Letters, p.60
Letters, page 60
The extreme particularity and circumstantiality of this history differentiates it wholly from Gregory’s S.B., or Valvo’s cases, or of any other cases in the world literature. Specifically, no other neurologist has spoken of “agnosia” in this context, and no one else has described agnosic episodes—or blindsight. These differences arise because the physiology in these cases is not identical. Virtually all the patients described in the world literature have problems with the media of the eye—the lens or cornea—not with the retina as well, as is the case with Virgil. It was the grossly impaired retinal function, a receptive inadequacy, which led to episodes of agnosic blurriness and blindsight. The other blind patients in the world literature, with normal retinal function, have not suffered from either agnosic episodes or blindsight.
This extra retinal pathology and its consequences are fortuitous, peculiar to my patient, and irrelevant to an allegorical story of restoration of sight. Nonetheless, Molly Sweeney follows Virgil’s history with extreme literalness. Whatever other qualities you have endowed Molly with, her clinical history is a virtual duplicate of Virgil’s.
Beyond this identity of clinical history, there are frequent close similarities (and sometimes identities) in wording; thus on even a quick examination I perceived the following:
* * *
—
Friel: There were scars of old disease, too. But…no current active disease process. So that…her vision, however impaired, ought to be stable for the rest of her life. (MS, p. 27)
Sacks: Examination, I was told, suggested the scars and residues of old disease but no current or active disease process; and this being so, Virgil’s vision, such as it was, could be stable for the rest of his life. (NYer, p. 62)
Friel: She could distinguish light and dark; she could see the direction from which light came; she could detect the shadow of Frank’s hand moving in front of her face. (17)
Sacks: Virgil could still see light and dark, and the direction from which light came, and the shadow of a hand moving in front of his eyes. (59) […]
Friel: But Molly’s world isn’t perceived instantly, comprehensively. She composes a world from a sequence of impressions…. What is this object? These are ears. This is a furry body. Those are paws. That is a long tail. Ah, a cat! (35–36)
Sacks: He would pick up details incessantly…but would not be able to synthesize them, to form a complex impression at a glance. This was one reason the cat, visually, was so puzzling; he could see a paw, the nose, the tail, an ear, but could not see all of them together, see the cat as a whole. (64)
* * *
—
I could cite many other examples.
Finally, whatever the metaphoric and other differences, there is considerable importation of what I might call the moral atmosphere of my piece—the over-enthusiastic spouse, the over-ambitious doctor, and the relatively passive blind patient who becomes their agenda.
Thus to my mind (and to others) your borrowings are both deep and extensive, even though they may indeed have been “altogether unconscious.” I am very well aware of the power of such unconscious absorptions—the creative state seeks for its own truth only, and is not concerned at the time with the distinction of “inner” and “outer,” who said what first, where things come from. It is only later that one may perceive what has influenced one, what one has used. It is then, recovering consciousness, that one recognizes influences and sources, and pays them their due acknowledgement.
Early in 1982 Harold Pinter sent me a manuscript of Alaska with a charming letter. When I commented on some of the similarities to Awakenings, there was an initial response (from his agent) to the effect that “There are many postencephalitics. There are many ‘awakenings.’ Mr. Pinter himself has read all the sources. Awakenings was only one of many.” But then Pinter himself, with great courtesy and delicacy, cut through all this, and said, “Of course Alaska was inspired by Awakenings!” This acknowledgement was put up front in the programs, playbills and publications of his play (see attached photocopy), and he agreed to pay me 20% of the net receipts from the play. I feel that it did no harm to Pinter, nor to Peter Brook,[*58] to indicate their indebtedness to a distinguished clinical source—quite the reverse: it moved their material from the realm of the purely imaginary or metaphorical, and gave it the density of the actual, the factual—and the same, surely, applies here.
