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I’ve just finished reading An Anthropologist on Mars, by Oliver Sacks. It is a compilation of case studies of people with neurological disorders, how it affects their memories, their creativity and their life in general, and how they create new senses of self.
As I mentioned in another thread, it is quite interesting, but it is not light reading. I’ve just spent a couple of weeks reading with a dictionary by my side.
Here are the words I had to look up. There's no need for anybody to comment, I'm just putting them here because I found them interesting and I though you might too.
Achromate: n. ophthalm. A person unable to perceive colour.
Agnosia: n. psychiatry. Partial or total inability to recognize objects by use of the senses.
Alexia: n. psychiatry. A cerebral disorder marked by the inability to understand written speech
Amentia: n. psychiatry lack of intellectual development, imbecility, idiocy.
Anomia: n. medical. The inability to name objects or to recognize the written or spoken names of objects.
Apocope: n. Loss or omission of the last letter, syllable or part of a word. A cutting off. Cut off.
Chromatophenes: n. The “seeing” of coloured rings or halos (like with migraines) by stimulation of V4 region of cerebral cortex.
Contiguous: adj. 1) touching, in contact 2) in close proximity without actually touching
Contrapuntal: adj. music 1) of, or pertaining to counterpoint. 2) composed of two or more independent melodies sounded together.
Echolalia: n. psychiatry 1) The uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person. 2) The imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development. Echolalic – adj. Echolalically – adv.
Edema: n. pl. –mata pathol. Effusion of serious fluid into the intestices of cells in tissue spaces or into body cavities. Also, oedema. Edmatose – adj.
Eidetic: adj. Of, or pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery retained in the memory and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail.
Fugal: adj. music Of or pertaining to a fugue, or composed in the style of a fugue.
Gnosis: n. Knowledge of spiritual things; mystical knowledge.
Gnostic: adj. Also gnostical. 1) pertaining to knowledge 2) posssessing knowledge, esp. esoteric knowledge of spiritual things. 3) (CAP.) pertaining to, or characteristic of the Gnostics – n 4) (CAP) Christians who claimed to have superior knowledge of spiritual things, and explained the world as created by powers or agencies arising as emanations from the Godhead.
Hemianopia: n. ophthalm. Any of several conditions in which there is blindness of half of the vision of one or both eyes (also hemianopsia, hemiopia, hemiscotosis.)
Ischemia: n. pathol. Local anemia produced by local obstacles to the arterial flow. Ischemic – adj.
Labile: adj. Apt to lapse or change, unstable.
Larch: n. 1) any coniferous tree of the genus Laris, yielding a though durable wood. 2) the wood of such a tree.
Numinous: adj. 1) of, or pertaining to, or like a numen; spiritual or supernatural. 2) Surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious. 3) arousing one’s elevated feelings of duty, honour, loyalty, etc.
.......... Numen: n. pl. – mina Devine power or spirit; a deity, esp. on presiding locally or believed to inhabit a particular object. [< L : a nod, command; divine will, power or being; akin to nütäre to nod, again and again]
Oneiric: adj. Of or pertaining to dreams.
Ontotagy: n. 1) the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such, as distinct from material, spiritual existence, etc. 2) metaphysics
.......... Metaphysics: n. 1) the branch of philosophy that treats of first principals, includes ontology and cosmology, and is always intimately connected with epistemology. 2) philosophy, esp. in its more abstruse branches. 3) (CAP. Italics) a treatise (4th century B.C.) by Aristotle, dealing with first principals, the relation of universals to particulars and the theological doctrine of causation.
.......... Epistemology: n. A branch of philosophy that investigates the origins, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge.
Qualia: n. The experiences of sensory input (as opposed to the describable facts of such input.) In the classic example, a sighted person can see red, (e.g. “red looks hot”) or provide informational descriptions (e.g. “it’s the colour you see when light of such-and-such wavelength is directed at you”.) Simpler still, consider the impossibility of ever describing the experience of seeing colour to a person born blind.
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addict
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Valuable resource, belM.
I assume "qualia" shares the same root as "quality" ... the pure essence of something rather than a groping in the dark for it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know about the root Grapho. I have to admit that Qualia was the one word that I had to search the net to find. It wasn't in my dictionary.
I found a couple of sites that said it didn't appear in some dictionaries because it doesn't have an accepted definition - different people say it means different things.
I chose this definition because it fit what was being discussed in the book.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Allo Faldage,
Oddly, it was actually the musical term that was being used in the book - which is why I only included that one. He was discussing an extremely autistic person who nonetheless had perfect grasp of contrapuntal and fugal elements.
(And odder still, fugal - the medical term - I knew the definition of.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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damn, qualia is some heavy shit...  read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
formerly known as etaoin...
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Aye it is. I didn't include all of the definitions since it just goes on and on. I figured I'd use the one that was pertinent to the reading.
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Carpal Tunnel
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When I run into "medical" words I check them out using http://www.webmd.com Just put the word in the search box and find out more than you need to know - ever!
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old hand
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Dennett also had a chapter in Consciousness Explained (?) called Quining Qualia. I tend to agree with him that too much ismade of qualia, and the notion of the subjective - but then, I'm a materialist.
Bel, I'm glad to discover that I knew a few of the philosophy-of-mind related words in your list.
cheer
the sunshine "I might be a machine" warrior
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>>Bel, I'm glad to discover that I knew a few of the philosophy-of-mind related words in your list.
I know what you mean. That "ooo, I know what that means" feeling.
I'm a big "asker." If I don't know what a word means, or I don't understand what somebody is saying, I'll ask the person for clarification.
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