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MarkCharles

(2,261 posts)
Tue Jan 3, 2012, 04:02 PM Jan 2012

"Exploring Stephen Hawking's 'Unfettered Mind' by NPR STAFF

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/03/144312546/stephen-hawking-exploring-an-unfettered-mind?sc=fb&cc=fp

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"But Hawking's disease has progressed slowly, while his personal and professional life has flourished. He celebrates his 70th birthday this January, says Ferguson, and continues to work on projects despite having very limited use of his physical body. (He communicates using a voice synthesizer, which he controls using a muscle in his cheek.)

"It's just so interesting to see how he came to terms with [his illness]," says Ferguson. "What he says is that it wasn't courage. [He says] 'I just did what I had to do.' ... He took to listening to a lot of Richard Wagner, thinking of himself as a rather tragic hero. His mind went through all kinds of ways of dealing with that type of problem, but eventually, I think, he realized that theoretical physics was kind of a great escape from it."
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"Exploring Stephen Hawking's 'Unfettered Mind' by NPR STAFF (Original Post) MarkCharles Jan 2012 OP
Courage is what happens when you run out of attractive alternatives. Warpy Jan 2012 #1

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
1. Courage is what happens when you run out of attractive alternatives.
Tue Jan 3, 2012, 04:50 PM
Jan 2012

In some ways, his illness has allowed him to be who he is, relieving him of the daily activities most of us take for granted but which distract us from thinking, like going out to get the mail, making coffee, walking the dog. I'm sure he'd give up everything else to be able to do these things, but not doing them has freed his mind considerably.

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