EP #10*: The River of Consciousness, Oliver Sacks

*The River of Consciousness, Oliver Sacks, 2015.

This is part of the course of essay reading I am doing with CT; in particular, this is part of what we have dubbed ‘The Summer of Sacks.’ According to the introduction, this book was posthumously assembled at Sack’s direction a couple of weeks before his death. One of the catalysts was a televised panel with other notable scientists and scholars — Gould, Dyson, Dennet, etc. — that was later captured in a book called “A Glorious Accident.” This book contains a wide range of essays on scientific topics, with, I suspect, particular attention to history.

Contents

C1: Darwin and the Language of Flowers

I greatly enjoyed this essay which introduced me to Darwin’s botanical work, and illustrated how he carried out empirical work in addition to his observational and theoretical work. It nicely captures Sacks’ interest and pleasure in plants and in evolutionary theory.

It provides an account of Darwins interest in and work in Botany. He was apparently particularly interested in botany at Cambridge, and indeed it was by the recommendation of his botany professor that he was invited to join the expedition of The Beagle (and it was for that professor that he collected and assiduously labeled botanical specimens, unlike his more haphazard and dilatory approach to other sorts of specimens. That said, Darwin never actually identified himself as a botanist, because — so the book claims — botany was at that time a purely descriptive discipline.

After Darwin returned from his voyage, he conducted a number of empirical botanical investigations, looking at natural selection and variation in flowering plants (which, until the point, were believe to be only self-pollinating), and also investigating insectivorous and climbing plants, in both cases fascinated by their sensing and motile capabilities. He wrote six books, the aim being to defend and further support the idea of natural selection, in a domain that far enough removed from human evolution that it might be subject more to consideration than to controversy.

The notion of such vast eons of time – and the power of tiny, undirected changes which by their accumulation could generate new worlds, worlds of enormous richness and variety – was intoxicating. Evolutionary theory provided, for many of us, a sense of deep meaning and satisfaction that belief in a divine plan had never achieved. The world that presented itself to us became a transparent surface, through which one could see the whole history of life.
The River of Consciousness, Oliver Sacks, p 24

C2: Speed

Begins with Sacks’ interest in nature as a boy, and the way in which he used photography to speed up and slow down natural processes, from the progress of his pet turtle across the lawn to the unfurling of the fiddlehead of a fern.

He then moves on two of H. G. Wells’ stories, The Time Machine, The New Accelerator, and The First Men in the Moon, which play with varying the speeds at which time, and does so in a very lyrical and cinematic manner. He then moves on to William James chapter on the perception of time, and his speculations on how it would be to perceive time at different rates.

From literature Sacks turns to human experience, first with annecdotal accounts of time passing more or less quickly: near death experiences where time flashes by; the experiences of racing cyclists where at high speeds they are still able to excute intricate maneuvers without feeling time pressure (though I note that although their speeds are fast, the maneuvers the execute are slow relative to the speeds at which they move). Next he visits accounts of the alteration of the sense of time under the influences of various drugs and epileptic seizures.

And from here we move to Sacks’ own work on the survivors of the encephalitis lethargic pandemic of the 1917-1928, and the ways in which their movements and experience was slowed or accelerated (or occasionally both, sequentially or, rarely, simultaneously in different halves of the body. It is striking the these patients do not seem to experience their own movements as abnormal — their movements are in sync with their internal clocks, whether running fast or slow. Another striking thing is that in patients who are speeded up, their physical abilities and coordination are often uninpaired, so that a speeded up person is almost unbeatable at ping pong… although activities where the speed bumps up against physical constraints (e.g., uttering words) are hindered. The speeding up or slowing down also affects perception, as in the speed with which the Necker cube is seen to shift configurations. Sacks notes that similar shifts in temporal experience (and movement execution) are also observed in people with Tourette’s, and that it is possible to use a high speed camera to record sequences of dozens of micro-tics within a single second (though slowed down Tourette’s people may experience their own slowness).

The speed up of the internal clock seems associated with exuberance and a relinquishing of caution and other forms of inhibition; but I am not sure that the slowing down is associated with enhanced caution.

He gives a few examples of ‘normal people’ who appear able to thing in an accelerated fashion: Robert Openheimer, Isaiah Berlin, and Robin Williams being two examples.

