It is frustrating, fascinating, and strange, to hear the
mystics and holistics speak of these issues, as I am teetering
on being one myself after a lifetime of reductionism.
The mystery of subjective experience is included in the mystery of
why there is something rather than nothing.
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http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070802_gm_brain.html
How Does the Brain Work?
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 02 August 2007 09:04 am ET

Our brains can fathom the beginning of time and the end of the universe, but is any brain capable of understanding itself?

With billions of neurons, each with thousands of connections, one's noggin is a complex, and yes congested, mental freeway.
Neurologists and cognitive scientists nowadays are probing how the mind gives rise to thoughts, actions, emotions and ultimately
consciousness.

The complex machine is difficult for even the brainiest of scientists to wrap their heads around. But the payoff for such an
achievement could be huge.

“If we understand the brain, we will understand both its capacities and its limits for thought, emotions, reasoning, love and every
other aspect of human life,” said Norman Weinberger, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine.

Brain teasers

What makes the brain such a tough nut to crack?

According to Scott Huettel of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, the standard answer to this question goes
something like: “The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe ... complexity makes simple models impractical and
accurate models impossible to comprehend.”

While that stock answer is correct, Huettel said, itÂ’s incomplete. The real snag in brain science is one of navel gazing. Huettel
and other neuroscientists canÂ’t step outside of their own brains (and experiences) when studying the brain itself.

“A more pernicious factor is that we all think we understand the brain—at least our own—through our experiences. But our own
subjective experience is a very poor guide to how the brain works,” Huettel told LiveScience.

“Whether the human brain can understand itself is one of the oldest philosophical questions,” said Anders Garm of the University of
Copenhagen, Denmark, a biologist who studies jellyfish as models for human neural processing of visual information.

Mental mechanics

Scientists have made some progress in taking an objective, direct “look” at the human brain.

In recent years, brain-imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have allowed scientists to observe
the brain in action and determine how groups of neurons function.

They have pinpointed hubs in the brain that are responsible for certain tasks, such as fleeing a dangerous situation, processing
visual information, making those sweet dreams and storing long-term memories. But understanding the mechanics of how neuronal
networks collaborate to allow such tasks has remained more elusive.

“We do not yet have a good way to study how groups of neurons form functional networks when we learn, remember, or do anything else,
including seeing, hearing moving, loving,” Weinberger said.

Plus these clusters of brain cells somehow give rise to more complex behaviors and emotions, such as altruism, sadness, empathy and
anger.

Huettel and his colleagues used fMRIs to discover a region in the brain linked with altruistic behavior.

"Although understanding the function of this brain region may not necessarily identify what drives people like Mother Teresa,”
Huettel said, “it may give clues to the origins of important social behaviors like altruism.”

Who am I?

The prized puzzle in brain research is arguably the idea of consciousness. When you look at a painting, for instance, you are aware
of it and your mind processes its colors and shapes. At the same time, the visual impression could stir up emotions and thoughts.
This subjective awareness and perception is consciousness.

Many scientists consider consciousness the delineation between humans and other animals.

So rather than cognitive processes directly leading to behaviors (unbeknownst to us), we are aware of the thinking. We even know
that we know!

If this mind bender is ever solved, an equally perplexing question would arise, according to neuroscientists: Why? Why does
awareness exist at all?

Ultimately, Weinberger said, “understanding the brain will enable us to understand what it truly is to be human.”
--
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcneill@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill
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"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." - Clarence Shepard Day
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