It seems that we have all the ingredients to create a human or “self”, mind, soul, personality and brains, but we cannot figure out the recipe. Theories and research done by philosophers, theologians, scientists and psychologists are virtually useless separately, but we inch closer to the “self” when we view them as a whole. I think The Synaptic Self may prove to be the most productive of our reading materials thus far because of its diverse insights. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is very entertaining but after reading in the order: LeDoux, Sacks, Hirstein, I felt like LeDoux set up the necessary background information and posed important ideas that the Sacks reading supported by example. Brain Fiction sort of felt like I was conducting an experiment as I was reading because it was written in such an organized list-like manner, but I think the discussion of confabulation was significantly thought provoking.
I agree with LeDoux when he said that philosophy was the most improbable source for discovering the “self”. Descartes said that the “mental” and “physical” were two separate things, but how could this be so? The physical is a direct result of the mental; they have to be interrelated. The Sacks cases show us that any deterioration of the mind plays out in the body, with the ability to make or break a person. Some of the people have illnesses and some of the illnesses have people. For example, Witty Ticcy Ray was “fixed” after his medication. But he wasn’t himself anymore; not as quick or competitive or as “ticcy” because Tourette’s syndrome was a part of his identity. The haloperidol became a switch on his personality. This brings me back to a question LeDoux asked. Can a human lose personhood as a result of brain damage, insanity or moral transgression? What about, can a human gain personhood from said things?
In the first chapter of Brain Fiction, Hirstein explores every inch of what confabulation is. Although some diseases that cause confabulation can be some of the most awful degenerations that could happen to a person (e.g. Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia…), aren’t they intriguing? It sure is devastating when someone you know is completely altered by one of these illnesses, but do they gain a strange new personhood because of this new character they have taken on? It is clear that they have no intent to deceive you when you are told a lie, but to be so creative on the spot with a story… Frankly, I am a bit jealous of such imagination.
I think it’s strange how some diseases make you who you are, and some have nothing to do with who you are. But who are we to say that a human becomes less of a person when they transgress from a disease? Some of the most interesting people I know are the ones with tics or the ones that confabulate!