" The true embodied mind I envision does not reliquish its most refined levels of operation, those constituting its soul an spirit. From my perspective, it is just that soul and spirit, with all their dignity and human scale, are now complex and unique states of an organsim. " -Damasio (Descartes' Error)

I was thinking about this topic for a while. I think that there are some obvious things that cannot easily be accounted for in terms of our discussion on " brain is behavior." I am just as excited to sort of get rid of the brain is behavior because that statement turns us all into chemical and electrical robots. And there is no room for an inbetween with that statement. Some believe that we can explain "free-will, consciousness, thinking..." completely in terms of brain/behavior. However, that leaves no room for a soul and quantum physics.

I remember reading Descartes' Error and following the story of a man whose entire soul seemed to change after subtle damage was done to his ventromedial or dorsolateral sector of the frontal region of the brain. A warm man with a great personality became impulsive, nonempathetic, and lost executive function. Damasio basically made the point that he lost free-will, along with executive functioning, and therefore we can explain everything in terms of brain and behavior. However, many scientists who try to explain tha difficult things such as free-will do not leave it at just that, they throw in statements such as Damasio's mentioned above. If brain is behavior, then we leave room for little else.

My biggest concern is that by studying everything in terms of "brain is behavior" (as we do here in the states) we are ignoring other ways of healing.

To come back to (like everything else). On the other hand, if brain=behavior is understood to mean brain big enough to encompass everything in human experience then it should help us to understand (rather than eliminate) both "free will" and all (effective) forms of healing, no? PG