PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (ON OLIVER SACKS): "Our memories and our motives are
inseparable. Essentially, the "us" in "us" is a bundle of memory that
makes choices based on that bundle. "Recollection could have no force,
no meaning, unless it was allied with motive," he writes. "The two have
always been coupled together."Following this setup, he devotes a
whole chapter to "The Fallibility of Memory," citing his own proven
failures as examples. "It is startling to realize, though, that some of
our most cherished memories may never have happened — or may have
happened to someone else." Looking back on his case files, he
writes of "imagined or real abuse in childhood, of genuine or
experimentally implanted memories, of misled witnesses and brain-washed
prisoners, of unconscious plagiarism, and of the false memories we all
have based on misattribution or source confusion." He concludes that "in
the absence of outside confirmation there is no easy way of
distinguishing genuine memory or inspiration, felt as such, from those
that have been borrowed or suggested."
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COMMENTARY: "Robert Thorson: How We Shape Our Fallible Memories," by Robert Thorson, published by The Hartford Courant on January 4, 2018.
Robert M.
Thorson is a professor at the University of Connecticut's College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences. His column appears every other Thursday. He
can be reached at profthorson@yahoo.com. Thanks to the Wrongful Convictions Blog for drawing this commentary to our attention. HL;
PHOTO CAPTION: "Robert Thorson praises Oliver Sacks' book, which looks at how memories are formed and their fallibility.:
GIST: "Looking back on the so-called bests of
2017, I decided to share my best reading experience of the year; a
daylong rafting trip down "The River of Consciousness" by Oliver Sacks.
Having received the book as a Christmas present, I binge-read the whole
thing in one great gulp during one of our recent bitterly cold days. Though
Sacks is best known as the neurologist who wrote "The Man Who Mistook
His Wife For A Hat," he was one of the last true polymaths, fully
conversant in multiple fields and the boundaries between them: religion,
physics, chemistry, evolution, history, psychology and more. Sacks'
title provides a needed counterpoint to last year's steady drip of
presidential tweets. These have skewed media attention to Twitter, our
shortest form of written communication, one that splats our brains and
precipitates an instant reaction. As with paddling down a stream,
reading a book-length narrative is a steady engagement with its author.
He or she provides a large string of words that flow in one direction,
and we, the readers, make meaning from that string. The result is a
protracted and enjoyable neurological river of consciousness.And
now, some of the scenes I saw when floating down his book that are
particularly relevant to digesting the news from last year. At the
proverbial end of the day, everything we do is about two things:
metabolism and consciousness. Let metabolism stand for everything
organic that gives us the energy that allows our brains to work — the
getting of food and the burning of that fuel. Let consciousness stand
for everything neurological that is fueled by that metabolism, the
mental activity that defines who we are. Everything about our identities
— race, family, friends, religion, school — is created from within by
burning that fuel. Sacks writes: "Every perception, every scene,
is shaped by us, whether we intend it or know it, or not. We are the
directors of the film we are making — but we are its subjects too: every
frame, every moment, is us, is ours." What does this say about external
reality? Kim Jong Un?
Donald Trump? You? Can any two people ever experience a genuine meeting of the minds? In
his chapter "Sentience: The Mental Lives of Plants and Worms," Sacks
explores the mindfulness of different animals and plants. "Mind, to
varying degrees, has arisen or is embodied in all" animal phyla (the
fundamentally different kinds such as worms, snails, insects, jellyfish
and squids), "despite the profound biological gulf that separates them
from" one another, "and us from them." The human mind is only one of
many mindful forms. What role should this play with our choices to keep
pets? To eat anything? Our memories and our motives are
inseparable. Essentially, the "us" in "us" is a bundle of memory that
makes choices based on that bundle. "Recollection could have no force,
no meaning, unless it was allied with motive," he writes. "The two have
always been coupled together." Following this setup, he devotes a
whole chapter to "The Fallibility of Memory," citing his own proven
failures as examples. "It is startling to realize, though, that some of
our most cherished memories may never have happened — or may have
happened to someone else." Looking back on his case files, he
writes of "imagined or real abuse in childhood, of genuine or
experimentally implanted memories, of misled witnesses and brain-washed
prisoners, of unconscious plagiarism, and of the false memories we all
have based on misattribution or source confusion." He concludes that "in
the absence of outside confirmation there is no easy way of
distinguishing genuine memory or inspiration, felt as such, from those
that have been borrowed or suggested." How does all this relate to your
own experiences? So, for the coming year, I suggest you find an
indoor day, dim your screens and float away on the "The River of
Consciousness" that a good book can provide us.""
The entire commentary can be found at:
http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-thorson-fallibility-memory-0104-20180103-column.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the
Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my
previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put
considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith
and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic
pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses
on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please
send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest
to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy;
Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
