The Man Who Tasted Shapes, revised editionIn this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human. 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, he argues, exists in everyone but is 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 is 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. |
Contents
February 10 1980 Not Enough Points on the Chicken | 3 |
The World Turned Inside Out | 6 |
1957Down in the Basement The Making of a Neurologist | 9 |
How the Brain Works The Standard View | 18 |
Winters 1977 and 1978 There Is Nothing Wrong With Your Eyes | 26 |
Direct Experience Technology and Inner Knowledge | 36 |
March 25 1980 Blinding Red Jaggers | 46 |
Down in the Basement The History of Synesthesia | 51 |
The Implications of Synesthesia | 163 |
October 5 1982 The Reverend and Martinis | 172 |
ESSAYS ON THE PRIMACY OF EMOTION | 183 |
The Anthropic Principle | 186 |
Free Lunch and Imagination | 189 |
Consciousness Is a Type of Emotion | 194 |
The Limits of Artificial Intelligence | 197 |
Different Kinds of Knowledge | 202 |
April 10 1980 Taste This | 64 |
Diagnosing Synesthesia | 73 |
April 25 1980 Where Is the Link? | 80 |
Painting the Ceiling | 89 |
Summary 1980 Bringing Things to a Close | 99 |
September 1983 Bizarre Medical Oddity Affects Millions | 111 |
Form Constants and Explaining Ineffable Experiences | 118 |
Altered States of Consciousness | 127 |
May 21 1981 Taking Drugs | 138 |
June 29 1981 Bride of Frankenstein Revisited | 144 |
How the Brain Works The New View | 153 |