Molly Sweeney is at least as close to my case history as Alaska was to Awakenings. Thus I do not think it would be fair of you to expect me to be satisfied (in the light of everything I have shown above) with a mere listing as one among many sources. I really feel that some sort of exclusive acknowledgement is called for, something wholly separate in tone and place from the acknowledgement you may make to other sources which constitute a mere background to the subject. I would hope that some mutually acceptable form can be arrived at, perhaps something akin to the acknowledgement and short history Pinter put in Alaska (xerox enclosed), or something as brief as “Inspired by Oliver Sacks’s case history ‘To See and Not See,’ and the long, strange tradition of such histories.”
I feel it is imperative to resolve this swiftly, so that it may be included in programs and playbills for the forthcoming London production of your play, as well as in any future printings and publications it may have. My own new book (An Anthropologist on Mars), I should add, will come out in January, and contains an enlarged version of “To See and Not See,” along with a bibliography in which I speak of your play (along with earlier literary treatments of the same theme—by Wilkie Collins, Gide, Patrick Doherty, etc.), and its striking resonances with my own piece.
I continue to look forward to an early and amicable resolution of these matters—and, indeed, to a day when, unencumbered by such things, we will be able to share a meal, and some thoughts, together.
Sincerely,
Oliver Sacks
To Brian Friel
October 19, 1994 (4 a.m.)
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Mr. Friel,
Let me say by way of an early-morning postscript what I should have said, more strongly, at the start of my letter. I think Molly Sweeney is a very powerful play, a beautiful work of art, unmistakably and uniquely your own. And though I was constrained to speak of “borrowings,” this in no sense diminishes (for me or for anybody) your own originality, for you have refracted whatever you have used through your own creative powers. “Borrowing” implies no disrespect for your work or originality—on the contrary, I feel honored to have provided any observations or thoughts which might have inspired, and been used, so creatively, by an imagination such as yours. I should have made this more explicit in yesterday’s letter. I see you, more than ever, as a major and original artist.
Again, yours sincerely
Oliver Sacks
To Brian Friel
October 20, 1994
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Mr. Friel,
I was delighted to receive your friendly FAX, and to learn of your willingness to make an acknowledgement of the form discussed.
I have, first and foremost, regarded this whole business as a matter of courtesy—and now that the courtesy of an acknowledgement has been granted, I have no interest whatever in pursuing any share of Royalties or legal action (as your Agents seem to fear).
We have a gentleman’s agreement, there is good faith—and this, as far as I am concerned, can end the matter.
I would enjoy meeting you, of course, when I am in London, or you in New York.
With kind regards,
Oliver Sacks
To John Bennet
Nonfiction Editor, The New Yorker
November 7, 1994
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear John,
I have just got some proofs,[*59] and hasten to send one off to you—for you, after all, have been a chief midwife to the pieces (5 of them, anyhow).
The four which the New Yorker published have, as you see, been somewhat revised, at times enlarged—and (of course!) footnoted. As for Stephen (“Prodigies”) I remain, perhaps we all remain, uncertain about this. […]
Ren[*60] will have told you, I imagine, about the business with Brian Friel, and the closeness of his play, sometimes, to “To See and Not See.” But this has been amicably sorted out, and Friel has provided an acknowledgement and this, first and last, was what was called for. I suspect his play Molly Sweeney, just opening in London, may be coming to New York about the same time as the book comes out—and this may lead to further resonances (good ones, I hope!).
It has been a long time since we were in touch, and I have done a lot of (sometimes exotic) travelling in the meantime. The visit to Pingelap (see enclosed map), “the Isle of the Colorblind,” was quite amazing, and I am trying now to reconstruct and write this as a piece. I went with a BBC film crew, and this had advantages and drawbacks: on the one hand, they were able to arrange all sorts of things—e.g. the achromatopic night-fishing etc, which I could not have done, and the power to document a unique situation at every level from the physiological to the clinical to the social-anthropological but what with cameras looming, for twelve hours a day, I did not make the notes, do the writing on the spot I usually do, nor have the sense of intimate personal-clinical contacts I usually have. I can (and must) describe some individuals, but I must also picture a community, and an island, and life as it is for them on this tiny coral atoll. One of our party was a charming and learned Norwegian neuroscientist, Knut Nordby, himself an achromatope (like his brother and sister—the incidence of this[*61] in the general population is extremely low, about 1 in 50,000; whereas, on the island, a quarter of the population are carriers)—and it was extraordinary to see the instant community of experience, sensibility, language etc between him and the islanders; his excitement at his finding his (retinal) brothers-and-sisters, so to speak, on a remote Pacific atoll and theirs at also finding one of themselves, a white brother, a European, from afar—one obviously esteemed and distinguished, able to travel independently all over the world (where they are sometimes seen as “disabled” and “second-class citizens” on the island, and he, of course, was manifestly neither). […] As yet I am not quite sure how to begin. I was in Guam, then—but you know all about the Guam disease; and then in South Africa, seeing, besides the incredible political transformation (and its uncertainties), a wonderful range of Botanical Gardens and Ferns, so this too, as a subject, stays at the back of my mind (and often comes to the front too).
