BRAIN AND MIND

In times past, the wonders of brains were not obvious to their owners. The ancient Egyptians famously removed the brains of bodies preserved as mummies by inserting a hook through the nose, as the organ wasn’t regarded as important in the afterlife. Hearts were often left in place, as they were believed to be the seat of the person’s intelligence and feelings. It took thousands of years to develop a full understanding of our grey matter, and it was only at the dawn of the twentieth century that the building block of the brain – the neuron – was discovered. We now know that the brain’s immense power is derived from the way these cells are connected. A complex ballet of electrical and chemical activity in the brain’s

CAN YOU REALLY BE JUST A BRAIN? All this talk of neurons and wires can seem a little unnerving. Can our hopes, loves and very existence really be just the outcome of electricity moving through a mass of grey tissue? Back in the seventeenth century, the philosopher René Descartes set the tone in this debate by proclaiming that the brain and mind are cut from very different kinds of cloth. The brain is made of matter, he said, but the mind, with our thoughts, beliefs, mental lives and memories is immaterial – something that cannot be seen, touched or observed. Today’s neuroscientists disagree with Descartes’s mind–brain dualism. To them, the mind isn’t a special nonphysical substance, but just the manifestation of the brain in action. When we are conscious, making decisions, getting angry or fearful, these are just functions of the physical brain, nothing more.