A man was misdiagnosed as being in a coma for twenty-three years while being fully conscious. As Mark Steyn (from whom I got the link) says, it’s amazing that he retained his sanity.
It would behoove neurologists and neuroscientists to be a little more humble about what they think they know about the brain and consciousness.
It’s a real-life case of “Johnny Got His Gun.” Truly frightening to contemplate and I can’t help but wonder how many others may have been in the same situation. It’s a wonder the man didn’t go insane.
It would behoove neurologists and neuroscientists to be a little more humble about what they think they know about the brain and consciousness.
Even more so for the AI/Singularity people.
On second thought–
behoove: to be necessary, proper, or advantageous for.
Necessary? Obviously not.
Proper? Yes.
Advantageous? Obviously not, at least for short-term purposes.
I went to two different hospitals last week. Two hospitals, two different doctors, two different diagnosis. The first was wrong the second right. Hey, a batting average of 500 isn’t so bad, right?
You think Al Gore might actually be conscious, too?!?
Am I the only one wondering about Terri Schiavo?
Without commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the Schiavo case, it was pretty clear that large portions of her cerebral cortex were gone, on both sides. While there are cases of people managing reasonably well with literally half a brain, most of those cases involve people who had the brain loss at an early age, when the brain is much more able to adapt to such large changes. It seems rather unlikely that Schiavo was “locked in” (as the condition is often referred to).
Terri Schiavo came to mind immediately. We’ll never know the level of her awareness but, as videotaped, she did make sounds that seemed to be responsive, and smiled at hearing the voices of loved ones. I can barely stand to contemplate the hell this man lived in for 23 years.
This story needs to examined skeptically. It appears to involve “facilitated communication” which is a very questionable technique. James Randi has a good post about this at:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/783-this-cruel-farce-has-to-stop.html
I just watched his method of “communication.” and it was assisted communication.
When I first read the reports, I was worried that this would be the case.
Assisted communication is BS, however, you can tell that the guy is responsive, but odds of him being as articulate as is applied to him seems to be complete BS, based on someone wanting to sell a BS practice.
Assisted communication is crap. If he can see the keyboard enough to guide a finger, while paralyzed, then he can focus on keys and images in the same way hawking can.
Shame this turned out to be a complete load of crap.