…A break in reading…

C3: Sentience: The Mental Life of Plants and Worms

Begins by noting that Darwin’s last book was on worms, and how it turned from an examination of their habits to an analysis of the capabilities of their nervous systems and speculation on the mental capacities implied. Then it turns to another early book — 1855 — by George John Romane on the nervous systems of jellyfish and other similarly primitive creatures. Sacks describes being charmed by Romane’s style of writing, this being, no doubt, yet another instance that influenced him in his desire to work in the genre of the scientific/natural history essay. And yet again, at the same time, young Sigmund Freud was working in the laboratory of Ernst Brücke, a Viennese physiologist, investigating the nervous systems of crayfish. Sacks writes that Freud recognized, as no one before him had, that nerve cells with their axons and dendrites comprised the basic signaling units of the nervous system that were repeated across animals of all sorts, differing primarily in their number and organization.

Darwin argued that plants and animals, in spite of their radically different modes of life, were more related than they might appear, in that plants do indeed react to sensory input (sometimes relatively quickly in the case of insectivorous plants), and thus evince a primitive nervous system. The primary distinction is that in plants nervous impulses are supported by the flow of Calcium ions through channels, whereas in animals quicker responses are afforded by Sodium and Potassium ions.* It is suggested that the evolution of signaling mechanisms employing Na+ and K+ ions is responsible for the Cambrian explosion with its proliferation of organisms participating in food webs of predator and prey, with its concomitant need for sensory and motile capabilities.

*[Calcium ions are physically larger and have a higher +2 charge, which reduces their permeability and leads to slower signaling.]

After this, Sacks moves into current history, describing the work of neuroanatomist Ramon Cajal, and Eric Kandel and his work on Aplysia that showed how functional changes in synapses accounted for short term learning and memory. He moves on to remarks on social insects and creatures with more complex nervous systems like cephalopods. And then the essay ends.

This feels like a not-really-finished essay that was still looking for a bit of narrative closure.

C4: The Other Road: Freud as a Neurologist

This chapter discusses the twenty year period in Freud’s life — from 1876-1896 – when he was primarily a neurologist. Freud, like many others, was influenced by Darwin and went into medicine. Here he encountered Ernst Brücke who gave him a first position in his lab, where he carried out the work on Crayfish and Lamprey mentioned in the prior chapter. In this work he showed that the nervous system cells of the two creatures — one invertebrate, the other vertebrate – were analogous. This was consistent with the Darwinian notion that organisms could evolve by re-using cells with the same components, but by increasing their number and organization.

Once he obtained his degree in medicine, Freud went on to work in the laboratory of Theodor Meynert, both a psychiatrist and neurophysiologist (at this point, a sharp distinction was not made between the two approaches). While Meynert was working on aphasia and viewed it as a case of localized damage to brain structures, Freud was uneasy with this in-his-view simplistic approach, and was more inclined to thinking in terms of functional systems and networks of cells. During this time Freud also spent time working as a clinician, where he honed his sense of observation, and wrote case histories in which he developed his powers of narration and his sense of the importance of a deep clinical history. He also spent four months working with the neurophysiologist Charcot, in France, who had a great influence on his thinking.

At some point Freud discovered the work of English neurophysiologist Hughlings Jackson, who was developing an evolutionary view of the nervous system. Jackson developed a conception of how the nervous system evolved, and looked at various neurological afflictions as resulting from a loss of ‘higher’ functions, this regression leading to a “release” of primitive functions. He developed this view with reference to epilepsy, but then applied it to a variety of neurological diseases, including aphasia, as well as phenomena like dreams.

In his own investigations of aphasia, Freud was struck by phenomena like the loss of second languages while retaining the mother tongue; the greater persistence of word sequences (days of the week) versus individual words; the fluent babbling of people with Wernicke’s aphasia; and the confusions among words that had some deep meaning or association to the patient. Freud argued that, because of phenomena like these, one must think in terms of functional cortical fields, rather than areas of the brain associated with particular word meanings. It is also notable that the idea of regression that Jackson used in explaining the release of more primitive neurological functions in aphasia, etc., is similar to what Freud deployed when he moved into psychiatry.

