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Lisa B.'s picture

Week 7

For me the underlying question of our discussion has to do with personal identity. Is behavior only composed of the nervous system? According to the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), "we are nothing but a bundle or collection of different sensations, succeeding one another with inconceivable rapidity." Furthermore, the British neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote that there are two fates of human perception, the ‘Freudian fate' or the ‘Humean' fate (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat 124).  Some humans have a Humean, as opposed to a Freudian fate, if neuronal activity overpowers identity. In Chapter 14, "The Possessed," Sacks wrote that the Freudian fate compelled his patient diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome to survive. Sacks wrote that the will to survive as a unique inalienable individual was stronger than disease. I agree with Sacks that humans survive to become an individual and that we are more than a bundle of nerves. 

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