I must not weary you with too long a letter—and had better stop.
I hope you enjoy Mars—and that we will be in touch again soon,
Best!
Oliver
To Joanne Cohen[*62]
A Friend with Tourette’s Syndrome
January 6, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Joanne,
Thank you for your letters.
The second one first—is easy to answer, because it contains news of your success in school, and how much you’ve been enjoying it. […] For myself, I think I’m well (or as well as one ever is in the seventh decade), the shoulder-surgery worked beautifully, and I’m back to long swims. I am excited—but also nervy—about the new book coming out soon.
Your originally-suppressed letter of Sept is not so easy to answer—but I am glad you now have enough faith in me, and yourself, to know I can accommodate it. Your major point (and you are not the first to make it, nor am I wholly unconscious of it) is the notion that I may get so “fascinated” by Tourette’s that I fail to recognize the all-too-real suffering and disability it may cause—and the isolation and stigma and demoralization which may go with it too. I do recognize this split, or potential split, in myself—indeed I confessed it (back in 1970) in the preface to my Migraine—where I spoke of being “delighted” at the complexity of some case-histories, and of the sense that every patient with classical migraine “opened out, as it were, into an entire encyclopedia of neurology.” But then (I continue in the next paragraph) “I was recalled from my neurological preoccupation by the suffering of my patients and their appeals for help.” A life with Tourette’s is infinitely more complex than a life with migraine—Tourette’s itself is infinitely more complex than migraine, not least through psychological (and moral) dimensions peculiar to it. […] I do not think I am unconscious of the suffering, disability etc, so much as wanting also to present some of the more “positive” aspects of the disorder, or of the inner resources which it may call up (these include courage and humour, and a tolerance of others’ intolerances, which you yourself have to a very high degree). I may err in overemphasizing the “heroic” aspects, and underemphasizing the “victim” ones (and again your story—from the hoarse shouting in the night to the paternal intolerance to the university discrimination […] etc. etc.—certainly brings out these tragic aspects too). But I hope I am learning a better balance (and you, amongst others, must teach me here—not least by violent and honest letters such as your now-unsuppressed one). Certainly if I told your life story it would be different from Doran’s—less “upbeat,” more disquieting, tho’ (finally) not less inspiring. […]
Love,
Oliver
To Robert B. Daroff
Editor in Chief, Neurology
April 14, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Bob,
Thank you so much for the preprint of Chatterjee and Southwood’s paper, which I found quite fascinating (you know my tastes!).[*63] Their observations, investigations and discussion are very careful indeed, and as good, I think, as anything in the literature. And yet I do not remain entirely convinced, because I am not sure how much some of the questions actually demand “imagery” (as distinct from “visual knowledge”—or, rather, knowledge obtained in the first place through vision, and then perhaps retainable despite the absence of perception and imagery). […]
Some of this uncertainty of interpretation was present, I think, with Jonathan I., the colorblind painter, with his devastated V4’s.[*64] It was extremely clear that he did not need to image color(s), but this did not impair his ability to “know” them. He “knew” the exact green of van Gogh’s billiard table (and could even give its reference number on a Pantone chart) because he had studied it carefully before, and indeed reproduced it when in art school, before his cortical colorblindness. It was established knowledge. He became uncertain of some colors, seemingly, more than three years after his injury—they had become indifferent to him, were no longer part of his visual thinking; but he would never have lost the knowledge that, say, a cucumber was green. The image yes—the “knowledge” no.