In 1895 Freud had a moment where he visualized how everything fit together — “from the details of neurosis to the conditions that make consciousness possible” – but was not able to retain it. But he documented his partial understanding in “Project for a Scientific Psychology.”

The final portion of the essay considers Freud’s views on memory. He saw aphasia as a form of forgetting, noted that often the first symptom of the onset of a migraine is an inability to recall proper names, and viewed hysterics as “suffering mainly from reminiscences.” Freud also viewed memories as dynamic, and that they are continually being reworked and recategorized: “Memory is present not once but several times over… representing psychic achievements of different epidsodes of life.” This is in line with the subsequent empirical work of Bartlett in the 1930’s.

Essay ends, rather suddenly and without an overall conclusion except to notes parallels with Freud’s thinking, with a few words on the understanding of memory in the late 20th C, e.g. Richard Gregory on visual illusions; work on the filling in of ‘blind spots’; and Edelman’s theory of neuronal selection.

C5: The Fallibility of Memory

Begins by noting the spontaneous surfacing of childhood memories as he approached his sixtieth birthday, some of which resulted in his essays on South Kensington and Humphrey Davies, and then in 1997 led him to begin work on his three year project to write “Uncle Tungsten,” his memoir of his boyhood and adolescence.

Next he describes how he discovered that a memory he had about the aftermath of a WWII bombing — that was vivid and detailed – was a false one, reconstructed, as it turns out, from a description in a letter he received from his brother. He reflects on his inability to distinguish this ‘false memory’ from a corresponding ‘real memory’ of another bombing incident a few months earlier, and ponders the veridicality of his other early memories. He also notes that in looking through his notebooks, he can find many examples of thoughts recorded, forgotten, and that then years later revived and reworked as apparently novel thoughts.

This leads into a more general discussion of studies of memory, and famous examples of cryptoamnesia (Helen Keller; Mark Twain; Coleridge; George Harrison). He also gives an example of the crypto amnesic plagiarism of one of his case studies which was transformed into the play “Molly Sweeny.” We then return to Freud, and his discussion of childhood memories, and his discovery that they were sometimes (often?) false, and then move into other examples of ‘repressed’ or ‘implanted’ memories of childhood memories. And that in turn leads us to the various studies of eyewitness testimony, and the ease by which false memories may be induced in experimental situations. As he notes, a common thread in these accounts is that appears easy to remember content while forgetting the source from which the content was derived; as noted, this ‘ability’ may make it easier to generalize across instances, a seemingly valuable ability.

To me, this essay feels like it has a stronger end than those proceeding it.

…A break in reading…

C6: Mishearings

A short essay on the phenomena; not sure it had much of a point to it.

What is interesting about mishearing is that they present themselves as words and phrases, rather than jumbles of sound; furthermore, we may entertain elaborate rationales to make mishearing fit our understanding of a person or situation.
While one mishears language, one seldom (never?) mishears music.
There is often a sort of personal style or character in mishearings — the misheard items often resonate with our likes or wishes or predilections.

C7: The Creative Self

This essay on the interplay between imitation and creativity is interesting, but is another that feels not quite finished.

“Voracious assimilation, imitating various models, while not creative in itself is often the harbinger of future creativity.” p. 130
“What distinguishes a creative assimilation, a deep intertwining of appropriation and experience, from mere mimicry?”
Sacks cites Merlin Donaldson who distinguishes among “mimicry” (a attempt to exactly duplicate), “imitation” (repeating , but not literally reproducing, another behavior), and “mimesis” (re-enacting or re-presenting a certain event or behavior). …I’m not sure how satisfactory I find these distinctions.
Discusses how musicians, artists, architects and writers may often begin by trying to reproduce or imitate others’, on their way to developing their own styles.
Sacks discusses two fictional pieces he was sent that were “based on” Awakenings — one, by Harold Pinter, seemed to him a creative transformation; the other, which reused phrases and sentences from Awakenings. Sacks speculates that Pinter, after reading Awakenings, had allowed himself to “forget it,” and thus what emerged was transformed.
Discussions of various anecdotes having to do with the long incubation of ideas relating to a problem, followed by sudden emergence of a solution or responsive piece of work in a dream, or a single moment of insight. Poincare. Kekule. Wagner.

