Clinical amnesia & ordinary consciousness

Is clinical amnesia just ordinary consciousness writ large. This thought came to me after reading an article in a recent New Yorker.
Oliver Sacks in his amnesia series in the New Yorker (September 24, 2007) describes a musician who cannot remember anything more than a few seconds. This is Clive Wearing, described as "an eminent English musician and musicologist," who became the "worst case of amnesia ever recorded."Even so he can conduct music and play well in an attentive talented manner. The interesting thing that comes to mind regarding the insights of Jan Cox as revealed in his writings is that this musician developed topics of conversation, a few topics, such as the solar system, and using these few topics, he could fit into a conversational setting. The amnesia was not less total, but the subject of the amnesia article had developed what his wife called "stepping stones" in his consciousness, -- these few topics which he repeated many many times. What occurred was that this amnesia and these few topics are not actually different from the condition Jan and others (one of the few instance where he did use a not totally original vocabulary), called 'being asleep,' the state of consciousness for normal people. If my surmise is correct then what the neurologists are flagging as defining characteristics of amnesia, are actually just a more extreme form of the human sleeping condition. The point is not that this poor fellow is not in a bad state, but rather that the description of his symptoms are merely those of ordinary consciousness, taken to a more extreme degree than is commonly seen on this planet of ours.

The Real Alchemy

The alert reader will perhaps have reached the conclusion that progress in "This Kind of Stuff" is impossible -- how after all if the secret is fresh thought, can you communicate anything to anyone, and how, if the weight of an entire planet, the mechanical genetic heritage which we are born with, and which surrounds us, how with this weight can one speak of freedom at all.
Understand the reality of these strictures, contemplate the impossibility that is being pointed at.
And think about those stories of alchemists. Those alchemist who said they had transmuted lead to gold---those people understood first that lead would always be lead.

The fact is that progress in seeing point blank reality IS impossible. Perhaps that sentence should be rephrased to read sustaining the vision, remembering the quest, is impossible. Yet some men have succeeded.

Avoiding hero worship

Speaking of names, one tool he used with students was to insist (at certain periods of his life) they call him by a name he designated, like "Timex." This discouraged mechanical identification with him, something he always fought, because the human need to follow a leader, the deep genetic basis for this craving, this mechanical flow, operated against the things he was trying to show us.

Like so much he did, this was difficult to convey because it was his voice and example against the entire population of the planet. Most of his students did not continue. A lot were kicked out. A great number were handled during the initial interview in such a manner that they fled. Many people imagine themselves to be looking for a real teacher, until they have the fortune to encounter one.

He knew the worth of his time, and discouraged the namby pamby types, who he could perceive had no talent beyond their imaginary view of themselves of seekers. Of course by namby pamby we are speaking of a certain mental shift; many of those who fit this label were the blustering chatterboxes, the wolves and bums. These are two of the personality types he would outline for us in an attempt to encourage us in our goals. But internally these two types, imperceptible to any but a few, were subject to the same hapless mechanical tides that swept the planets peoples. These tides have of course a crucial place in maintaining civilized order. Such order though is the enemy of those struggling toward a still focused inner sight.