in speech, so tone, inflection, exaggeration, slang and so on - all of it is lost in them. One such patient said [for Regan] - "he is either sick or he is lying. he does not speak good prose; he does not make sense". So the conclusion was that so good was the speech as a combination between words and the rest of human expression that everyone got fooled except people who are not susceptible to one of those aspects [words or everything else]. Only the ill could see through him, us "normal" people were thoroughly deceived....brilliant!