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The Brain at Work The Brain at Work Continued from Page 12 Science has undoubtedly made great strides in identifying the precise locations in the brain of certain functions of the human mind - to the point that some believe they will one day be able to isolate the area of the brain that, for example, allows individuals to understand certain words or recognize familiar faces. Yet a large area of irreducible mystery remains. Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, for example, observed that, when he made a patient lift her right arm by applying an electric charge to her brain, she felt it was something happening to her, not something she was deliberately doing. She might even try to stop the movement by holding down the arm with her left hand. It was obviously quite different to her from the experience of voluntarily raising her arm - yet if both actions were caused by the brain alone. why should there be a difference? Change of heart its business. In the words of philosopher Gilbert Paranormal possibilities Penfield spent his whole life trying to explain (I=6 KN*96B6 :C ?@ 89@CD :? D96 >249:?6 O Not all believers in ESP and other paranormal things human by the activity of the brain. He phenomena believe in he immaterial mind. identified many major brain mechanisms and Materialist view Some think that the paranormal can be mapped them in the cerebral cortex and the The rapid development of computers since the explained by the special and unique powers of higher brain stem. Yet his conclusion was that Second World War has reinforced this the brain, entirely physical but as yet undetected understanding brain mechanisms cannot clarify materialist view of the mind and the brain. As by science. But if there is a “ghost in the how human beings work: “None of them can computers perform more and more of the machine,” it might make paranormal explain the mind,” he wrote. “The mind remains activities that the human brain slone has been happenings more likely and more credible. [] a mystery.” [] thought capable of - playing chess, for example Mind or Brain? - it becomes more tempting to regard the human "0- ! A!6+1-:? mind as essentially a very sophisticated computer. Some computer scientists argue that, The psychic powers that may be if we could construct a computer that worked displayed by certain exceptional exactly like the brain - an “artificial that this life will lead to some future intelligence” - this machine would have as people today may be all that is left of existence where myself or soul will have much right to be though of as having a another existence, with another brain, conscious mind as any human being. a natural ability once used or computer if you like.” Sir John extensively by humankind. This, at Eccles A new reality least, is the belief of those who are Are humans, then, robots, with extremely convinced that the origins of our sophisticated computers on their shoulders, It may be obvious to us that our mental faculties present civilization are to be found - such as thinking, seeing, and feeling - are controlled by their brain chemistry and on the lost continent of Atlantis. linked with the brain, but this was not always electrical discharges of brain cells? There are plenty of scientists and philosophers who the case. In ancient Grece, for example, the It was Plato, the Greek philosopher and master philosopher Aristotle believed that the heart was disagree.Some, while remaining within a storyteller, who introduced the world to Atlantis the seat of reason and perception, and that the strictly scientific view of the universe, have in about 335 B.C. in two of his famous brain formed a king of blood-cooling system. suggested that the sheer complexity of the brain dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias. By the 17th century, the connection creates a reality of a different kind from the rest Claiming the story came from ancient Egyptian between the brain and a human being’s higher of the material world, with its own rules. records, (none of which have ever been found) faculties was clearly established between mind Distinguished mathematician Roger Penrose Plato told of a great empire that existed 9,000 and brain. French philosopher Rene Descartes has delved into the mysteries of quantum years earlier on an island or continent. Its armies believed that the mind was an immaterial mechanics in search of a new principle of struck out at its neighbors, but “afterward there substance that could interact with the body physics that would account for the strange occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in through the mind. The mind, he suggested,gave qualities of the mind. a single day and night of destruction all your the order for deliberate actions - and the brained Those scientists who have accepted warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and acted as a messenger, passing n the order and “dualism,” such as Nobel prizewinner Sir John the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared Eccles and neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, have making sure it was carried out. The in the depths of the sea.” communication was two-way: the information had to face up to the practical problem of how coming in to the brain from the senses was then an immaterial mind could interact with a Loss of virtue relayed on to the mind. physical brain. Penfield believed that the mind Plato’s dialogues contain such detailed of The dualism or separateness, of the had to have some form of energy at its disposal, accounts of the engineering and architectural mind and brain has been rejected by scientists in with which it could influence brain cells. feats of the Atlanteans that some scholars are th e20th century. They hold that the fantastically Researchers speculated that if the mind had certain they are based on fact rather than fable. complex mechanism of the brain is capable of such an energy, it was clearly possible that it The dialogues describe superb buildings; accounting for everything human beings can might be able to survive separately from the temples decorated with ivory, gold and silver; think, feel, and do. Our conscious awareness, body, and even communicate directly with other huge statues; and sophisticated systems of they believe, is merely an epiphenomenon - an minds, as in telepathy, or to affect certain waterways and baths. inessential side effect of the brain going about physical objects, as in psychokinesis. Continued on Page 15