The Mind, The Brain and Being Us

I like stretching the boundaries, going beyond the safe, the mundane, and mediocre. I don't believe we were meant to live quiet, secure, small lives. Of course, this has gotten me into a lot of trouble. In many ways things are rigged so that we don't dare much--we might get hurt, or be disappointed, or laughed at.

There is a balance, though. I only recently understood what it means to have your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground. When I first heard that expression, I had this vision of some sort of elasta-girl, stretched like the illustrations of Alice after she ate from one side of the mushroom. Ungainly, monstrous and unable to navigate, or so it seemed. Now I understand that "head" in the clouds really means mind. Feet on the ground--engaged in the work-a-day world where most of us live and breathe. But mind soaring- dreaming, creating, flying free.

In fact, if we could substitute "mind" for every reference to brain, when it comes to human creativity, I would be much happier. Whoever came up with the idea that we think with our brains? How can thought come out of a piece of meat? Neurobiologist Dr. Michael Gershon http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gsas/anatomy/Faculty/Gershon/ of Columbia University has written about the 100 billion nerve cells in the stomach. The stomach has been called a "second brain." The ancient Greeks thought that the soul resided in the stomach.

Is it that we seem to think thoughts in our head, and so modern science picked on the brain? Experiments performed on the brain demonstrate that you can trigger memory by stimulating certain parts of the brain electrically. But does that mean that memory is stored there? No one can explain how this can be. There is not enough brain capacity to store every second of memory in a person's life. I once had a summer job working on a telephone exchange. When you plugged into the switchboard, you heard voices. But the voices were not stored in the switchboard.

I have disagreed with much of mainstream science since I was an undergraduate at Ohio State University. I started college as an English Literature major, and a Religious Studies Minor. Then I took a science class- and fell in love with the subject. When I changed my major to Health Sciences my junior year, a new universe opened up to me. Having access to the medical library at OSU was a joy, in those days before the Internet. I soaked up Anatomy, Physiology and everything related to the functioning of the human body. Science was pure research, right? No preconceptions, no agenda.

Perhaps it was because I came to the Sciences from the perspective of the Humanities that I dared to disagree. How narrow minded and bigoted were my new brethren. Anyone daring to suggest something new or different was pilloried. Even as an undergrad, I could see that Science has actually become a cult. Acceptable scientific information is determined by a few with vested interest and doled out through the popular press. Since the brain doctors came along, science has become the secular religion, just as suppressive as the Inquisitors of old. And heresy still has the iron rule of law to stamp it out.

So fie on the brain doctors, I say. They want to reduce a mother's love for her newborn, the ache of longing for a distant sweetheart, the exultation of viewing a glorious sunrise, the desire for enlightenment and transcendence, to brain chemistry. It is not you-there is no you. There are only genes, and synapses. Can't measure it with modern scientific equipment? Then it doesn't exist. After all, look how advanced we are. Look what science has done for us. Let's look at that for a second.

Science has brought us wonderful technology. I am writing this on my Mac laptop, my cell phone sits next to me and a friend has just sent me a text message. My big screen TV (turned off-can't write with the distraction) is close by. I have a fireplace that lights a cozy gas fire with the flick of a switch, etc.

Where science has failed us, nay betrayed us, is in the area of human relationships--and what it means to be human at all. By attempting to study us like laboratory rats, science has succeeded in reducing us to a bundle of chemicals. So, why not treat every quirk of human behavior as a deviant from some imagined norm, and use chemicals (medication) to control it? If there is no such thing as a human mind or human spirit, then it is no sin to stamp it out.

We have more psychiatric disorders than ever before, more psychiatric patients and incarcerated criminals. We have more terrible weapons, but no better diplomacy; we have more addictions, more divorce, more suicides, more despair. We have Frankenstein food, allowing thousands of people to be over-fed and under-nourished by chemicals that taste good but have no substance, and leave us empty inside.

The brain doctors tell us that those who believe in something intangible, something that cannot be measured by our-oh-so-advanced science, are primitive or infantile--even mentally ill. That is the propaganda of the cult of Science. My truth is that people are, simply, perhaps indefinably, and limitlessly, human. You can thank Heaven, or anything you do believe in, for that.

Comments

[guruglenn]

Having been a meditator for the past 25 years I can relate direct experience to an inner world much more vast than our outer world. The science of Alchemy preceded the divided camps of science and religion. Perhaps we can make great strides in our conscious development by combining scientific and spiritual findings once again.

Glenn Smith Author of Lotus Petal, A Parable to Help You to Overcome The Fear of Death

[Anne Dunev - Huffpost Blogger]

Most people don't realize that Alchemy is the dirty little secret of Science. Isaac Newton himself, considered the father of modern Science, was a closet Alchemist. Are you familiar with Dr. Emoto's work on water crystals? "Spirituality" undoubtedly has a scientific base. We just don't have instruments sensitive enough to measure yet. Just as we cannot identify every nutrient Nature provides in Mother's milk, there is so much we don't yet know. I think that gives us an amazing future to look forward to. If we don't destroy our planet with the current by-products of Scientists who have no ethical code of conduct to guide them, we may discover that Science and Religion are really twins, separated at birth!

[guruglenn]

I agree and loved the awareness that "What The Bleep do We Know" brought to Dr. Emoto's work with Water crystals. People need to realize that we are 70 - 80 % water ourselves and our water molecules are just as affected by the energy around us and within our own thoughts.

[GhostwriterDoF]

You’re right. ADD could very well be the result of the over-exposure to predatory advertising. Ads have evolved through scientific Psychological profiling that is specifically designed to illicit an impulsive reaction. People are exposed to thousands of ads everyday without ever turning the TV on. The trick is to be aware of what’s going on and how it affects you. Awareness in itself is powerful medicine.

[GhostwriterDoF]

Woops! This reply was for jillsond, and I dropped a whole word.. :o
It should read:
"designed to produce an illicit impulsive reaction", meaning that it is a violation of our psyche.
Please forgive my fumbling with these new-fangled technologies. :)

[GhostwriterDoF]

Anne, what you are referring to seems to be more the failure of our education system, not the failure of science. Scientific knowledge is supposed to be continuously challenged, or else the knowledge doesn’t progress.

It is well known that muscles retain a memory. It may very well be that emotion itself, which translates into thoughts, may not originate in the brain (feels more like it comes from every fiber of the body). Maybe more women need to be getting involved in Science?

[Anne Dunev - Huffpost Blogger]

I like the idea of more women in Science! Yes, cells do seem to retain "memory". Thought seems to motivate emotion, too. That is how propaganda works. Thanks for your input!

[jillsond]

What a yummy post. There are a ton of "New Agers" who share your views, but of course, they're not considered scientists. The sooner science gets out of the human psyche arena, the better. Why isn't ADD, for example, treated with a good dose of turning off the tv and getting outside and exploring nature? Or depression, for that matter? Replace your meds with a 5 mile walk a day. Worth a try, you'd think.

[Anne Dunev - Huffpost Blogger]

You are spot on! Great suggestions.