Saturday, February 2, 2013

Asylum Walk (31)





(n.) anosognosia: the inability to acknowledge or recognize a deficit

A neurological term used, for example, in cases after stroke where a person exhibits paralysis but does not consciously realize this, may in fact strenuously deny it, confabulating to explain discrepancies. Consider:

The kinds of anosognosia indicative of insanity.

The kinds of anosognosia indicative of sanity.

Maladaptive and adaptive obliviousness.

Given that maintenance of a coherent world-view (including a self-view) depends to a high degree on screening out most features of that world (and self?)—how much screening out is necessary? If we must select a tiny fraction of the available data to make meaning—how much larger a fraction can we allow before meaning disintegrates under the load?


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