As I was reading the many different tales in Oliver Sack’s book, I was amazed at the obscurity of each person’s case. With keeping the mind/body problem in mind while reading these tales, I was very conflicted on my position. When learning and reading about the mind/body problem in class, I really took to the monism perspectives. I believed that the mind and the nervous system are not different. I just did not understand how the mind could not be connected to the nervous system. I pictured the mind and the body as one sphere and not two totally different spheres, as dualists would argue saying that the mind and the nervous system are different. However, when reading Oliver Sack’s different tales/cases, I realized different instances where
…show more content…
However, when I read A Matter of Identity, I swayed toward dualism. In this tale, Mr. Thompson does not recognize people. He would always make up fictional situations for people and give people fictional identities. When talking about reality, Stacks suggests “A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self […] Unable to maintain a genuine narrative or continuity, unable to maintain a genuine inner world, he is driven to the proliferation of pseudo-narratives” (Sacks, 1998, p. 111). When thinking of the idea of our inner narrative I began viewing the mind as its own separate sphere then the nervous system. The brain is physical and obeys physical laws but our minds are not material and they do not follow such laws (Leitner, 2016). This is why Mr. Thompson is not connected to his mind, his mind is not following any specific laws as it is not connected to the nervous system. If his mind was in the same sphere as his nervous system, he would have conscious thoughts and memories because our nervous system gives us the abilities to think and make sense of things. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Dr. P’s sensory neurons were relaying messages to his consciousness. Oliver Sacks questions this with Mr. Thompson, “Does Mr. Thompson feel this? Or, again, what is his ‘feeling of reality’?” (112). I just do not see any connection between …show more content…
P and Mr. Thompson is the fact that Dr. P has legitimate issues. He has problems identifying visual items, such as mistaking his wife for a hat. Mr. Thompson has no problem identifying what he sees in his visual field. For instance, he knows a person is a person and a hat is a hat, he just cannot pair the correct identity with the object, hence the title of the tale A Matter of Identity. While these are just two examples of many tales in the book, I noticed that when there is a legitimate problem or deficit, a monism approach better fits that situation. Then, on the other hand, when there is no exact cause of the mind being “off”, a dualism approach best fits that situation. My theory of when a dualistic approach is appropriate and when a monistic approach is appropriate is not only evident in just Dr. P and Mr. Thompson’s cases, this can be applied to multiple cases throughout Oliver Sack’s
However, when I read A Matter of Identity, I swayed toward dualism. In this tale, Mr. Thompson does not recognize people. He would always make up fictional situations for people and give people fictional identities. When talking about reality, Stacks suggests “A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self […] Unable to maintain a genuine narrative or continuity, unable to maintain a genuine inner world, he is driven to the proliferation of pseudo-narratives” (Sacks, 1998, p. 111). When thinking of the idea of our inner narrative I began viewing the mind as its own separate sphere then the nervous system. The brain is physical and obeys physical laws but our minds are not material and they do not follow such laws (Leitner, 2016). This is why Mr. Thompson is not connected to his mind, his mind is not following any specific laws as it is not connected to the nervous system. If his mind was in the same sphere as his nervous system, he would have conscious thoughts and memories because our nervous system gives us the abilities to think and make sense of things. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Dr. P’s sensory neurons were relaying messages to his consciousness. Oliver Sacks questions this with Mr. Thompson, “Does Mr. Thompson feel this? Or, again, what is his ‘feeling of reality’?” (112). I just do not see any connection between …show more content…
P and Mr. Thompson is the fact that Dr. P has legitimate issues. He has problems identifying visual items, such as mistaking his wife for a hat. Mr. Thompson has no problem identifying what he sees in his visual field. For instance, he knows a person is a person and a hat is a hat, he just cannot pair the correct identity with the object, hence the title of the tale A Matter of Identity. While these are just two examples of many tales in the book, I noticed that when there is a legitimate problem or deficit, a monism approach better fits that situation. Then, on the other hand, when there is no exact cause of the mind being “off”, a dualism approach best fits that situation. My theory of when a dualistic approach is appropriate and when a monistic approach is appropriate is not only evident in just Dr. P and Mr. Thompson’s cases, this can be applied to multiple cases throughout Oliver Sack’s