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Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

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Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#211

Post by fallinditch »

Check out the 6 album cycle that depicts the gradual degradation of dementia: Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker. A brilliantly imaginative work.

https://youtu.be/wJWksPWDKOc

Chatgpt: This ambitious project was released in stages (or "stages") from 2016 to 2019, across six albums, each representing a different phase of dementia. Through his distinctive use of manipulated pre-World War II ballroom music, The Caretaker, aka Leyland Kirby, explores the progression of the disease, from subtle early signs to the total disintegration of memory and understanding. The work is both an artistic exploration and an empathetic representation of the condition's impact on the human mind and memory.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#212

Post by stevenwoo »

bombcar wrote: post #141
vouaobrasil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There are very few wild areas left, especially in warmer areas. Much of the natural resources of these areas are contaminated such as water. Natural areas are often government-managed or privately owned. Gone are the days where you could wander off into the wild and just live as some of the indigineous tribes used to.

You could live as long as you wanted on BLM land, as long as you kept moving. Of course, you'd probably die pretty quickly, but nobody would stop you. The chance of living on a proverbial paradisal desert island isn't available anymore; those places are desirable!

Nomadland documents the writer and an entire subpopulation (working, not going to die) moving along BLM lands to seasonal agricultural jobs and warehouse jobs and National Park service jobs, it sounds kind of exhausting and precarious, not very different from struggling in a single day job.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#213

Post by UncleSlacky »

markdog12 wrote: post #199
trylfthsk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can also recommend the Ted Chiang story Understand [1], which adds in a dash of The Most Dangerous Game . [1] https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40835

Incredible story. Would love if anyone has any similar recommendations.

Maybe Awakenings?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awakenings

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#214

Post by mrmuagi »

nox101 wrote: post #180
fairity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many of us are attached to our intelligence. I love this story bc it's a reminder that we should value personal excellence over intelligence. By personal excellence I mean making the most of the intelligence you’re given. The arc of intelligence in Flowers of Algernon is the same arc we’ll all experience over our lifetime. With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. If we value intelligence, in and of itself,…

> With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. Citation needed AFAIK it's not remotely true that "we all lose our mental faculties". Plenty of people do not

I thought it was well understood that your mental/physical potential peak when you are young and degrade thereafter? E.G. comparing 26 year old self to 86 year old self.

But a saving grace is the degradation can be combated with exercise both mental/physical.

I am not sure how much of aging is understood, so I hesitate to mention stuff like DNA damage.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#215

Post by taeric »

I can't underline enough how much this book impacted me. In ways that I'm fairly confident I do not understand. I certainly didn't understand the book when I was a kid, but it still stuck with me. I think it was my first real exposure to the trope of people being thoughtlessly callous to people on presumed worthiness.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#216

Post by shrimp_emoji »

mrmuagi wrote: post #214
nox101 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. Citation needed AFAIK it's not remotely true that "we all lose our mental faculties". Plenty of people do not

I thought it was well understood that your mental/physical potential peak when you are young and degrade thereafter? E.G. comparing 26 year old self to 86 year old self. But a saving grace is the degradation can be combated with exercise both mental/physical. I am not sure how much of aging is understood, so I hesitate to mention stuff like DNA damage.

I think that's a total misconception. I think the myth that "the brain stops developing at 25" was an apocryphal conclusion from a study where they simply stopped measuring past 25 and that either the same study or other studies found many brain faculties don't plateau, ever, even in advanced age. I also heard that it's highly variable from person to person how the brain develops, like some 8-year-olds had faster development in some regions than some 30-year-olds.

One thing's for sure though: we're still in the stone age of neurology.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#217

Post by xkbarkar »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #59
xkbarkar wrote: post #13

I just finished this book. I felt the author could have done more with Charlies genius stage. Not sure why, that part just felt flat somehow. The rising and the subsequent decline stages were really gripping though. Like he was describing the thought process of a surprised friendly dog. Id give it 4/5. Really good story.

You might like Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch. Similar sort of premise but goes further.

Thanks for the tip. Looks really interesting. I'll check it out.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#218

Post by fragmede »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #216
mrmuagi wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was well understood that your mental/physical potential peak when you are young and degrade thereafter? E.G. comparing 26 year old self to 86 year old self. But a saving grace is the degradation can be combated with exercise both mental/physical. I am not sure how much of aging is understood, so I hesitate to mention stuff like DNA damage.

I think that's a total misconception. I think the myth that "the brain stops developing at 25" was an apocryphal conclusion from a study where they simply stopped measuring past 25 and that either the same study or other studies found many brain faculties don't plateau, ever, even in advanced age. I also heard that it's highly variable from person to person how the brain develops, like some 8-year-olds had faster dev…

so primitive. but we're finding things out, from ultrasound surgery to cut out the addiction center of the brain, to influencing motivation/treating depression with magnetic/electrical fields with TMS and tdcs, we're ever so slightly making sharpened stones and crude axes of the stone age we're in

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#220

Post by may_mccheese »

nox101 wrote: post #180
fairity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many of us are attached to our intelligence. I love this story bc it's a reminder that we should value personal excellence over intelligence. By personal excellence I mean making the most of the intelligence you’re given. The arc of intelligence in Flowers of Algernon is the same arc we’ll all experience over our lifetime. With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. If we value intelligence, in and of itself,…

> With old age, we all lose our mental faculties. Citation needed AFAIK it's not remotely true that "we all lose our mental faculties". Plenty of people do not

In medical school we were taught that basically everyone gets alzheimers, or would get it if aged up to a certain age (200, 300, etc). You could make the same argument for cancer - actually in that vein prostate cancer is a big one people die with but not of. When you study the body enough you realize that every system at every micro/macro level is failing slowly with age, but we can only pick on one of them as the cause of death.

Re: citation needed : failed literature search link needed as pre-requisite

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