we have started learning about the brain in medical school, and what an interesting organ it is! indeed, it would seem that the reason every every other organ in our body exists is to keep this convoluted 3 pound mass alive and functioning.
i have been particularly fascinating by what strokes can teach us about the brain - knock out the blood supply to a part of the brain, that part of the brain dies, and the person is left with some sort of deficit. maybe they can't move their arm, maybe they can't speak properly, maybe their personality changes somehow.
so how many parts of the brain need to be knocked out before the soul is destroyed? if a stroke can completely alter your personality, disrupt all your memories, and take away your ability to feel - in short, if a stroke can erase who and what you are as a person, then what are you left with?
could it really be that everything we are is nothing more than a complicated network of electrical synapses? is that all love is? is that all a soul is?
i hope not! and these romantic notions of mine will take refuge in the margins of uncertainty that are formed from the gaps of our scientific understanding.
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go read about the claustrum. according to crick (of watson and crick fame), there lies the seat of sensory integration. i've often wondered whether we are simply a symphony of neuronal firing, whether it is just the summation that amounts to what/who we are. or perhaps gestalt psychologists are right and it's greater than that. or does God provide an outside influence?
ReplyDeleteor all of these combined?
see why i like the brain? it lends directly to neurophilosophy. fascinating!