The Minds Eye - Essay Example

? Developing the Eye Inside the Mind: The Blind’s World in Sacks’ “The Mind’s Eye” 4 September Developing the Eye Inside the Mind: The Blind’s World in Sacks’ “The Mind’s Eye” In “The Mind’s Eye: What the Blind See,” Oliver Sacks (2003) explored questions regarding the relationship between the brain and the mind and how these interactions impact the world of the blind and the sighted. He noted that neurologists, in general, believe that the plasticity of the brain happens for a limited span of time in childhood, and after that, the brain remains relatively unchanged, and that the brain controls the mind. Sacks (2003) used numerous examples from memoirs and anecdotes of the blind and the sighted to prove that the mind controls and shapes the brain too. He presented his thesis on neuroscience, where sighted people depend on their eyes to perceive the world, while the blind rely on different organs to recreate their world. By using different rhetorical strategies in describing and analyzing stories, Sacks (2003) showed that the ability to perceive the world is inside the mind, and that blindness changes the mind by enabling the brain to develop differently because the brain is “metamodal” and synesthesia happens when people choose to perceive the world with fuller use of all their senses and develop different new skills because of their heightened metamodal use of their brains. Sacks (2003) asserted that to see is not the only way to perceive the world because the blind develop other ways of seeing through reshaping their minds, and then afterwards, changing how their brains work. He provided the memoir of John Hull, a professor of religious education, who has lost his sight slowly, since he got cataracts at the age of thirteen. Hull described in detail, how without his sight, deep blindness has led to becoming a “whole-body-seer” (Sacks, 2003, p.304). Instead of relying on visual images to perceive the world, for instance, Hull illustrated how his other senses compensated for his blindness, such as how listening to the rain gives him an “acoustic experience” that “presents the fullness of an entire situation all at once” (Sacks, 2003, p.304). Sacks (2003) used commentary afterward to explain what blindness implies to people’s minds and brains. He said that without his eyesight, the rest of his other senses sharpened, especially his auditory sense; the impact is “an intensity of being-in-the-world” (Sacks, 2003, p.304). By commenting on Hull’s way of remaking his world, Sacks (2003) helped readers understand that despite being blind, people can recreate their perceptions in their minds, which, in turn, allows them to develop their brains in ways that are different from the sighted. Furthermore, through this commentary, Sacks (2003) explained to readers that Hull’s experience demonstrated that the brain is far from being a permanently molded structure by the time people are adults, and instead, changes in organs can affect the mind, which in turn, affects and controls the brain. The blind loses their sight, but not their ability to manipulate other organs to fully perceive the world. Aside from showing that the blind can see through other senses, other blind people have adapted to their blindness in different ways that show interesting insights about the mind and the brain, specifically, how people can control their mind, which shapes their brains. Sacks (2003) used another memoir which showed how the blind adapts to their blindness by citing the story of Zoltan Torey, an Australian psychologist, who described his experience as a blind man, in contrast to Hull. While Hull attained a deeper auditory-spatial sense, Torey developed a sharpened sense of visual imagery. Torey asserted that he rejected the idea of letting go of his visualizing ability and visual images and focused on continuing his visual abilities despite his blindness. Using compare-and-contrast strategy, Sacks (2003) showed that Hull and Torey’s reactions to their blindness were different, and so their subsequent cognitive actions developed their brains differently too. Sacks (2003) provided differences in the coping strategies of Hull and Torey, wherein on the one hand, Hull “did not use his potential for imagery in a deliberate way, lost it in two or three years,” while on the other hand, Torey “maintained a cautious and ‘scientific’ attitude to his own visual imagery,” to the point of repeatedly checking the accuracy of his visual images in his mind (p.308). Sacks (2003) explained that Torey was not the same as Hull who gave up on visualization to experience the world in a new and different way. These examples underline that people are individuals with different coping mechanisms, proving that the every mind has person-level differences too. To further expand on the brain’s plasticity and different ways of seeing for the blind, Sacks (2003) depicted the experiences of Sabriye Tenberken through her memoir. Tenberken has impaired vision since birth, but she can make out pictures and images from common words. Tenberken narrated in detail how she saw something so vividly and yet in reality, this image was not accurate, such as when turning toward a lake, she viewed “a beach of crystallized salt shimmering like snow under an evening sun, at the edge of a vast body of turquoise water…” only to know that she has been “staring” at “rocks and a gray landscape” (Sacks, 2003, p.309). Despite the mismatch between reality and her perceptions, she said that she was happy. Sacks (2003) compared and contrasted Tenberken’s state of mind to that of Torey’s, where the former focuses on imagination, which can be romantic at the most, while the latter is realistic and precise (p.309). He used compare and contrasting strategy to show that neurologists and laypeople altogether cannot generalize what happens when the blind see or perceive the world. Every blind person has his/her own way of perceiving their worlds. Anecdotal evidences from blind people whom Sacks have encountered provide further evidence that the blind shape their minds and brains in different ways, specifically according to their own choices. Sacks (2003) compared the experiences of a blind psychologist, Dennis Shulman, from Hull’s. He used Shulman’s description of his perception process: “I often give public lectures, and my notes are in Braille; but when I go over them in my mind, I see the Braille notes visually- they are visual images, not tactile” (Sacks, 2003, p.309). Sacks (2003) used compare-and-contrast and description to help his readers visualize how the blind see the world without their sense of sight. Another anecdote comes from Arlene Gordon, who used her sense of touch to create visual images. Gordon illustrated her approach to visualization, wherein she said that when she moves her arms in front of her, she could imagine seeing them despite being blind for the past three decades (Sacks 309). As with the example of Shulman, Sacks (2003) intended