To See Or Not To See

To See or Not To See By Oliver Sacks and reviewed by Seán, Tristram, Molly, Fridge AKA K.O.G

Virgil  50 years of age  He had poor eyesight as a child  He was struck with a triple illness at the age of 3:  Meningitis  Polio  Cat-scratch fever

 

 Blind for the past 40 years  Thick cataracts in his eyes  Small farmer in America  Had an operation to remove them



Success  Operation went ahead with no

problems  Bandages were taken off and

“Virgil could see”

Is it really that easy?? Can we simply see again? Was experience not needed? Could a man that was born blind

learn the difference between a sphere and a cube by touch, then learn to see and perform the same trick without touching them? No doubt he could see, but what

So . . . The first thing he saw was the

surgeon, but he couldn’t understand what it was. Only when the surgeon spoke did he realise he was looking at a face. He was “Agnosic”: mentally blind

At first  Virgil could See but not perceive He could Name colours(innate) He got very excited by bright

colours His first trick was to pick up and identify a roll of toilet paper He could tell the time by the clocks on the wall ?how? 

He could write letters and

numbers. But sometimes he got mixed up between the closer letters like A and H.

Perception vs. sight Perception: The psychological

process whereby the brain makes sense of information coming in through the senses. Sight: The physical means by which the eyes interpret the light and send this info to the brain using electrical currents via neurons. 

What could he be suffering from?  

Colour Anomia : Forgetting the

name of everyday objects  Colour Agnosia : cannot

understand what they are seeing. 

A t first  Couldn’t do a simple task like

playing with a Childs toy. Couldn’t tell the difference between the cat and the dog without touching them.

Sensation has no markers. e.g. a person who lived all their

lives in a dense rainforest was moved into a large open field they would try and reach out for the hedges or the mountains.

Party tricks

After a few weeks he could do a

few things: He could run up the steps(which he feared at first) put the key in the front door and open it. He had his single line around the house that he followed to get around(but if he deviated from this line at all he would become uncomfortable).

Virgil 

Similar patient found faces hard

to recognise , also the same with maps Virgil at the zoo Described animals by sound or a single motion  E.G. kangaroo jumping Competent when describing ape-posture ,knuckles , teeth

 He tried to cheat by saying he

could see the TV but he was actually only listening to the volume.  Most recent test he was asked to

draw objects. The result was that he only drew half the object 

Unexplained periods of blurriness

(maybe because visual part of brain being overloaded??) Virgil occasionally suffered from Antons syndrome, this is possibly due to the great amounts of stress placed on him since the operation. 

Like a baby Virgil had to learn to see again. Peoples bodies adapt to what

challenges are thrown at them Sight can cause stress… leading to depression. “learning to see is not like learning a new language, it is like learning a language for the first time”

Second operation Slightly disappointing in that not

much improvement in the retina that the right. Vision improved slightly He went back to work and discovered the more shocking side to seeing. He saw the blemishes on the skin on other people. 

Paranoia He starts to develop a fear of

having to work as a normal man again .E.G walking without his cane During his Christmas holidays he saw his mother for the first time in 40 years. 

After this Virgil's health starts to

deteriorate dramatically He looses his sight again He looses his job and house due to his illness Amy was in denial of him being blind. so she gets him tested. Results showed he was “Blinder than he had been before his operations”

Bob Wassermann re-examined

Virgil's retinas and found that it was the cataracts that were shielding his delicate retinas for years. Paradoxically a release was given a new second and final blindness, finally at home in his world of his other senses which he knows best. 

Was a m this ira w cle hole or pro a p ces lag s ue