Oliver Sacks bids us all goodbye

[Hermit]

Oliver Sacks had a productive and good innings. Now 81, he has only a few more months to live, so he takes a leaf out of David Hume's book and signs out with this brief message.

[JimC]

Read that in the Age today.

Dignity and integrity...

[Brian Peacock]

What an excellent essay from Dr Sacks - well worth 15 mins of anyone's time.

[Hermit]

15 minutes, huh? Didn't feel that long when I read it.

[Animavore]

Not only one of my favourite science writers, but one of my favourite writers full stop.

[Hermit]

Well, a book about neurology titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat would have to be pretty readable, and probably intriguing even to people who have no interest in the general topic.

[Animavore]

It's very readable. His writing reminds me of Umberto Eco, at least the English translations of Eco.

[mistermack]

It's readable. But I can't say I'm impressed.
He'd over eighty, and facing death, and he still doesn't get it.
It doesn't matter what you do in life. Once you're dead it means nothing. All this talk about packing the most he can into the remaining time just says to me that he thinks it means something.

If he doesn't get it by now, he never will.

[Hermit]

My take on his letter is different.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.

Seems to me he's saying that he won't give up living before life gives up on him.

[mistermack]

My take on his letter is different.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.

Seems to me he's saying that he won't give up living before life gives up on him.

Then he doesn't understand the meaning of the word living. Doing fuck all is living. Just as much as doing loads of stuff is.

It seems clear to me he feels like doing things, is somehow better than doing fuck-all.

I know he might say that it makes him feel better. But I get the impression that he thinks that it's somehow ACTUALLY better. He says he is eliminating unimportant stuff, and filling his remaining time with important stuff. What he doesn't seem to get is that none of it is important.

When you're young, maybe stuff that you do is important, because it can influence your future.
When your future is almost all gone, that doesn't apply.

[pErvinalia]

It might be important to him.

[mistermack]

It might be important to him.

I'm sure it is. That's the point I'm making.

If he was saying that he wanted to cram his remaining days, because he likes it, I would say it makes sense.

But he seem to be saying he wants to cram what time is left with important stuff.
That's where I say he's missing the point.
He's talking like he thinks it's actually important. Not just important to him.

[pErvinalia]

I don't read it that way. He thinks some stuff is more important than other stuff. Same as all of us, unless one is a complete nihilist.

[mistermack]

I don't read it that way. He thinks some stuff is more important than other stuff. Same as all of us, unless one is a complete nihilist realist.

[pErvinalia]

So, you don't personally hold some things more important than others? Somehow I don't believe that. I'm philosophically a nihilist, but even I hold some things personally more important than others.