"The chickens of our neighbour and some ideas concerning Parkinson’s Disease
Our neighbour kept chickens. I still remember very well how I was the hesitating witness of the last moments of their life. On the chopping block they were stripped of their heads, protesting loudly. With an axe it was. I try to remember the technique he used, but while other memories are quite vivid, I seem to have missed this one. The next thing I recall is that he throws a couple of chicken legs to me, while laughing joyfully. He once showed me that the claws could still move if you pulled the tendons. I found it in fact rather distasteful but with such a moving claw you could impress the sea-scoutss who occassionaly visited the remote place where we lived at the time. And so I stood in front of those macho boys, chicken leg in my hand. Make sure the claw is open and than pull the tendon, hardly missing a nose, causing a nervous laughter.
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The Construction of Reality
In 1988, I wrote the first version of “The Construction of Reality” () It was my “research assignment”, with which I finished my studies at the Radboud University (Catholic University at the time). I was mentored by E. Leeuwenberg at the Department of Cognitive Psychology of the Catholic University of Nijmegen. Ever since, I have often written and published small articles about the subject. Eventually, I decided to combine these articles that had, over time, crystallized into a philosophy of science, into a thesis or at least a serious manifesto.
Initially, I progressed well, but after a while it became harder to maintain the momentum. At first, I did not understand why. I was certainly not lacking motivation. When I finally received the diagnosis of “Parkinson's disease”, everything suddenly made sense. My invisible opponent had shown itself and I decided to accept the challenge. If my theory had any merit, I would have to be able to put it into practice. I decided to apply my theory in order to increase my knowledge of Parkinson's disease.
This article is the conclusion of five years research into the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. It consists of three parts: General theory, philosophy of science, and the implementation of the theory and a computer program that embodies the metaphorical approach that I am suggesting. The research data and the implementation of these data by the software.
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