“I’ve sometimes had the experience of apologizing to someone, and realizing it’s a mirror.”That sounds exactly like a bit of dialogue from a Blade Runner, but it’s actually a quote from Dr. Oliver Sacks, a renowned neurologist who’s made a name for himself digging up weird neurological disorders. As he discusses in this 60 Minutes segment aired last night, he suffers from face blindness, a condition where one simply can’t distinguish faces, including those of one’s children and even oneself.Watching the great segment from Lesley Stahl is unnerving at times, especially when seeing an elderly lady struggle to try to recognize a picture of her daughter. When you consider how ingrained sociability is to humans and our interactions, face blindness (otherwise known as prosopagnosia) seems particularly scary. Imagine going through life without being able to recognize a person based on their face alone.In fact, many people do. Face blindness has only recently been picked up in medical literature, and according to the segment, it’s fairly common. A number of people don’t even realize they have the condition, which makes sense: How would you know you were unable to recognize faces unless someone told you such a thing even existed? And even then, how hard is it to perceive that you’re face blind or not, and what would happen if the whole world was face blind? It’s a fascinating topic of discussion, especially viewed through a dystopian lens aimed at a future where tech and life increasingly imitate each other.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter.
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