for his readers to understand the perception process of blind. He further employed cause-and-effect rhetorical strategy to connect the actions of other organs to the mind and the brain. He talked about the effects of what Gordon does to her perceptions and eyes: “This involved a sort of cognitive exertion (similar perhaps to translating one language into another), and sooner or later this would give her an eye ache” (Sacks, 2003, p.310). Sacks (2003) used cause-and-effect rhetorical strategy because he wanted to prove that movement affects the mind and the mind also affects the brain and other organs physically. People have choices in shaping their minds and brains. Aside from proving that the blind has different ways of recreating their worlds through diverse heightened abilities, Sacks (2003) argued that the mind is metamodal. He defined “metamodal” after describing the different experiences of the blind. He stated that “metamodal” refers to “in-between stages,” the “intersensory” “states for which we have no common language” (Sacks, 2003, p.310). By defining metamodal through the experiences of the blind, Sacks (2003) highlighted the powerful interconnections among people’s senses, interconnections that fully activate once one of the senses is lost or damaged. Furthermore, Sacks (2003) used summarization strategy to synthesize important similarities and differences to prove that the mind is “metamodal.” An example is summarizing the impacts of blindness to Dennis and Arlene by mentioning how they process the world through their own visualization strategies. Sacks (2003) said: “Both Dennis and Arlene, similarly, spoke not only of a heightening of visual imagery and imagination since losing their eyesight but also of what seemed to be a much readier transference of information from verbal description…into a visual form” (p.310). Sacks (2003) used the summarization strategy to confirm that losing one functioning organ allows other organs to be activated more, so that they can compensate for what is lost. In other words, Sacks (2003) supported his argument that blind people provide evidence that the mind uses interconnected modalities to perceive and make sense of the world. The metamodal aspect of the brain provides numerous advantages that the sighted cannot always attain. Sacks (2003) narrated the example of Jacques Lusseyran, who lost his sight at the age of eight. Lusseyran was a French Resistance fighter. Lusseyran walked before with his non-blind friend Jean, and the former noted that the latter became angry when he realized that Lusseyran’s world had more pictures and colors than his (Sacks, 2003, p.312). By narrating and describing differences in two worlds, the sighted and the blind, Sacks (2003) showed that blindness is not so bad if it results to the maximization of the metamodal brain. Sacks (2003) further used process analysis to indicate that with the loss of sight, Lusseyran sharpens other cognitive abilities. He described that Lusseyran has developed a “seemingly infallible ‘nose’ or ‘ear’ for detecting falsehood, possible traitors” (Sacks, 2003, p.312). Sacks said this because he wanted to connect the process of coping with lost sight to the process of enhancing the blind’s use of their metamodal brain functions. Apart from Lusseyran, Sacks (2003) showed the benefits of blindness to synesthesia through the exemplification strategy. He gave several examples of blind people whose enhanced senses enabled them to become better in their jobs. The first example is Shulman, the psychologist, who described that he had become more in-tune to his patients because of his loss of sight. Shulman explained that because he is blind, he uses his other senses sharply more than ever, and as a result, he can sense people more deeply, including their anxiety and apprehensions that he can perceive through their voices and scents (Sacks, 2003, pp.312-313). Sacks used this example because he wanted to show that metamodality has tangible rewards. In addition, Sacks (2003) compared and contrasted synesthesia that occurs differently for blind people. He combined the experiences of Lusseyran and Tenberken and contrasted these with Torey’s. Sacks (2003) explained that for these two people, their metamodal coping mechanism to blindness are similar because of “an added physiological factor” through their attraction to painting and colors, and so “… the persistence of visual imagery and synesthesia, or its heightening, might be almost inevitable in the event of blindness” (p.314). On the contrary, while Lusseyran and Tenberken made it seem effortless, Sacks (2003) underlined that Torey’s approach requires more conscious effort where he focused for several months in improving visual accuracy in his mind (p.314). Through comparing and contrasting these experiences, Sacks confirmed that synesthesia occurs in different ways according to the choices and personalities of people. Moreover, Sacks (2003) underscored that the mind is so complex that no one can fully explain how it works and how it can be improved. He provided the example of a vascular surgeon who claims that he lacks visual imagery (Sacks, 2003, p.315). By giving this example, Sacks invited questions on the complexity of the human mind. Sacks hypothesized that people can see, understand, and memorize the world in different ways, whether they are blind or not, probably because it is imagination that drive the mind and the brain. He defined the action of imagination on cognitive processes: “Imagination dissolves and transforms, unifies and creates, while drawing upon the ‘lower’ powers of memory and association. It is by such imagination, such ‘vision,’ that we create or construct our individual work” (Sacks, 2003, p.317). Sacks used this definition to argue that people have choices and personalities that affect their minds and brains. Synesthesia happens when people tap their multimodal brain and achieve complete use of their senses. Sacks (2003) showed through different rhetorical strategies that the blind has something to teach to the sighted. Their loss of sight allows them to heighten their senses, thereby empowering them to use their multimodal mind. As a result, they attain synesthesia and become fully one as a person, with all their senses interacting and heightened to compensate for the loss of any other sense. Sacks proved also that the mind and the brain are flexible and interconnected. Even the blind use their minds and brains in different ways according to their preferences and individualities. In connection to the sighted, Sacks reminded them of the power of their imagination. His lasting message is that one does not have to be blind in order to be a human being who is in full mastery of all senses. Reference Sacks, O. (2012). The mind’s eye: What the blind see. In R.E. Miller & K. Spellmeyer (Eds.), The new humanities reader (4th ed.) (pp.303-307). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. (Original work published 2003). Read More