The Biological Mind

"To a 21st century human, the brain is the seat of all our powers. But the hyperbolic way we talk about the brain is mor... (more)

"To a 21st century human, the brain is the seat of all our powers. But the hyperbolic way we talk about the brain is more informed by a mystical conception of what the soul is than by scientific fact. From the confines of ancient philosophy to the duality inherent to Christianity, from the mysterious depths of psychoanalysis to today's tendency to compare the brain to a computer, our belief in a mind distinct from the body has tainted the way we think about gray matter (which, it turns out, is not even gray!). As the director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering reveals in The Biological Mind, this "cerebral mystique" has blinded us to the realities of the human body. We ignore the role of our body's chemistry and of our environment on our behavior, focusing solely on the brain-and thus dismiss crucial non-brain based cures. We overestimate the value of free will and place undue responsibility on individuals-which leads us to rely on shoddy neuroscience to convict people in court. And we believe that the brain is replicable, if only we recreate its networks correctly-and take the analogy so far as to affirm the human brain could exist in a computer. But a brain is not a soul: it is an organ and it cannot be separated from the body and its surroundings. Our brains do not act in isolation. For instance, the brain is influenced by the ambient shade of the light -- bluer colors make us happier. The climate also plays a role - higher temperatures make us more hot-tempered. The gut microbiome affects not only digestive functions but also psychological states like anxiety, stress, and depression. Whatever happens in our brain is the product of our physiology and environment, our history, and our society"-- (less)