Order in Disorder

The Proprioception of Being: its frail affirmation
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks




The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all.
-- Wittgenstein

This reminded me of the query of Descartes from his Meditation that he doubted how we can believe that what we are cognizing is able to be called ‘real’ or ‘true’. The distinction between hallucination and reality seems shallow like a piece of paper. Descartes finally had to assert that there is only one thing he can prove of the true being: his own being. Even it is possible not through our perception but through his cogitare which can be translated as ‘to think’. So he avows, “cogito ergo sum” which means, ‘I think therefore I am’. It might have been an outrageous provocation of the belief of old that had approved the reliability of the human’s perception. However, personally this assertion of Descartes sounds rather frivolous and flippant. How can he assure that his proprioception of being is telling him the truth through ‘his thinking’? And, to conclude with this conclusion Descartes had to ignore or more likely ‘omit’ the existence of his body. The study of the human cerebral cortex to learn about our perception and cognition must sound only bizarre and inhuman to him. What would Descartes say when he could diagnose this woman who was literally disembodied. Descartes excellently aided the whole human to believe that the certainty of their existence is purely the matter of mentality.

It is shockingly inhuman how the human has been trying to omit the physical. The author Oliver Sacks seems to point out man’s inhumanity to man that is generously accepted under the name of modernity. The specific stories case by case and cautious observation of each patient seemed a dramatic deliverance of human beings from the inhumanity of modernity. The pathological cases of ‘abnormal’ or damaged brains freshly brought up the thought upon the problem of being; the problem of the meaning of being, the interconnection of body and spirit, or even the query if the separation of body and spirit is possible at the first place…etc. Philosophy and psychology has to be human more than human since it studies the human before the human studies it. –Is this another chicken or egg question?- The whole stories about neurological patients accentuated the humanity of the studies of the human.

Going through my own mother’s loss of memories, even though it was for a short period of time, I queried myself over and over again what really the being is. The form of her physical body, her voice or even her handwriting was all the same as before but she did not remember her family or her deeds. What I was seeing did not feel as reality and I could not believe myself observing the true phenomenon. The woman I was observing could not guarantee the confirmation of my mother’s being. Any epistemological certainty was not guaranteed. It was like residing in the complete dark without a hope of a beat of light. It was almost scary how easily we can all tumble down into that darkness at a snap. The problems about the normal perception and true identity matter loads to human beings. We are designed to perceive things like we do now and ponder upon our being like we do now. And our brain and body perfectly interconnected operate to make us perceive the world and comprehend the world as we do now. Nothing seems to be accidental. It should be perfectly designed to be this way. It hurt my family and my mother herself that some doctors did not know how to deal with those neurological symptoms properly. They still are the whole human beings, even though it is not easy to recognize it with their certain defects. However, we will have to admit that it really is not just about some brain damaged people’s problems but we should not miss the frailty of the proprioception of human beings they suggest.


Jean Dubuffet, Campagne Heureuse, 1944
Angel Hye-young Kim