What’s inside the human skull is the brain; it’s also the mind, in all its complexity. Everything you can say about people, you can say about the brain. If you want to know what brains can do, find a history book. If you want some pictures of brains, you could do worse than a portrait gallery.
Somehow, human nature fits into a few pounds of tissue. That’s astonishing, but so long as we keep in mind that ‘the brain’ is a thing of astonishing richness, there are no more mysteries after that. The mind-body problem, for example, doesn’t arise; it was, I believe, all along really a rich-sparse problem.
Here’s an example of what I mean: neuroplasticity is a celebrated concept and a buzzword because it contradicts the mental image of the static, dead ‘brain’. In fact, the brain’s ability to change is nothing remarkable because the brain is people, and we already know that people can change, learn, adapt, and remember.
Neuroplasticity is an interesting biological phenomenon, but it’s nothing special, and if it seems counter-intuitive, that’s a problem with our intuitions.
- More Here
Somehow, human nature fits into a few pounds of tissue. That’s astonishing, but so long as we keep in mind that ‘the brain’ is a thing of astonishing richness, there are no more mysteries after that. The mind-body problem, for example, doesn’t arise; it was, I believe, all along really a rich-sparse problem.
Here’s an example of what I mean: neuroplasticity is a celebrated concept and a buzzword because it contradicts the mental image of the static, dead ‘brain’. In fact, the brain’s ability to change is nothing remarkable because the brain is people, and we already know that people can change, learn, adapt, and remember.
Neuroplasticity is an interesting biological phenomenon, but it’s nothing special, and if it seems counter-intuitive, that’s a problem with our intuitions.
- More Here
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