An Anthropologist On Mars

"Really, all Sacks’s books are an inspiration to me in bringing together scientific and philosophical reflections on various human conditions. In all his books he uses case histories where something is going wrong neurologically. In T he Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat he talks about prosopagnosia, which is an inability to recognise a face, and then it turns out later in his life he actually has that condition himself. I find that kind of symmetry interesting. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . In this book he has some fascinating stories, including a well-known one about Temple Grandin, who was the high-functioning autistic who wrote the book Thinking in Pictures . He describes her ability to ostensibly see the world of animals that are being led to a slaughterhouse in a way that other people, especially those who designed slaughterhouses, could not. That represents the idea of being able to see for someone else. Yes, she helped the animals not to be so fearful of approaching their death . There is something paradoxical in that, of course. But putting that aside, it is interesting to me that she was able to realise that something shiny, like light reflecting off a puddle or a swinging chain, might disturb or alarm an animal that has a visual sensitivity to that type of thing. Most people wouldn’t think of that because we just go about with our heads and eyes and experiences. That’s right."