After they received doctorates in neurology and became curious about synesthesia, Dr. Richard Cytowic and Dr. David Eagleman converged their research, thoughts, and ideas into one book; “Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia.” Synesthesia refers to the ability to experience different senses together. For example, words can be tasted, or colors can be heard. Dr. Richard Cytowic, a synesthete (one who experiences synesthesia) himself, received an M.D. in neurology from Duke. Dr. Cytowic is now a Professor of neurology at George Washington University and has written multiple books, some on the topic synesthesia. Being a synesthete, Dr. Cytowic is very effective in presenting synesthesia in this book. The other author of this book, Dr. David Eagleman, also received a Ph.D. in neurology at Baylor College of Medicine and went on to direct the neuroscience laboratory at Baylor among many other educational and scientific endeavors. Both of these doctors are well-studied and experienced in their studies of neurology and the mind. That being said, they have the know-how and credentials to write this book.
Synesthesia – the topic these doctors discuss - is not a well-known or well-studied subject, so these doctors are two of the few pioneers in the resurgence of this topic. The idea of synesthesia has been around since Greek philosophers pondered the idea of it, but it was not until the 1800’s that it became a specified scientific field of study. Between the 1930’s and 1980’s synesthesia was thrown on the backburner as a new age of behaviorism became prevalent in the field of psychology. However, synesthesia made a comeback during the ‘90’s and has continued to become more well-known among the general publi...
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...cked up the book I had to tell someone some little fact that I had learned that day because it is such a fascinating subject to think about. However, I am not saying that this whole book was just a walk in the park and a ton of fun to read, because there were points that I had to read over again because I did not quite understand what the authors were trying to say; namely because I am not an expert in the field like they are and comparatively have little knowledge of psychology in general. However, the information was written in an interesting and creative manner and flowed so well throughout the book. As I was reading this book it did not feel like a textbook about synesthesia, rather a journal with in depth explanations. For those of you have a nerd side, enjoy learning about the mind, or maybe even experience synesthesia, I would highly recommend this book.
Rowland, Lewis P. (ed.): Merritt's Textbook of Neurology, eighth edition. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia, 1959, pp. 630--631.
... it was nice to not feel overwhelmed by the language used in the book. Overall, this book was insightful, entertaining and extremely helpful. I loved this book and highly recommend it.
Overall this was a great book. I have a great deal of interest in the brain. It is a truly amazing and fascinating organ. Its complexity bewilders not only researchers, and many neuroscientists but me as well. I also have somewhat of a passion for fitness and to learn how beneficial exercise can be, not only to our body’s health but the brain as well. It gives me a new understanding about a “workout”. The author did a great job explaining all of the very complicated processes that are involved in exercise’s wondrous benefits. Even though some of the information may have been boring, the way it was presented was not. This book was a great read and overall I would recommend it to any interested in exercise or the brain.
The philosophical theory of dualism holds that mind and body are two separate entities. While dualism presupposes that the two ‘substances’ may interact, it contrasts physicalism by refusing to denote correlation between body and mind as proof of identity. Comparing the two theories, dualism’s invulnerable proof of the existence of qualia manages to evade arguments from physicalism. While a common argument against qualia—non-physical properties defined in Jackson’s Knowledge Argument—targets the unsound nature of epiphenomenalism, this claim is not fatal to the theory of dualism as it contains claims of causation and fails to stand resolute to the conceivability of philosophical zombies. This essay argues that epiphenomenalism, while often designated as a weakness when present in an argument, can remain in valid arguments from qualia.
Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician in the 1700s is said to have brought animal magnetism (hypnosis) to light. However, since many people were beginning to seek out Mesmer and his fellow colleagues, King Louis of France at the time asked Benjamin Franklin and others to delve deeper into this new practice. Which led to a setback into hypnotism, brought on by the brought to light doubt surrounding this new found practice, as being a medically beneficial method. The full acceptance of hypnosis in medicine did not come about until 1847 and in 1958 the American Medical Association (AMA) approved and published a 2-year study written by the Council on Mental Health. In the report it stated that there could be, “definite and proper uses of hypnosis in medical and dental practice and the establishment of necessary training facilities in the United States” (James, 2008). Some of the multiple t...
