Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Part 1b

[turdlinger5000]

god bless his wife's heart

[LloydDutch]

I have to admit, i have been watching and reading about this man and I think he is slighly improving, not in memory, but he does not seem to have spasmatic jerking, in videos of him in later years unlike throughout this video.

[nynord18]

This video makes me glad we're cutting music from schools in this country. Music serves no purpose in life.

[brittanyybreakdown]

@nynord18 go to hell.

[nynord18]

@brittanyybreakdown I was being sarcastic.

[blondieo80]

for me, i get upset... really nice man, studying psychology is hard

[shlaflafify]

In my opinion, he needs to occupy himself with music all the time, that is timeless for him

[supersmash43]

Actually the man at the beginning of this video is incorrect. Some other animals actually have profound memories but the majority animals we just aren't sure of how well their memories are.

[rockylegend1234]

ha this guy is so funny he should be a comedian

[koffiebroodje]

She's amazing

[coydigga]

I wish the entire video was available. If you watched Part1a, you see another man in the opening sequence. That man was a prisoner (a lifer) who agreed to have his corpus callosum (bridge between left and right lobes) cut for scientific study.

An end result was that he could read with one eye, but not recognize shapes. The opposite was true for the other eye.

Very interesting video I found at college that changed my feelings on the nature of the mind and the soul.

[Wanapelei]

2:34

[TSTrombino]

"Have I told you about my condition?"

[alwayscheckxx]

dont get it..

why is he suddenly bulching?

[antiego1]

His brain is still trying to fire information in the form of action potentials to neurostructures that no longer exist. The resulting encephalic electrical disturbance leads to fits.

[akkafietje]

Did he have an accident, or is it spontaneously happen.

I hope if it happen to me, my wife has the same patience as Deborah

[antiego1]

it all started with a headache, it's viral enciphalitis

[O8SERVER]

The brain damage was due to a virus.

[DymonClef]

a fever over 102 in particular

[sk8erboi55789]

he had encephalitis that damaged the part of his brain where memory is stored

[akkafietje]

sk8 thanks, so that means everyone can get it ?

[sk8erboi55789]

pretty much, it's kind of rare for it to be that severe, but he most likely didn't get medical attention as soon as he should have.

[haz7241]

thats real sad i dnt think i cud live like that it would hurt if i dont my family and friends and my close people, it would get really frustrating losing my memory.....feel real bad about the man.

[philipdarby5]

you could live with is though because you wouldn't be aware of having a problem, you'd just carry on living.

[Tulipso]

From The New Yorker:

"When he was filmed in 1986 for Jonathan Millers extraordinary documentary Prisoner of Consciousness, Clive showed a desperate aloneness, fear, and bewilderment. He was acutely, continually, agonizingly conscious that something bizarre, something awful, was the matter. His constantly repeated complaint, however, was not of a faulty memory but of being deprived, in some uncanny and terrible way, of all experience, deprived of consciousness and life itself."

[Symbiotel]

I've watched many many videos recently about this man. I just recently heard about him....But the one thing I don't understand is this...If he forgets so quickly, why in ANY video of him, doesn't he say one thing about why there are cameras recording him, or why are they in the room, or just ANYTHING about them? I tried putting myself in his shoes, and thought that if I would notice them before I noticed anything else...I'd be asking "Why the hell are there cameras and cameramen here"...Right?

[wannabeastarrover]

yes true, it like i said on the last vid before this one,i dont think its fake, but theres seems to be a lot more going on than simple memory loss,maybe even some form of mental illness adding to it, i know that ay sound crazy but its just that some things do not seem to add up

[alexmagnus1]

Actually there are records of him asking the cameramen something like "Are you from the Buckingham Palace?" He thinks he has awaken after a long coma-like condition and got big media attention.

[jazzymojoe]

Its like music has become outside time for him.

[mepsib]

Yeah it's almost as if music is another realm of time for him in a way, though I know that makes no sense!

[loosekarrott]

@jazzymojoe it's oddly poetic, isn't it

[CulturalCritic22]

i remember watchin this in psychology class a long time ago, and it really marking my life.

[iluvnapoleon2]

Oh wow. The seizure thing is just too bad.

It's very interesting to see the raw emotion which everybody, deep down, wishes they could also display with condescension.

[Jbear9]

Poor man. I wonder, had he the choice, would he rather continue to live this way or just end it?

[redlion83]

I voiced the same idea and a very wise person said--" how can you end what you awaken to everyday and never know the difference"--he thinks his day is a first day---when you live the way he does---he is oblivious to all the things that we all see---oblivious is bliss!!

