For many years I have believed that the nervous system is behavior and that all forms of behavior can be explained by understanding the nervous system. Unfortunately because our current understanding of the nervous system is so undeveloped compared to infinite questions we have about behavior and mechanisms of the brain, that all the explanations we have are not nearly sufficient to completely understand behaviors. It is apparent to me that we need time (and lots of it) in order for behavior to 'make sense' to us.

The foremost problems I see in explaining are mechanisms such as emotion, opinion, and thought. These things are much more complex than reflexes because they involve whole halves of the brain which implies mixtures of chemicals, electrical signals, and probably other combinations of processes that we do not know about yet. Right now we theorize that emotions have a great deal to do with neurotransmitters because foreign chemicals such as Prozac can have emotional effects similar to chemicals naturally produced in the brain. But matching emotion to a single chemical is entirely too simplistic to explain the myriad of emotions that animals (such as humans) feel and attempt to express through subtle behaviors. Other thoughts must have this type of complexities as well. I do believe that we can eventually explain all these behaviors but it will take much more time. As for understanding simpler behaviors through the theory that the nervous system is behavior --we have already begun this development even by understanding reflexes as a stimulus detection and reaction through the relay of nerve cells.

Right now this theory about behavior sounds viable to me because I am willing to believe that more needs to be learned about the body, including the nervous system. I do have some personal questions in this subject because I believe to some extent that memory can occur as a physical experience. I have experienced a degenerative joint disease and in my opinion this physical connection to events means something when I try to remember. I suppose that if I try and relate this to a computer (which receives data in a similar way in which we think humans do) then the relationship between body and mind is non-existent. But, I strongly believe in such a connection through my personal experiences so this is something I want to explore along with my belief in behavior's direct relationship with the nervous system.

Interesting. Will look forward to hearing more about your experiences as we talk more about what CAN make sense of using the brain. Agree that matching emotion to a single chemical (a single anything) is too simple. Fortunately, we have lots of chemicals (and other things) to work with (though not as many as we have things to explain; how can THAT work?). PG