The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience

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The brain is a complex organ that controls all bodily processes, including thought, sensory perception, and physical action. Despite weighing only 3 pounds, the human brain contains as many as 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections. The chapter is a bit weaker than the last one. I feel even more confused. The author often talks about how people overall were thinking or what a certain person was thinking. Yet it’s hard to understand who thought what and who these writers were. I guess I should assume they were popular people and that most people had the same ideas? I’m not sure that’s the case. Liederman J. The dynamics of interhemispheric collaboration and hemispheric control. Brain Cogn. 1998;36(2):193-208. doi: 10.1006/brcg.1997.0952

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds. According to Zeki and colleagues [ 74], consciousness comprises nodes of micro-consciousnesses in different brain regions. Interestingly, in contrast to other theories, Zeki argues that consciousness is not unified [ 75]. Therefore, color and motion, for example, are consciously perceived in different parts of the cortex and only then bind together with other nodes to form a macro-consciousness. A micro-consciousness is autonomous [ 76] and does not require further processing. Therefore, the resected visual cortex in Step 3 may become micro-conscious of the green light during the replay. We could not find a direct reason as to why, according to Zeki, scattered brains during replay cannot bind together into a macro-consciousness.Brain a machine. This philosophy is now boring. It’s not the cool creative philosophy of the past. Rather people are trying to actually explain how the brain works. So it’s largely statements like: the brain is like a computer, the brain calculates things, the brain reacts but can also be made to not react.

For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains. This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe: the human brain. Macdonald K, Germine L, Anderson A, Christodoulou J, Mcgrath LM. Dispelling the Myth: Training in Education or Neuroscience Decreases but Does Not Eliminate Beliefs in Neuromyths. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1314. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01314

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The experiment we described here is useful as a benchmark for theories of consciousness, revealing hidden incoherences and ambiguities [ 58]. Specifically, for a given theory of consciousness, we ask in which step (i.e., Steps 1 to 3) and why we would reject the working hypothesis and claim that the participant loses consciousness. We are getting into the actual science and not just loose philosophy. Now people are looking into animal brains and even studying people who have brain injuries in certain parts of the brain. Which makes scientists like Broca find brain areas responsible for certain instincts like the language center. The left and right sides of the brain have different functions and control different processes. Each half of the brain contains six different lobes. What will be the next grand metaphor about the brain? Impossible to say, because we need to wait for the next world-changing technology. But in the mean time, Cobb suggests, the computer metaphor might be doing more harm than good. After all, he notes rightly: “Metaphors shape our ideas in ways that are not always helpful.”

Cobb explores the fact that we are almost certainly at the edge of the use value of the computer metaphor.Hurley RA, Flashman LA, Chow TW, Taber KH. The brainstem: anatomy, assessment, and clinical syndromes. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010;22(1):iv-7. doi:10.1176/jnp.2010.22.1.iv To underscore the usefulness of replay as a potential experimental strategy, let us compare the replay of brain activity to a detailed simulation of the brain. A frequent objection to the view that a detailed simulation of the human brain can become conscious is that it merely manipulates symbols whose meaning depends on external interpretation, whereas neural activity is intrinsically meaningful to the brain [ 88]. In contrast to a simulation, the artificial neuronal firing induced by the replay is intrinsically meaningful to the brain/participant because it is an identical copy of intrinsically meaningful activity (i.e., an experience of green light). John Searle famously explained that “you could not digest pizza by running the program that simulates such digestion” [ 89]. Unlike biologically detailed simulations running on a computer, the replay is recorded and activated on the same substrate. Therefore, in contrast to a simulation of the stomach, recording and then replaying smooth muscle contraction and enzyme secretion would result in digestion. What would it imply about the nature of consciousness if replay would work for stomach digestion or the heart pumping blood but not for the brain and consciousness?