Confusion
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
“In the illusory babels of language, an artist might advance specifically to get lost, and to intoxicate himself in dizzying syntaxes, seeking odd intersections of meaning, strange corridors of history, unexpected echoes, unknown humors, or voids of knowledge… but this quest is risky, full of bottomless fictions and endless architectures and counter-architectures… at the end, if there is an end, are perhaps only meaningless reverberations.” --Robert Smithson
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Severe confusion of a degree considered pathological usually refers to loss of orientation (ability to place oneself correctly in the world by time, location, and personal identity), and often memory (ability to correctly recall previous events or learn new materal). Confusion as such is not synonymous with inability to focus attention, although severe inability to focus attention can cause, or greatly contribute to, confusion. Together, confusion and inability to focus attention (both of which affect judgement) are the twin symptoms of a loss or lack of normal brain function (mentation).
Confusion may result from a relatively sudden brain dysfunction (see delirium). It may also result from chronic organic brain pathologies such as dementia. In either case, confusion is usually associated with some degree of loss of ability to focus attention, but (as noted) the association is not invariable, especially for lesser degrees of impairment.
Many health problems may cause the syndromes of delirium or dementia. These syndromes may also occur together, and both of them usually include the symptom of confusion. Since mental function is extremely sensitive to health, the appearance of either a new confused state, or a new loss of ability to focus attention (delirium), may indicate that a new physical or mental illness has appeared, or that a chronic physical or mental illness has progressed (become more severe).
