Qualia and Brain Damage
Ahnimus
Posts: 10,560
wow!
So, I'm reading on the differences in visual perception caused by brain damage. Chapter 12 in The Astonishing Hypothesis by Francis Crick.
Qualia as many of you know is the redness of red. The richness of the visual imagery we see in the world around us. Philosophers and laymen often ask "How does this arise from the brain?" and tend to attribute it to some metaphysical thing.
Crick mentions several different types of brain damage affecting visual perception. In one case the patient cannot recognize the face of his own wife, he can recognize her body language and so on, but not her face. In another case, a painter, suffered a stroke and lost his ability to see short-wavelength colour (Blue). This caused his world to become a gloomy grey colour. His wife's skin appeared rat-like to him and he could not make love to her. Yet, he could see a worm move blocks away. Another patient could not see movement. If she was pouring a glass of water, she would see the water frozen in time and the next moment spilling out of the glass. When crossing the road, she had no way of knowing where the cars were, she only saw still frames of traffic. Another patient lost their sight all together, but denied that they could not see. When asked what the doctor's tie looked like the patient said "Red with blue dots" when in-fact the doctor was not wearing a tie at all. Another man lost the feeling that his one leg belonged to him, so he chucked it out of his bed and found himself lying on the floor.
I don't think we need look much further than the brain to answer this question of Qualia.
So, I'm reading on the differences in visual perception caused by brain damage. Chapter 12 in The Astonishing Hypothesis by Francis Crick.
Qualia as many of you know is the redness of red. The richness of the visual imagery we see in the world around us. Philosophers and laymen often ask "How does this arise from the brain?" and tend to attribute it to some metaphysical thing.
Crick mentions several different types of brain damage affecting visual perception. In one case the patient cannot recognize the face of his own wife, he can recognize her body language and so on, but not her face. In another case, a painter, suffered a stroke and lost his ability to see short-wavelength colour (Blue). This caused his world to become a gloomy grey colour. His wife's skin appeared rat-like to him and he could not make love to her. Yet, he could see a worm move blocks away. Another patient could not see movement. If she was pouring a glass of water, she would see the water frozen in time and the next moment spilling out of the glass. When crossing the road, she had no way of knowing where the cars were, she only saw still frames of traffic. Another patient lost their sight all together, but denied that they could not see. When asked what the doctor's tie looked like the patient said "Red with blue dots" when in-fact the doctor was not wearing a tie at all. Another man lost the feeling that his one leg belonged to him, so he chucked it out of his bed and found himself lying on the floor.
I don't think we need look much further than the brain to answer this question of Qualia.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
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i got a booklet from the doctors office about epliepsy. it classified many of those things as "partial seizures" and "complex partial seizures".
These could be symptoms of seizures as well. Then they cut the corpus callosum and you get split-brain. Something else that is interesting.