It seems to me that this question of “image” vs. “knowledge,” and the difficulty of interpreting some of the responses, might be more fully discussed by the authors.
These are first impressions and thoughts—I will read the paper again (it is admirably readable), and if I have further thoughts take the liberty of writing again.
With all my thanks, and best regards,
Oliver
PS It is the differences between the 3 patients that I find especially fascinating.
To Daniel Dennett
Philosopher, Cognitive Scientist
April 20, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Dan,
I just read your beautiful article “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” in the current Sciences, and immediately felt the impulse to write you—and send you a book (I guess my own, perhaps very limited theme of adaption and reconstruction etc. in clinical contexts might be seen as a “Darwinian” one too). Reading your piece I am (again!) hit by how well you write, how well you think—and (no less important) how sensitively you feel—I think we are all lucky to have in you such a tender intellectual searchlight, and one which can illuminate so many different realms (tho’ perhaps, as you imply, they are all the same realm). Certainly darwinism has been a “universal acid” for me, which had to extend itself—downstream—prebiotically—and upstream (“psychically”) as soon as I had grasped it. And it seems incredible, now, on the level of reason, that any intelligent person could think otherwise—I was startled at Paul Davies’ words as you quoted them (because it seemed to me, when I met him some years back, that he was not only intellectually but emotionally satisfied by the concept of an evolutionary universe, self-organization going the whole way up). Tho’ I remember him adding, uncertainly, that such a view might be a “substitute” for a religious one, which should have been a warning; for clearly, emotionally, it is not a substitute, which may be why he now, apparently, allows “God” to re-enter. I think, for myself, the emotional craving for a “higher” principle is not too strong—tho’ obviously (as you bring out with your very moving remembrance of “Tell Me Why”) there has been a time with all of us when that “Why” was so strong, and there has to be a sadness in outgrowing this.
I have also just found The Third Culture[*65] in today’s mail—and look forward to seeing what all of you are saying. What an exciting time this is!—I think it is chiefly just this sense of a “third culture” which, for me, wards off various physical (and metaphysical) depressions, and keeps alive a sense of romance (and I got furious with Brian Appleyard[*66] for so misunderstanding this).
With all good wishes,
This extra retinal pathology and its consequences are fortuitous, peculiar to my patient, and irrelevant to an allegorical story of restoration of sight. Nonetheless, Molly Sweeney follows Virgil’s history with extreme literalness. Whatever other qualities you have endowed Molly with, her clinical history is a virtual duplicate of Virgil’s.
Beyond this identity of clinical history, there are frequent close similarities (and sometimes identities) in wording; thus on even a quick examination I perceived the following:
* * *
—
Friel: There were scars of old disease, too. But…no current active disease process. So that…her vision, however impaired, ought to be stable for the rest of her life. (MS, p. 27)
Sacks: Examination, I was told, suggested the scars and residues of old disease but no current or active disease process; and this being so, Virgil’s vision, such as it was, could be stable for the rest of his life. (NYer, p. 62)
Friel: She could distinguish light and dark; she could see the direction from which light came; she could detect the shadow of Frank’s hand moving in front of her face. (17)
Sacks: Virgil could still see light and dark, and the direction from which light came, and the shadow of a hand moving in front of his eyes. (59) […]
Friel: But Molly’s world isn’t perceived instantly, comprehensively. She composes a world from a sequence of impressions…. What is this object? These are ears. This is a furry body. Those are paws. That is a long tail. Ah, a cat! (35–36)
Sacks: He would pick up details incessantly…but would not be able to synthesize them, to form a complex impression at a glance. This was one reason the cat, visually, was so puzzling; he could see a paw, the nose, the tail, an ear, but could not see all of them together, see the cat as a whole. (64)
* * *
—
I could cite many other examples.
Finally, whatever the metaphoric and other differences, there is considerable importation of what I might call the moral atmosphere of my piece—the over-enthusiastic spouse, the over-ambitious doctor, and the relatively passive blind patient who becomes their agenda.
