Oliver Sacks
The Connections of Blindness and the Brain
The brain and the mind are one and cannot be separated, while the brain is a physical thing the mind on the other hand is considered to be mental. The brain is constructed of nerve cells, blood vessels, and etc., whereas the mind is shapeless. The brain is an important organ in the human body since it controls all the functions and activities. The mind on the other hand is the center of the nervous system; it coordinates the movements and thoughts. The Mind lets an individual understand things but the brain is in charge of sending the signals to the mind. Oliver Sacks in “The Mind’s Eye” uses the case studies of John Hull, Zoltan Torey, and Lusseyran to show that the mind and brain both run each other even without the ability of vision by learning to compensate and adapt after neurological disorders took their ability to see away from them.
In the case study of John Hull, Sacks talks about how this author goes completely blind by age forty eight yet is still able to train his mind and brain to both run each other even without their vision by learning to compensate. Sacks believes that Hull is a great example of how an individual deprived of one form of perception could totally reshape himself to a new identity. In Hull’s case his brain signals were fine but it wasn’t registering in his mind so in the end he lost complete remembrance of sight even though he retained sight for his first thirty eight years. This intensity of being from this world means the “blindness now becomes for him ‘a dark, paradoxical gift’ ” and Sacks even calls it a “a new focus, a new freedom” (304). Here both Hull’s mind and brain are running each other and hence are able to compensate for his lack of vision. The paradoxical gift refers to Hull gaining the ability to shift his attention to his other senses. His new freedom is the direct result of him losing sight. He is able to use his mind to write deeper and overall becomes
The brain and the mind are one and cannot be separated, while the brain is a physical thing the mind on the other hand is considered to be mental. The brain is constructed of nerve cells, blood vessels, and etc., whereas the mind is shapeless. The brain is an important organ in the human body since it controls all the functions and activities. The mind on the other hand is the center of the nervous system; it coordinates the movements and thoughts. The Mind lets an individual understand things but the brain is in charge of sending the signals to the mind. Oliver Sacks in “The Mind’s Eye” uses the case studies of John Hull, Zoltan Torey, and Lusseyran to show that the mind and brain both run each other even without the ability of vision by learning to compensate and adapt after neurological disorders took their ability to see away from them.
In the case study of John Hull, Sacks talks about how this author goes completely blind by age forty eight yet is still able to train his mind and brain to both run each other even without their vision by learning to compensate. Sacks believes that Hull is a great example of how an individual deprived of one form of perception could totally reshape himself to a new identity. In Hull’s case his brain signals were fine but it wasn’t registering in his mind so in the end he lost complete remembrance of sight even though he retained sight for his first thirty eight years. This intensity of being from this world means the “blindness now becomes for him ‘a dark, paradoxical gift’ ” and Sacks even calls it a “a new focus, a new freedom” (304). Here both Hull’s mind and brain are running each other and hence are able to compensate for his lack of vision. The paradoxical gift refers to Hull gaining the ability to shift his attention to his other senses. His new freedom is the direct result of him losing sight. He is able to use his mind to write deeper and overall becomes
Cited: Miller, Richard, Kurt Spellmeyer, and Oliver Sacks, comp. "The Mind 's Eye". 4th Ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning , 2012. Print.