[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
is the bound awareness of all the sensory domains which
consciousness perceives), a simple and small change in the
limbic activities which access and apply habit routines is
the only hypothesis necessary.
Once again we see that if it is not bound sensory
awareness of which we are conscious, but rather our own
habit routines, the mechanism underlying the phenomenon is
easily imagined, rather than requiring several hypothetical
nervous system operations unsupported by any existing
research. And once again I think, the habit routine model
shows its capability to moot certain questions of
controversy by providing an overall structure in which
previously misunderstood or misinterpreted phenomena are now
brought together.
The Newly - Sighted
Another such phenomenon recently discussed in a popular
book (19) concerns persons who have been blind for many
years and whose sight is then restored, the "newly sighted".
Oliver Sacks relates the rare yet typical case of Virgil, a
man blind since early youth due to heavy cataracts. At the
age of fifty, he undergoes the relatively simple and risk-
free operation for cataract removal. All are hopeful for
wonderful results, yet, as has been noted in the handful of
cases with other newly-sighted patients, curious and
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/univch4.htm (28 of 46) [5/1/2002 12:46:38 PM]
The Center of the Universe Chapter 4
difficult problems arise and persist, and the final result
has often been disappointment and tragedy: Not because sight
is not restored, but as Sacks relates in a lengthy and
fascinating account of Virgil's tribulations, sight seems to
be extremely difficult to understand and interpret in such a
situation. According to the habit routine model, we could
say that firstly, Virgil had no available perceptual habit
routines to be activated by visual stimulation, therefore
what he "sees" is only color and motion in a practically
random and significance-less pattern. With effort and
practice, he is able to interpret some of the visual data in
terms of the world as he has known it through his other
senses, but he has immense difficulty in learning these
interpretations: they must be repeated each time anew. For
instance, visually he cannot tell his dog from his cat. The
instant he touches one or the other however, its identity is
obvious. Relating the visual data to the touch is not
retained however, for the next time he encounters the animal
visually, again he is lost.
Secondly, cognitive aspects of the habit routine
complexes are also lacking. This was illustrated by Virgil's
inability to see photographs and pictures as anything but
random if interestingly colored surfaces, even after he had
been practicing with his new vision for awhile. Along with
previous cases, he could not see people or objects in the
pictures, even after he had learned to recognize them in the
flesh. He simply did not comprehend the idea of
representation for there were no cognitive habit routines
available which would allow and facilitate such
interpretation.
And thirdly, since all Virgil's existing habit routines
consisted of structures building upon his previously
available senses, (it had been remarked how his sense of
touch and smell were acute, and far more developed than in
normal persons), there was no possibility of intuitive or
automatic cross-modal association between his new vision and
his established cognitive schemes for understanding the
world around him. With a cane, he could walk up a stairway
easily, yet the vision of the same stairway gave no
comprehension of its three-dimensional structure and how one
might navigate it. This, in spite of knowing for certain
that what was being viewed was the same object that could be
climbed with ease bytouch alone. There were no cognitive
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/univch4.htm (29 of 46) [5/1/2002 12:46:38 PM]
The Center of the Universe Chapter 4
habit routines enabling a connection between the reality as
perceived by the two sensory methods.
I refer the reader to Sack's description of Virgil's
symptoms (which one might call them in the sense that they
are the result of a deficit, in this case a deficit of habit
routines of perception and cognition necessary for the
function of meaningful vision). With the elaboration of each
strange effect, the habit routine interpretation is easily
and effectively summoned to organize and understand the
situation as a whole. In one sense, Virgil was in the
situation of a young child, trying to learn and establish
the habit routines necessary for interpreting a strange and
colorful visual world around him. Yet in another sense,
since his brain and cognition had already fully developed in
other directions, taking account of his deficit, he could
not hope to achieve what the child does effortlessly. In the
young child, the entire cognitive structure of habit
routines is nascent and plastic; at fifty years of age this
structure is rigid, established, and not amenableto radical
change such as the sudden introduction of a new sensory
pathway. In such a case as Virgil's we can see that the
total absence of habit routines enabling the interpretation
of vision renders the visual sensation incomprehensible;
visual data arriving in thinking2 awareness without any
organizing habit routine structure results only in a
profound and, in the end, often tragic confusion which
becomes a liability rather than a gift.
Perception of Language
I believe it is difficult, if not practically impossible
in some situations, to experience raw sensory data; we
cannot avoid experiencing external reality in terms of our
own habit routines. Consider what happens when we hear
someone speak a few words. If the words are in a language
which we ourselves speak, they are immediately and
unavoidably transformed into meaning! Try studying some
difficult subject while a conversation is going on, or
worse, an abusive TV advertisement is running. We are
practically incapable of hearing such auditory sensory data
as just noise, the meanings of the words keep attracting our
attention. But the meaning is not inherent in the sound! If
the language is not a familiar one, no meaning is produced!
What is the difference? We experience our own habit
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/univch4.htm (30 of 46) [5/1/2002 12:46:38 PM]
The Center of the Universe Chapter 4
routines, as I have stated, and when we hear auditory input
which calls forth habit routines of meaning, it is these
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]