C8: A General Feeling of Disorder

A rather disjointed essay on feelings of well-being a malaise, accompanied by a few speculations that they arise from loss (and regaining) balance or reciprocity between the autonomic and sympathetic nervous systems.

Sacks speculates that the “general feeling of disorder,” is due to a loss of balance between the autonomic and sympathetic nervous systems.
A common harbinger of migraine is a feeling that something is “off” or “amiss.” The vascular and visceral symptoms of migraine are typical of “unbridled parasympathetic activity.” Prior to these feelings, the opposite may happen: one feels “dangerously well,” as George Eliot would put it.
Sacks mentions the case of a mathematician whose migraines were followed by a wave of mathematical creativity. When his migraines were cured, he lost this creativity, and eventually decided he would rather have both than neither.
Sacks describes his reaction to a cancer treatment: it first left him feeling horrible for days, and then he turned a corner and felt extremely well for a few days. Whether this was due to a resumption of balance between his autonomic and sympathetic nervous systems, or an automatic overshot, he does not know.

C9: The River of Consciousness

“Time is a river that carries me away; but I am the river.” – Jorge Luis Borges
Is consciousness discontinuous — a stitched together series of moments — as Hume argues, or a continuous fusion of time, towards which William James was inclined.
The invention of Zoetropes in the 1830’s, initially constructed by philosophers and scientists, and later becoming instruments found in many middle class homes.
Sacks describes patients — both from his study of migraines, and his post-encephalitic ‘awakenings’ patients — who had cinematorgraphic vision where their vision was like a movie run too slow, at 6-12 frames per second.
Also had post encephalitic patients who had much slower vision, and were not conscious of the time — many seconds — between frames. This effect works both for views of the external world, but also for switching in the Necker cube illusion. There was also a discussion of motion-blindness following strokes, which seemed indistinguishable from the preceding.
Crick and Koch also envision neural snapshots that differ in duration but that are bound together; and, moreover, that different visual phenomena, like color, may be snapped at different rates.

C10: Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science

Reviews examples of forgetting or neglect in science where something — discovery of Oxygen by John Mayow, heritability of traits by Gregor Mendel, DNA by xxx — is discovered, but fails to be integrated into the discourse because it does not fit into what is currently known well enough.
Sacks talks about his own rediscovery of earlier work on complex geometric patterns in Migraines, and the earlier work’s accounts of these phenomena which current investigators were ignoring.
Found a similar situation with Tourettes, which most physicians did not recognize as a phenomena in the 1960’s, even though it was quite common.
Same for phantom limbs, and its opposite.

Sacks argues that new ideas must somehow be able to fit into a mental world view:

It is not enough to apprehend something, to “get” something, in a flash. The mind must be able to accommodate it, to retain it. The first barrier lies in allowing oneself to encounter new ideas, to create a mental space, a category with potential connection- and then to bring these ideas into full and stable consciousness, to give them conceptual form, holding them in mind even if they contradict one’s existing concepts, beliefs, or categories. This process of accommodation, of spaciousness of mind, is crucial in determining whether an idea or discovery will take hold and bear fruit or whether it will be forgot-ten, fade, and die without issue.
– Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness, p.

I think there is something to this; I see it, however, as more deeply connected to discourse among the participants in the field. I think that for something to ‘catch on,’ others must not only recognize it, but be able to link it to other ideas, theories, models and frameworks. It must have something to say that will shape how other ideas are understood. It is sort of a large scale version of how I see kairos as working: just as there is a moment where words can have an impact and make a difference, the same is true, mutatis mutants, for ideas.

Sacks also speculates that luck, or contingency, plays a big role in the reception of ideas. By analogy with what Gould has argued for evolution — that evolution would play out quite differently if it were ‘re-run’ – so, if it were possible to replay the history of a discipline, we might see it the discipline follow different paths of development based on happenstance and chance.

Final Thoughts

An interesting book. A number of the essays — especially those in the middle — feel unfinished, or at least lack the degree of narrative and the sense of closure that are common in essays. Given that this book was assembled, under Sacks direction during the last weeks of his life, this does not seem surprising. The essays that touch on the history of science — those on Darwin (2) and Fred – are the strongest, in my opinion, along with the closing essay on Scotoma, which also muses on the role of neglect and forgetting in science.