Food for thought:
As we were discussing the concept of the brain versus self, I remembered a TED Talk from this past year I had seen online. The man, Martin Pictorius, speaks about his time as what one would describe as a vegetative state; he was unable to move or communicate but still had his brain function. What I actually found interesting was that throughout his narrative, Pictorius continuously referred to his lack of ability to communicate as a constitutive factor in his degradation or “loss” of personhood. This is surprising to me because in class we had discussed how the brain and brain functions were what made our “selves.” Regardless, his TED Talk is really inspiring and opens up a way in which we can understand how it felt for someone who was locked within his physical body but could still use his mind.
Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is another narrative about locked-in syndrome. Communication is crucial for Bauby too, in large part because it enables relationships with other people. There may be an argument to be made that language itself is crucial for identity. There’s certainly an argument to be made that social relationships are, though of course that’s complicated by experience like Temple Grandin’s. For her, social relationships were a mystery for much of her childhood and a fair bit of her adult life, but one certainly couldn’t argue that she wasn’t experiencing identity. Of course, just because social relationships mystified and troubled her doesn’t mean they weren’t informing her identity.
The role of our brains in the making of identity is far from settled. That’s one thing we know. I’m looking forward to watching this video–tomorrow, when I’m feeling a little more energetic!