I was browsing in the bookstore in the philosophy section, where I feel the most comfortable, when I came across Existentialism is a Humanism and A Commentary on The Stranger by Jean-Paul Sartre. [1] These days I am looking to strengthen my knowledge of existentialism, in light of my recent experience trying to connect with […]
My Dad had a thing for geniuses. He was an odd mixture of intelligence, adolescence, social awkwardness and confidence. One thing for sure, he admired the intellectual and emotional achievements of geniuses long past such as Mozart, Beethoven, Fermat, Poincaré. Those he admired who lived contemporaneously with him included Einstein, Norbert Wiener and von Neumann, […]
I’m here outside Chicago with my grandchildren finishing up my 2nd full day. By the time you read this, however it will be the next day, so ‘yesterday’ below really means ‘two days ago’. Sorry for the confusion… Yesterday I mentioned William’s multimodal way of taking in information: his eyes staring at things I could […]
It has always been difficult for me to have faith, in almost anything. The disillusionments of childhood, starting with my unreachable older brother, may have had a lot to do with it. Mike is autistic, profoundly retarded and nonverbal. It would have been so much easier to abandon myself to a strong belief, dismissing evidence […]
I just started reading The Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen, the autism researcher who also wrote Mindblindness. The subtitle of the Science of Evil is, On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. Baron-Cohen’s thesis is: cruelty exists when empathy fails. Baron-Cohen’s definition of empathy First part of definition: “Empathy occurs when we suspend our single-minded […]
My understanding is that empathy means to feel what another person is feeling while sympathy is the ability to understand what another is feeling. Here are two definitions from the web: Definition 1: “Both empathy and sympathy are feelings concerning other people. Sympathy is literally ‘feeling with’ – compassion for or commiseration with another person. […]
Not thinking too clearly today. Last night another person I was acquainted with died. Yesterday I mentioned that a former colleague of mine took his own life, even though he was a religious person. The idea of death itself isn’t on my mind as much as the changing landscape that accompanies it. The fact that […]
Over the past few days and weeks, end-of-life issues have surrounded me. A wonderful blogger friend of mine is having problems; on my wife’s side of the family, several of her relatives are gravely ill and not expected to live very long; a former colleague of mine took his own life just a few days […]
My interest in the brain arises from having a brother who is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. For the longest time I wanted to understand what the brain does and why my brother is the way he is. Today’s post and yesterday’s post focus on an effort from 1934 to define what thought is and […]
This is a huge topic. I hope to investigate this realm and relate my findings to a long-standing issue of mine: communication with my older brother who is low functioning, autistic and nonverbal. Those of you who follow my posts know that I am probably obsessed with the idea of communicating with Mike. In some […]