[Jbear9]

Yes, oblivion... We're the ones who pity him, and his poor wife, of course. His writings would indicate he senses something is not right, but I understand what you're saying.

[Eikinkloster]

Quite the contrary, if you saw the video and the one before this. He lives in a perpetual state of anguish and anger. He knows something really wrong happened. He just can't keep enough information to understand what was it.

Since he could keep something of a line of thought, I wonder whether anyone tried to explain to him he had lost his memory. He just keeps telling himself he's just awaken. What happens if he is told "no, you have just had your memory erased"?

[Whatsifsowhatsit]

I imagine his wife did that several times in the beginning. I too wonder what would happen, but whatever did happen, she probably decided it either wasn't worth it, or was just not very nice at all.

It is quite sad, overall...

[kattermerrang]

But he seems to have happiness in his life ... seeing his wife and feeling alive for the first time (he writes 'HURRAH!' in his diary) but maybe inside he has a feeling of something being fundamentally wrong

[hackerutd]

I therefore wonder if it is possible for him to learn to do new things. As he can remeber his wife and recognixe her. I wonder if it possible for him to learn new things like playing new card games. Also whether he could remeber his old school friends.

[alexmagnus1]

Everything he remembers is from the time before 1985.

[hackerutd]

i have also watched this in my psycology class. What i found very interesting is attention thing. He can argue and be argumentative and carry on saying his arguement but seems to not stop just carry on with what he is saying whilst stayin on subject. I think thi is to do with he attention part of the mind. The attention and Short Term memory are very closely linked together.

[iluvnapoleon2]

I watched this for my psychology class too.

That's a very interesting thought. How exactly did his condition come about? I don't think it really explained it. (Just that he had a headache.)

[hackerutd]

Its a disease which klled off parts of the mind. They tried to cure it but alas was to late.

Although I get headches which make me often forget things like where ive put my CGP AS chemistry book

[slsr13]

viral encephalitis is what it says in the first part. his hippocampus was destroyed which is vital in short term memory

[MrsKewlkruse]

How is he able to conduct that song the whole way through if he can't remember more than 30 seconds?

[seiferalmasy2]

if you would have done some research you would know it is because those functions are stored and retrieevd elsewheer and are procedural memory. Music requires no past or future, only the moment. His long term memory is damaged and the hippocampus which encodes memory is destroyed.

[MrsKewlkruse]

Um... I'm just watching a video on YouTube. Why would I 'research' anything? It's not like it's knowledge that will benefit me later. Besides, why research anything when I can ask someone else (like you)?

Thanks for being rude to me. :D

[seiferalmasy2]

don't mention it, I can't stand laziness to use google. I am sorry but it aggrivates me to see so many questions whena touch of a button will suffice

[MrsKewlkruse]

Oh, and by the by... I realize he can still know HOW to conduct and play music. I just wanted to know how he can get the whole way through a song without forgetting where he's at, because there IS a past and future in music; there's the measure you JUST played, and the measure you're about to play... you know?

I wasn't asking the question in the tone of accusing any sort of fraud or foul play. I sincerely wanted to know how he gets through a whole song.

[manifest]

@MrsKewlkurse- im wondering that too. how does he get through the whole song? I guess its like he just knows the next word..and it keeps going on..a song is continual. Its like this i guess... Put your 2 hands out, put your left on top of your right hand, now your right on top of left, left on right, right on left..and keep going... I guess similar to that

[StgDeath]

We watched this in our Psychology class. Playing music, singing, and conducting are actions that he doesn't have to remember in order to do. He just knows them, like one would ride a bike. There is no need to remember how if it is already common to you. If you still don't understand, think of him reading music like he would read a book.

[StgDeath]

He doesn't have to remember how to say a word or pronounce it, he just knows as it is part of his Explicit Memory -- memory that you don't have to remember in order to recall. Implicit memory is memory that you have to recall in order to remember. Compare it to reading a book at the age of 15 to playing a new video game. You already know how to read, but you will have to learn how to play the game. While playing, you will have to "recall" back to the instructions in order to play the game.

[Tazbaby2066]

I was reading your input and wanted to tell you I thought you had a great way of wording how his Implicit memory works. Good job. If you goole more of him, you can see him older. He has even a shorter memory now.

[mrblablablabla]

Notice the sheet paper in front of him on the piano. I bet a musician like Wearing can read the music even better than most of us could read a book. I doubt he would be able to play a song without the sheet music. If he could, it would be very curious.

[queenie0106]

his wife is so loyal

[xeniak]

atleast his twitching stopped in his most resent videos

[Mu5HROoM]

Clive is the shit

[bengovernment]

poor guy.

[HotSIzZle12]

amazing.