The Mind of a Mnemonist provides another fascinating study of an unusual set of neurological circumstances, refracted through the lived experience of an individual. I’ve enjoyed it, although I find Luria much more restrained than Sacks. Luria’s style reflects a certain discipline and distance, whereas Sacks tries audaciously to stretch neuropsychology to its imaginative and intuitive limits. Luria is a scientist with a humanistic turn of mind; Sacks is a storyteller and philosopher who retains some roots in the sciences. It may be that Luria simply reflects the conventions of his time; and, drawing on Luria’s influence, Sacks has been able to build on a pre-existing foundation, toward greater heights. I’m more inclined to think that this is a difference of personality between Luria and Sacks, however, and the question of personality is quite pertinent here.
All of the cases we’ve considered examine the most extreme neurological circumstances--which is important, because somehow the extreme cases bring to light less marked but noteworthy tendencies in more average minds. That is to say, by looking to the mnemonist, we can gain insight into ourselves. The distinctions between these cases and neurotypical minds is really a matter of degree, it appears increasingly, but not one of kind. In other words, it is a quantitative, not a qualitative, distinction. I remember, as a very young child, experiencing some synaesthesia. For instance, the name of my third grade teacher (Ms. Edward) always seemed decidedly green to me. I remember discussing this with a friend one day, who countered that Ms. Edward's name was not in fact green, but another color. We were both experiencing synaesthesia in some mild form. With age, this slight synaesthesia has become slighter for me, but there are still the faintest traces. What, finally, do we learn from this, this similarity to the subjects? What specifically? The information is fascinating, but I’m unsure of what exactly to take away from it.
The particular case of the mnemonist may be instructive as we try to grasp the psychology of personality. Jung was the first to propose an extensive system of psychological types. There were three primary dimensions of personality in his view, three main areas in which our personalities differ most dramatically (yet in consistent ways) from one another: introversion-extroversion, intuition-sensation, and feeling-thinking. I won’t bore you with too many details, but someone who has sensing as dominant function resembles the mnemonist in a way. Sensing individuals take in information via their senses in a literal, concrete manner. Intuitive individuals immediately abstract from sensory data. These are just prevailing tendencies, at ends of a continuum.The mnemonist, thinking in almost entirely sensory terms, represents a grossly exaggerated expression of a tendency that is present to one degree or another in each of us. Notions of normality and health--as we’ve been discussing a fair amount--are somewhat destabilized by much of our reading.
What I’d like to suggest at this point--based on our discussions of Sacks and Luria--is that we not view the case subjects as fundamentally different from us. They show us the brain’s most extreme potentialities, but these potentialities are latent within ourselves. Seen this way, the model of the doctor-patient relationship that Sacks proposed looks sensible rather than idealistic. They must be equals, two humans, each striving to understand more fully the humanity of the other.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that in the case of the Mnemonist, “the distinction between these stages and neurotypical minds” it is not really “a matter of degree,” but is actually “one of kind.” What a neurotypical mind would experience is “forced or acquired associations” or “sensations triggering memories” (Quick guide, Synaesthesia). Instead, people like S and Funes have experiences that are “activated by the same stimulus with a seemingly arbitrary connection” (Quick Guide). To me, this does not seem like an exaggeration of the “normal condition,” but rather something completely different. When I see the letter ‘a’, I do not think of anything but the letter ‘a’. It is not as if I see a dull pink and S sees a very bright pink. I am not discounting the fact that these patients have severe problems that they are coping with. I am just suggesting that those experiences are much more difficult to relate to than, for example, someone who has severe depression or anxiety. I would think that S had very little or no memory at all unless something triggered it. He seemed to need his Synaesthesia in order to recall speeches, number patterns or word patterns etc.
ReplyDelete