Rowland, L. P., ed. Merritt’s Textbook of Neurology. 7th ed. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia: 1984.
Dr. P was an accomplished singer, a gifted painter, and a teacher. It was while teaching at school that the first onset of problems began. Dr. P would sometimes not recognized students faces when they presented themselves, although he was able to discern who was who by hearing their voice. Dr P. increasingly failed to see faces, and even saw faces that were not there. Initially, Dr. Sacks did not understand why this charming and educated man had been referred to him, although there was something rather odd with the way Dr. P oriented his eyes while addressing him. It seemed that, while talking and looking at Dr. Sacks, Dr. P focused on individual features—like his ears, nose, or chin—instead of looking at his face as a whole. It was while performing a routine neurological examination that the first queer experience took place. Dr. P made the strangest of mistakes, confusing his foot for his shoe. Dr. Sacks continued examining Dr. P. His vision seemed fine but he had rather curious responses to certain images presented to him. He picked up different individual features like a shape or color, but could not see the image as a whole. However, what bewildered Dr. Sacks was when Dr. P, suddenly assuming the session was over, grabbed his wife´s head and tried to put it on. He had apparently mistaken his wife for a hat!
Most doctors at the time treated hysteria as a physical illness, except Breuer and Freud. Freud and Breuer had a patient named “Anna O.” who they used hypnosis to treat. They published their findings in Studies in Hysteria, which talked about hypnosis to treat hysteria. In the case of Anna O., her symptoms were relieved after her hypnosis sessions. After disclosing information about her father’s death during hypnosis, Anna O. was able to feel her arm again and speak, which she wasn’t able to do previously. Freud’s work using hypnosis helped him understand the power of unconscious influences on behavior (Burger
Hypnosis as a therapeutic technique has evolved. Countless of studies have verified the potential of hypnosis as a treatment for subjective symptoms of a variety of conditions. Hypnotherapy has been largely investigated in a scientific manner in the centuries following Mesmer’s hypnotic techniques- and yet no common accepted classification of the phenomenon exists. Fortunately, there is an accepted idea among professionals and analysts about what occurs during the hy...
As more studies were conducted, however, some doctors began to link hysteria with restricted activity and sexual ...
In controlled studies, experimenters use placebos as medium to compare the efficacy of a drug. Double-blind controlled studies provide information on whether a drug is effective or if it is not better than placebo. The results of double-blind studies usually depict the latter. Rarely are drugs found to be significantly more effective than placebo because of the placebo effect. The phenomenal effectiveness of the placebo in controlled experiments is mind boggling. Experimenters can not fully understand the etiology of the placebo effect in relation to the nervous system but they have proposed plausible suggestions to the underlying mechanisms involved. An intriguing question raised is the placebo's ability to cure numerous symptoms. I hypothesize that the level of consciousness or alertness of the I-function, within the individual, may be the deciding factor in whether the placebo effect occurs.
Ramachandran, V. S., and Sandra Blakeslee. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: Quill, 1999. Print.
This paper aims to endorse physicalism over dualism by means of Smart’s concept of identity theory. Smart’s article Sensations and the Brain provides a strong argument for identity theory and accounts for many of it primary objections. Here I plan to first discuss the main arguments for physicalism over dualism, then more specific arguments for identity theory, and finish with further criticisms of identity theory.
Qualia are the subjective qualities of experiences that make up an individual’s reality. Qualia affect the way humans identify with experiences, emotions, and themselves, thus altering personal identities and behavior. Since the theory of qualia was introduced in 1929, the term ‘qualia’
Before long, however, he faced patients whose disorders made no neurological sense. For example, a patient may have lost all feeling in one of their hands, but there is no sensory nerve that would numb their entire hand and nothing else when damaged. Freud’s search for a cause for such disorders set his mind running in a direction destined to change human self-understanding. He believed that some neurological disorders could have psychological causes. By observing patients with these disorders, Freud was led to his discovery of the unconscious (Myers & Dewall, pg# 573, 2015). Furthermore, he theorized that the lost feeling in the individual’s hand might have been caused by a fear of touching their