Thus to my mind (and to others) your borrowings are both deep and extensive, even though they may indeed have been “altogether unconscious.” I am very well aware of the power of such unconscious absorptions—the creative state seeks for its own truth only, and is not concerned at the time with the distinction of “inner” and “outer,” who said what first, where things come from. It is only later that one may perceive what has influenced one, what one has used. It is then, recovering consciousness, that one recognizes influences and sources, and pays them their due acknowledgement.
Early in 1982 Harold Pinter sent me a manuscript of Alaska with a charming letter. When I commented on some of the similarities to Awakenings, there was an initial response (from his agent) to the effect that “There are many postencephalitics. There are many ‘awakenings.’ Mr. Pinter himself has read all the sources. Awakenings was only one of many.” But then Pinter himself, with great courtesy and delicacy, cut through all this, and said, “Of course Alaska was inspired by Awakenings!” This acknowledgement was put up front in the programs, playbills and publications of his play (see attached photocopy), and he agreed to pay me 20% of the net receipts from the play. I feel that it did no harm to Pinter, nor to Peter Brook,[*58] to indicate their indebtedness to a distinguished clinical source—quite the reverse: it moved their material from the realm of the purely imaginary or metaphorical, and gave it the density of the actual, the factual—and the same, surely, applies here.
Molly Sweeney is at least as close to my case history as Alaska was to Awakenings. Thus I do not think it would be fair of you to expect me to be satisfied (in the light of everything I have shown above) with a mere listing as one among many sources. I really feel that some sort of exclusive acknowledgement is called for, something wholly separate in tone and place from the acknowledgement you may make to other sources which constitute a mere background to the subject. I would hope that some mutually acceptable form can be arrived at, perhaps something akin to the acknowledgement and short history Pinter put in Alaska (xerox enclosed), or something as brief as “Inspired by Oliver Sacks’s case history ‘To See and Not See,’ and the long, strange tradition of such histories.”
I feel it is imperative to resolve this swiftly, so that it may be included in programs and playbills for the forthcoming London production of your play, as well as in any future printings and publications it may have. My own new book (An Anthropologist on Mars), I should add, will come out in January, and contains an enlarged version of “To See and Not See,” along with a bibliography in which I speak of your play (along with earlier literary treatments of the same theme—by Wilkie Collins, Gide, Patrick Doherty, etc.), and its striking resonances with my own piece.
I continue to look forward to an early and amicable resolution of these matters—and, indeed, to a day when, unencumbered by such things, we will be able to share a meal, and some thoughts, together.
Sincerely,
Oliver Sacks
To Brian Friel
October 19, 1994 (4 a.m.)
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Mr. Friel,
Let me say by way of an early-morning postscript what I should have said, more strongly, at the start of my letter. I think Molly Sweeney is a very powerful play, a beautiful work of art, unmistakably and uniquely your own. And though I was constrained to speak of “borrowings,” this in no sense diminishes (for me or for anybody) your own originality, for you have refracted whatever you have used through your own creative powers. “Borrowing” implies no disrespect for your work or originality—on the contrary, I feel honored to have provided any observations or thoughts which might have inspired, and been used, so creatively, by an imagination such as yours. I should have made this more explicit in yesterday’s letter. I see you, more than ever, as a major and original artist.
Again, yours sincerely
Oliver Sacks
To Brian Friel
October 20, 1994
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Mr. Friel,
I was delighted to receive your friendly FAX, and to learn of your willingness to make an acknowledgement of the form discussed.
I have, first and foremost, regarded this whole business as a matter of courtesy—and now that the courtesy of an acknowledgement has been granted, I have no interest whatever in pursuing any share of Royalties or legal action (as your Agents seem to fear).
We have a gentleman’s agreement, there is good faith—and this, as far as I am concerned, can end the matter.
I would enjoy meeting you, of course, when I am in London, or you in New York.
