Thinking Outside the (Skull) Box – Part Four

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., FACP, Menas C. Kafatos, Ph.D., Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor in Computational Physics, Chapman University, P. Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Neil Theise, MD, Professor, Pathology and Medicine, (Division of Digestive Diseases) Beth Israel Medical Center — Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

In the previous posts we began with the common-sense notion that the brain produces the mind and proceeded to explode it.  Using medical facts we showed that every part of the body shares in the process we call “thinking,” although the liver, intestines, and heart do their thinking nonverbally. They still make decisions, show preferences, exhibit self-reliance, and contribute in major ways to the information sent to the brain.

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Daily Inspiration

Recognize that the universe is in a perpetual state of change, and the best way to respond is to be infinitely flexible.

Daily Inspiration

Dharma is destiny without any hint of compulsion or force. It is the path of least resistance – the path that brings fulfillment.

Daily Inspiration

When you recognize and acknowledge your personal power, you no longer need to feel superior or inferior to anyone else.

Thinking Outside the (Skull) Box – Part Three

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., FACP, Menas C. Kafatos, Ph.D., Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor in Computational Physics, Chapman University, P. Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Neil Theise, MD, Professor, Pathology and Medicine, (Division of Digestive Diseases) Beth Israel Medical Center — Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

In the prior posts of this series we have described ways in which the brain does not, in fact cannot, produce the mind on its own.  The possibility of a 1950s science fiction scenario where a working brain can produce an intact mind while sitting in a jar is impossible.  The brain is intimately connected to the body through nerves, travelling cells, circulating biomolecules, and electrical activity.

A brain severed from the body, even if it would produce some form of mind, would produce one that is very different from what we have in the brain-body complex.  (Even in traditional scientific views brain and body form a single system as they evolved together over time.)

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