"Joe Haldeman - None So Blind (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

wife's name, and then "frying pan," and before you know it he's
complaining
about hospital food and calling a divorce lawyer.
So on that evidence, it would appear that the brain has a shepherd like
the
computer-meadow has, moving partitions around, but alas, no. Most of
the time
when some part of the brain ceases to function, that's the end of it.
There may
be acres and acres of fertile ground lying fallow right next door, but
nobody in
charge to make use of it--at least not consistently. The fact that it
sometimes
did work is what made Cletus ask "Why aren't all blind people
geniuses?"
Of course there have always been great thinkers and writers and
composers who
were blind (and in the twentieth century, some painters to whom
eyesight was
irrelevant), and many of them, like Amy with her violin, felt that
their talent
was a compensating gift. Cletus wondered whether there might be a
literal truth
to that, in the micro-anatomy of the brain. It didn't happen every
time, or else
all blind people would be geniuses. Perhaps it happened occasionally,
through a
mechanism like the one that helped people recover from strokes. Perhaps
it could
be made to happen.
Cletus had been offered scholarships at both Harvard and MIT, but he
opted for
Columbia, in order to be near Amy while she was studying at Julliard.
Columbia
reluctantly allowed him a triple major in physiology, electrical
engineering,
and cognitive science, and he surprised everybody who knew him by doing
only
moderately well. The reason, it turned out, was that he was treating
undergraduate work as a diversion at best; a necessary evil at worst.
He was
racing ahead of his studies in the areas that were important to him.
If he had paid more attention in trivial classes like history, like
philosophy,
things might have turned out differently. If he had paid attention to
literature
he might have read the story of Pandora.
Our own story now descends into the dark recesses of the brain. For the
next ten
years the main part of the story, which we will try to ignore after