With kind regards,
Oliver Sacks
To John Bennet
Nonfiction Editor, The New Yorker
November 7, 1994
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear John,
I have just got some proofs,[*59] and hasten to send one off to you—for you, after all, have been a chief midwife to the pieces (5 of them, anyhow).
The four which the New Yorker published have, as you see, been somewhat revised, at times enlarged—and (of course!) footnoted. As for Stephen (“Prodigies”) I remain, perhaps we all remain, uncertain about this. […]
Ren[*60] will have told you, I imagine, about the business with Brian Friel, and the closeness of his play, sometimes, to “To See and Not See.” But this has been amicably sorted out, and Friel has provided an acknowledgement and this, first and last, was what was called for. I suspect his play Molly Sweeney, just opening in London, may be coming to New York about the same time as the book comes out—and this may lead to further resonances (good ones, I hope!).
It has been a long time since we were in touch, and I have done a lot of (sometimes exotic) travelling in the meantime. The visit to Pingelap (see enclosed map), “the Isle of the Colorblind,” was quite amazing, and I am trying now to reconstruct and write this as a piece. I went with a BBC film crew, and this had advantages and drawbacks: on the one hand, they were able to arrange all sorts of things—e.g. the achromatopic night-fishing etc, which I could not have done, and the power to document a unique situation at every level from the physiological to the clinical to the social-anthropological but what with cameras looming, for twelve hours a day, I did not make the notes, do the writing on the spot I usually do, nor have the sense of intimate personal-clinical contacts I usually have. I can (and must) describe some individuals, but I must also picture a community, and an island, and life as it is for them on this tiny coral atoll. One of our party was a charming and learned Norwegian neuroscientist, Knut Nordby, himself an achromatope (like his brother and sister—the incidence of this[*61] in the general population is extremely low, about 1 in 50,000; whereas, on the island, a quarter of the population are carriers)—and it was extraordinary to see the instant community of experience, sensibility, language etc between him and the islanders; his excitement at his finding his (retinal) brothers-and-sisters, so to speak, on a remote Pacific atoll and theirs at also finding one of themselves, a white brother, a European, from afar—one obviously esteemed and distinguished, able to travel independently all over the world (where they are sometimes seen as “disabled” and “second-class citizens” on the island, and he, of course, was manifestly neither). […] As yet I am not quite sure how to begin. I was in Guam, then—but you know all about the Guam disease; and then in South Africa, seeing, besides the incredible political transformation (and its uncertainties), a wonderful range of Botanical Gardens and Ferns, so this too, as a subject, stays at the back of my mind (and often comes to the front too).
I must not weary you with too long a letter—and had better stop.
I hope you enjoy Mars—and that we will be in touch again soon,
Best!
Oliver
To Joanne Cohen[*62]
A Friend with Tourette’s Syndrome
January 6, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Joanne,
Thank you for your letters.
The second one first—is easy to answer, because it contains news of your success in school, and how much you’ve been enjoying it. […] For myself, I think I’m well (or as well as one ever is in the seventh decade), the shoulder-surgery worked beautifully, and I’m back to long swims. I am excited—but also nervy—about the new book coming out soon.
