Kurzbeschreibung
Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject.Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation--and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason.That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that exists in everyone, he argues, but often just below the surface of awareness, which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive. In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human--a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding.This 2003 edition features a new afterword.
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Taschenbuch
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Synopsis
The ten people in one million who are synesthetes are born into a world where one sensation (such as sound) conjures up one or more others (such as taste or colour). Although scientists have known about synesthesia for 200 years, until now the condition has remained a mystery. Experiments with more than 40 synesthetes led Richard Cytowic to an explanation of synesthesia - and to conception of the organization of the mind, one that emphasized the primacy of emotion over reason. Through his research Cytowic came to explore a deeper reality that he believes exists in all individuals, but usually below the surface of awareness. The author argues that the brain is an active explorer, not just a passive receiver, and offers a view of what it means to be human - a view contrary to conventional ideas about reason, emotion, and who we are.
