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Marvin Minsky
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Marvin Minsky, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (photo by Donna Coveny). © 2004 Donna Coveny (http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/NPUC95/images/minsky.gif, July 8, 2004)
Raising children as atheists
By Marvin Minsky
One day, at age 17, I was walking alone at night during a snowstorm in a singularly quiet place. I noticed that the ground looked further away than usual, and then it seems that I was looking down from a height of perhaps 10 meters, watching myself crossing the field.
Well, having some education, I recalled some descriptions of this fairly common type of hallucination, and exclaimed to myself, "how interesting; I seem to be having a mystical experience. I'd better put a stop to this right away, or I might experience a conversion or something," recalling some observations of William James. So I quickly ran over to a nearby dorm and started a social conversation with some students.
Migraine Art: Autoscopy. © 2004 Migraine Action Association and Boehringer Ingelheim Limited
Another time, I forget the circumstances, I was looking at a tree and noticed that it was flickering strangely, sorta like a burning bush. In particular, I observed that it had acquired a sort of colorful, jagged, pulsating outline. "My goodness," I exclaimed to myself, "it would seem that I'm experiencing a scintillating scotoma, and it looks just like the picture I remember from Duke-Elder's Textbook of Ophthalmology. I'd better get ready for a migraine headache." (I had had what aseemed to be migraines before, but never with this phenomenon -- which was actually rather gratifying, because it confirmed an otherwise inconclusive diagnosis.) I always wondered if Moses (presuming that there ever was such a person) had migraines, too. Only a few such patients hear sounds as well.
Hubert Airy's illustration of scintillating scotoma from Sir W.S. Duke-Elder, Text-Book of Ophthalmology: Volume IV. Henry Kimpton, London 1949.
So let's add to the rest of this useful discussion a new point: make sure that your children learn about the 7 most common forms of mystical experience and whatever is known about their neurological mechanisms. ...
Of course this is good advice only for those who like their minds the way they are.
(Marvin Minsky, Newsgroups: alt.atheism,sci.skeptic, May 31, 1992)
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"It's thrilling to see that old message again. I had forgotten about that 'burning bush.' I will certainly link my website to yours! It looks like an interesting and useful project and will help remind some readers that there are many strange 'aliens' already among us. In fact, the Duke-Elder textbook was first published around 1937. My father was an ophthalmologist at New York's Mt. Sinai Hospital, so I probably read it when I was about 10 years old. I might add that I suffered from severe migraines about once a week between the ages of about 16 and 30, but the preceding scintillating scotomas only began in my early 20s. That's why those visual symptoms were a welcome event; it meant that there was no serious brain disease. Curiously, those headaches usually came Thursdays on Fridays, and I have no hypothesis for the cause of this. Every physical motion made the pain worse, so I usually retired to lie down for some hours in a dark room. However, I did a great deal of thinking in those times, so I think I regarded this affliction as more gift than disability!" (Email to Klaus Podoll, July 8, 2004) |
References
Duke-Elder WS. Text-Book of Ophthalmology: Volume. IV, The Neurology of Vision; Motor and Optical Anomalies. Henry Kimpton, London 1949.
James W. The varieties of religious experience. A study in human nature. Macmillan, New York-London 1961.
Author: Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Wed. July 14, 2004
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