Your originally-suppressed letter of Sept is not so easy to answer—but I am glad you now have enough faith in me, and yourself, to know I can accommodate it. Your major point (and you are not the first to make it, nor am I wholly unconscious of it) is the notion that I may get so “fascinated” by Tourette’s that I fail to recognize the all-too-real suffering and disability it may cause—and the isolation and stigma and demoralization which may go with it too. I do recognize this split, or potential split, in myself—indeed I confessed it (back in 1970) in the preface to my Migraine—where I spoke of being “delighted” at the complexity of some case-histories, and of the sense that every patient with classical migraine “opened out, as it were, into an entire encyclopedia of neurology.” But then (I continue in the next paragraph) “I was recalled from my neurological preoccupation by the suffering of my patients and their appeals for help.” A life with Tourette’s is infinitely more complex than a life with migraine—Tourette’s itself is infinitely more complex than migraine, not least through psychological (and moral) dimensions peculiar to it. […] I do not think I am unconscious of the suffering, disability etc, so much as wanting also to present some of the more “positive” aspects of the disorder, or of the inner resources which it may call up (these include courage and humour, and a tolerance of others’ intolerances, which you yourself have to a very high degree). I may err in overemphasizing the “heroic” aspects, and underemphasizing the “victim” ones (and again your story—from the hoarse shouting in the night to the paternal intolerance to the university discrimination […] etc. etc.—certainly brings out these tragic aspects too). But I hope I am learning a better balance (and you, amongst others, must teach me here—not least by violent and honest letters such as your now-unsuppressed one). Certainly if I told your life story it would be different from Doran’s—less “upbeat,” more disquieting, tho’ (finally) not less inspiring. […]
Love,
Oliver
To Robert B. Daroff
Editor in Chief, Neurology
April 14, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Bob,
Thank you so much for the preprint of Chatterjee and Southwood’s paper, which I found quite fascinating (you know my tastes!).[*63] Their observations, investigations and discussion are very careful indeed, and as good, I think, as anything in the literature. And yet I do not remain entirely convinced, because I am not sure how much some of the questions actually demand “imagery” (as distinct from “visual knowledge”—or, rather, knowledge obtained in the first place through vision, and then perhaps retainable despite the absence of perception and imagery). […]
Some of this uncertainty of interpretation was present, I think, with Jonathan I., the colorblind painter, with his devastated V4’s.[*64] It was extremely clear that he did not need to image color(s), but this did not impair his ability to “know” them. He “knew” the exact green of van Gogh’s billiard table (and could even give its reference number on a Pantone chart) because he had studied it carefully before, and indeed reproduced it when in art school, before his cortical colorblindness. It was established knowledge. He became uncertain of some colors, seemingly, more than three years after his injury—they had become indifferent to him, were no longer part of his visual thinking; but he would never have lost the knowledge that, say, a cucumber was green. The image yes—the “knowledge” no.
It seems to me that this question of “image” vs. “knowledge,” and the difficulty of interpreting some of the responses, might be more fully discussed by the authors.
These are first impressions and thoughts—I will read the paper again (it is admirably readable), and if I have further thoughts take the liberty of writing again.
With all my thanks, and best regards,
Oliver
PS It is the differences between the 3 patients that I find especially fascinating.
To Daniel Dennett
Philosopher, Cognitive Scientist
April 20, 1995
299 West 12th St., New York
Dear Dan,
I just read your beautiful article “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” in the current Sciences, and immediately felt the impulse to write you—and send you a book (I guess my own, perhaps very limited theme of adaption and reconstruction etc. in clinical contexts might be seen as a “Darwinian” one too). Reading your piece I am (again!) hit by how well you write, how well you think—and (no less important) how sensitively you feel—I think we are all lucky to have in you such a tender intellectual searchlight, and one which can illuminate so many different realms (tho’ perhaps, as you imply, they are all the same realm). Certainly darwinism has been a “universal acid” for me, which had to extend itself—downstream—prebiotically—and upstream (“psychically”) as soon as I had grasped it. And it seems incredible, now, on the level of reason, that any intelligent person could think otherwise—I was startled at Paul Davies’ words as you quoted them (because it seemed to me, when I met him some years back, that he was not only intellectually but emotionally satisfied by the concept of an evolutionary universe, self-organization going the whole way up). Tho’ I remember him adding, uncertainly, that such a view might be a “substitute” for a religious one, which should have been a warning; for clearly, emotionally, it is not a substitute, which may be why he now, apparently, allows “God” to re-enter. I think, for myself, the emotional craving for a “higher” principle is not too strong—tho’ obviously (as you bring out with your very moving remembrance of “Tell Me Why”) there has been a time with all of us when that “Why” was so strong, and there has to be a sadness in outgrowing this.
I have also just found The Third Culture[*65] in today’s mail—and look forward to seeing what all of you are saying. What an exciting time this is!—I think it is chiefly just this sense of a “third culture” which, for me, wards off various physical (and metaphysical) depressions, and keeps alive a sense of romance (and I got furious with Brian Appleyard[*66] for so misunderstanding this).
With all good wishes,
