Part of 'On Certainty' - oncertainty.net

April 18, 3pm
Kenneth Perrine (followed by discussion with Arani Bose)

In his presentation Dr. Perrine will discuss language and certainty, weaving together the questions posed by philosophers from Western (e.g., Wittgenstein, Bateson) and Eastern (Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism) traditions regarding language and subjectivity, with his research findings from performing the Wada test in which a sedative is injected into one hemisphere of the brain at a time. The effect is to shut down all functions in that hemisphere in order to evaluate the capabilities of the other, “awake” hemisphere. During this period of anesthesia he probes the neural mechanisms of memory, language and thinking in each hemisphere separately. He also performs Cortical Stimulation during awake neurosurgery to localize language and other cognitive processes by selectively disabling small (1 cm) cortical areas during cognitive testing. These procedures allow testing of hypotheses relating the neural bases of language, certainty, self-awareness and other mental functions to the questions posed by philosophers for millennia.

Kenneth Perrine, Ph. D, is a clinical neuropsychologist who is the Director of Neuropsychology at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group. He performs neuropsychological evaluations, Wada Testing, and Cortical Mapping for the epilepsy and neurosurgery services at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill-Cornell Medical Center and other tri-state hospitals. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurological Surgery at Weill-Cornell Medical College of Medicine.

Arani Bose was born in Calcutta and spent his youth in India and the United States. He was educated at Stanford University where he studied philosophy, religion, and chemistry. He received his medical training at Yale University. He is an interventional neuroradiologist and clinical neurologist. In 1994 Dr. Bose co-founded Bose Pacia Gallery in New York with Ms. Shumita Bose and Dr. Steven Pacia.