Dr Oliver Sacks Quotes

But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned -- the man who knew it, or the man who did not?

Dr. Kertesz mentioned to me a case known to him of a farmer who had developed prosopagnosia and in consequence could no longer distinguish (the faces of) his cows, and of another such patient, an attendant in a Natural History Museum, who mistook his own reflection for the diorama of an ape

Dr. P. may therefore serve as a warning and parable -- of what happens to a science which eschews the judgmental, the particular, the personal, and becomes entirely abstract and computational.

The ‘secret’ of Shostakovich, it was suggested—by a Chinese neurologist, Dr Dajue Wang—was the presence of a metallic splinter, a mobile shell-fragment, in his brain, in the temporal horn of the left ventricle. Shostakovich was very reluctant, apparently, to have this removed: Since the fragment had been there, he said, each time he leaned his head to one side he could hear music. His head was filled with melodies—different each time—which he then made use of when composing. X-rays allegedly showed the fragment moving around when Shostakovich moved his head, pressing against his ‘musical’ temporal lobe, when he tilted, producing an infinity of melodies which his genius could use.

Dr. Sacks treats each of his subjects—the amnesic fifty-year-old man who believes himself to be a young sailor in the Navy, the “disembodied” woman whose limbs have become alien to her, and of course the famous man who mistook his wife for a hat—with a deep respect for the unique individual living beneath the disorder. These tales inspire awe and empathy, allowing the reader to enter the uncanny worlds of those with autism, Alzheimer's, Tourette's syndrome, and other unfathomable neurological conditions. “One of the great clinical writers of the 20th century” (The New York Times), Dr. Sacks brings to vivid life some of the most fundamental questions about identity and the human mind.

Our cognitive sciences are themselves suffering from an agnosia essentially similar to Dr P.’s. Dr P. may therefore serve as a warning and parable—of what happens to a science which eschews the judgmental, the particular,

The paradox of an illness which can present as wellness - as a wonderful feeling of health and well-being, and only later reveal its malignant potentials - is one of the chimaeras, tricks and ironies of nature. It is one which has fascinated a number of artists, especially those who equate art with sickness: thus it is a theme - at once Dionysiac, Venerean, and Faustian - which persistently recurs in Thomas Mann - from the febrile, tuberculous highs of The Magic Mountain, to the spirochaetal inspirations in Dr Faustus and the aphrodisiac malignancy in his last tale, The Black Swan.

Of course, the brain is a machine and a computer - everything in classical neurology is correct. But our mental processes, which constitute out being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical, but personal, as well - and, as such, involve not just classifying and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also. If this is missing, we become computer-like, as Dr P. was. And, by the same token, if we delete feeling and judging, the personal, from the cognitive sciences, we reduce them to something as defective as Dr P. - and we reduce our apprehension of the concrete and real.

Bu the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost, did not indeed know that anything was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned--the man who knew it, or the man who did not?

Do you believe in God? "I believe in the divine: Mendelssohn is divine. "I believe in grace: All natural movements are graceful. "I believe in the mystical mathematics of heaven, which is to say grace beyond the algorithm of causality." What about out-of-body experiences in those just returned from death's brink? “Hell, one has a vision of heaven all the time!

The geology museum had a wonderful dullness." We make our way over to a case full of geodes, before Oliver pauses transfixed. "I love the idea of something dull on the outside, and spectacular and crystalline on the inside.

I'm inhibited, isolated, haunted, unknown. However, I haven't compromised myself. And although I lie a good deal, it's mostly whimsical. I'm not living a lie, like the vindicator.

...Hume's notion that we are nothing but a bundle of sensations succeeding one another with inconceivable rapidity, that any coherent sense of personhood is hence sort of overarching fiction, a state of affairs that may or may not be the case on average.

Of course, the brain is a machine and a computer—everything in classical neurology is correct. But our mental processes, which constitute our being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical, but personal, as well—and, as such, involve not just classifying and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also. If this is missing, we become computer-like, as Dr P. was. And, by the same token, if we delete feeling and judging, the personal, from the cognitive sciences, we reduce them to something as defective as Dr P.—and we reduce our apprehension of the concrete and real.

But we know from the experience of Tony Cicoria and many others that a hallucinatory journey to the bright light and beyond, a full-blown NDE, can occur in twenty or thirty seconds, even though it seems to last much longer. Subjectively, during such a crisis, the very concept of time may seem variable or meaningless. The one most plausible hypothesis in Dr. Alexander’s case, then, is that his NDE occurred not during his coma, but as he was surfacing from the coma and his cortex was returning to full function. It is curious that he does not allow this obvious and natural explanation but instead insists on a supernatural one.

To deny the possibility of any natural explanation for an NDE, as Dr. Alexander does, is more than unscientific—it is antiscientific. It precludes the scientific investigation of such states.

Dr. P was not fighting, did not know what was lost, did not indeed know that anything was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned, the man who knew it, or the man who did not?