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Colette's picture

  When discussing the movie

 

When discussing the movie "Beautiful Mind" about the schizophrenic John Nash, it made me wonder--aren't we all a little schizophrenic? Like Nash, we see so many things that look real but in actuality are not. For example, when we looked at the checker board and we thought some of the colors were different, but when put under the right type of light, they were actually the same color. There can be much variation in the accuracy of sensory perceptions. Many animals have much more sensitive and accurate senses than humans, for example bloodhounds for smell and eagles for vision. Compounding the problem is the interpretation of sensory signals done by the brain is not perfectly accurate. What passes for real may only be an approximation. Inaccuracies are not diseases, but limitations. When the source is unknown it might be difficult knowing if a person is speaking in the next room or the DVD. The defect in distinguishing what is real in disease states like schizophrenia usually goes beyond figuring out that the TV is not a real live person.

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