Oliver Sacks launches new Centre for the Mind
By Damon Shorter The hidden reaches of the mind that give birth to creativity are a constant source of wonder for Dr Oliver Sacks, the internationally acclaimed author and neurologist. Dr Sacks presented the foundation lecture at the public opening of the ANU's newest research organisation, the national Centre for the Mind, on August 5, mesmerising a packed audience at the Academy of Science with his personal insights and anecdotes on the weird and wonderful human mind. Creativity, he attests, is the pinnacle of human thinking. "Genuine creativity or imagination is inherent in us all, irrespective of intelligence," he said, a spontaneous process "rewarding and delightful" in itself. And the essence of creativity? "Playfulness" - the unhurried interplay of concepts and ideas that collide and fuse in our heads to form firm combinations in a very organic way. "A creative thought is like a creature," he said. "It has a life of its own."
The launch was preceded by a flamboyant multimedia display with sweeping coloured laser lights, monastic music, artificial fog and an array of televisions, puzzling onlookers with videotaped images of swimming fish. The official party entered the darkened auditorium to the techno-beat of a remixed version of Carmina Burana. Dr Sacks was presented with the centre's Foundation Medal by the President of the Australian Academy of Science, Sir Gustav Nossal. "We chose Oliver Sacks to launch the centre, not only because he is a superb neurologist, but also because he is a world-renowned writer dedicated to making information and ideas accessible," said Professor Alan Snyder, the centre's founding director. "Knowledge is more potent when it is understood by everyone and we want to encourage a dialogue about the mind across the entire community," he told the audience. Dr Sacks works as a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York with patients suffering brain damage and other forms of neurological illness. He is the author of seven popular collections of case studies including The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Awakenings (made into a film starring Robyn Williams and Robert DeNiro), and most recently, The Island of the Colourblind. One of the main aims of the Centre for the Mind was to bring together researchers from diverse disciplines to exchange ideas on questions of the mind, Prof Snyder said. "The truly fascinating questions about the mind fall in between the disciplines," he said. "They are not the problem of any one branch of knowledge. Our mission is to foster a culture of enquiry into the mind; specifically, to bring hard science to bear on those questions that raise interest in us all." The Prime Minister, John Howard, in a written statement said "the benefits and consequences of the centre's work are many and various and will resonate not only around Australia, but around the world". Sir Gus Nossal applauded Prof Snyder and the centre's Associate Director, Dr Ian Gold, for initiating such a bold research project, predicting the Centre would play a unique role in furthering understanding of the mind. "Just wait for the explosions," he said, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"