21C Man part 13: Wetware Problems Don't Matter if the Job Gets Done.

[Reginald Ret]

More good writing!

I'm glad you are rid of the paranoia.

[Doktor Howl]

More good writing!

I'm glad you are rid of the paranoia.

Thanks.  It was a nightmare.  I still have bits and pieces, but nothing to write home about.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"Wetware problems" 

I'm wondering if what's happening is that after information leaves the visual cortex and is routed to the identification pathway, some connections in the identification pathway are, um, a little miswired. So V1 goes "HEY BOYS WE HAVE A FAMILIAR OBJECT HERE, WHAT'S THIS ONE?" and the where pathway says "POSTBOX"! So you see a postbox.

Yeah, I've been reading up on it.  The data is received, but is coupled to the wrong identity, much like an IRS file or a military DD214 record.  The person exists, the record exists, but the relationship between them is both false and hopelessly tangled.

On occasion it is entertaining or even brilliant accidental satire.  It's also more frequent, which the neurologist said was one possibility.  It may or may not slow down.  The good news is that it's not debilitating, just occasionally a hassle.  I have yet to run into a situation where I didn't know what I was supposed to be seeing, and could ignore the misrepresentation.  That is bound to happen, though, but I am not worried about it.

It's certainly one way for life to be more interesting.

But the paranoia is almost entirely gone, and I would have - no joke - cut an arm off to get rid of that.  I feel like maybe someone who got cured of cancer and wound up with some radiation scars.  BIG HAIRY DEAL, I may have some indexing problems, but I'm not actually crazy anymore.

It's hard to articulate how happy I am about this, especially since the problem stayed static for a long time.  Apparently, if the brain doesn't re-route itself in a certain period of time (a year or so, IIRC, but I am not an expert, and the neurologist wasn't wanting to give me straight answers), it almost never does.

I think it's really interesting that it did so after you started traveling a lot. There's been some research into exploratory behavior and neurogenesis, but of course it's really hard to study in conjunction with brain damage in humans.

That never even occurred to me.

If I could prove it I could probably win a Nobel. But all I got is this case study of a guy I know. 

I may only be a single data point, but I am a dead sexy single data point.  What are they gonna do?  Say no?  I'll flex at them, and they'll hand you the sheepskin so fast you'll get friction burns on your fingertips.