Skip to content
Guest Thinkers

Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close Talk About Their Own Brain Disorders

We live in an intriguing era of self-disclosure.  Tonight, in New York City, the World Science Festival features a panel discussion called Strangers in the Mirror: “What’s it like to face a faceless world? Acclaimed neurologist Oliver Sacks once apologized for almost bumping into a large bearded man, only to realize he was speaking to a mirror. Sacks and photorealist painter Chuck Close—geniuses from opposite ends of the creative spectrum—share their experiences of living with a curious condition known as ‘face blindness,’ or prosopagnosia. The two will discuss the challenges of maintaining interpersonal relationships—when even family and close friends appear as strangers.”  


When Close was on Big Think, he talked about photographing Brad Pitt and whether the art market is more corrupt than Wall Street. When Sacks appeared on Big Think, he spoke about hallucinations and sleeping sickness.


Related

Up Next
“Intuition can help us make good decisions without expending the time and effort needed to calculate the optimal decision, but shortcuts sometimes lead to dead ends,” says The Chronicle of Higher Education.