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After Grobstein’s lecture, I can understand that my observation about the brain and behavior may differ from others’ because we all have different cultural/life background.  Yes, more importantly, we make different observations every day for we have distinct brains! Each person’s brain has different information passed down from one’s ancestor, shape(how curvy/coiled/complicated it is), length, size,  and many other factors shaped by different environment and culture.   I am fascinated by the brain that constitues 2% of our body in weight and yet does almost everything to control our body and world we generate.  Overall, I have this view called, I=my brain.  Right now, my brain prefers Dickinson’s view that states that it is all brain/neuron.  

I have two reasons to side with Dickinson:  the evidences that I observed in my life and the fact that we don’t know about the brain enough to consider it as a distinct entity from the mind.

First, from my summary of observations, the mind part that includes our feeling, desire, and behavior is all created and controlled by the brain/neuron.  For example, some people strive for success and have an extremely strong desire to actualize their dream because their brains are programmed to drive them that way (it is about the balance of chemicals in the body.   i.e. the more adrenaline = the more aggressive)  The sky would be nonexistent or meaningless when the brain is not active.  The daughter, wife, and family members have no meaning to a patient whose brain can’t remember any.  From these examples I observe that the generation of knowledge and consciousness/mind happens through the activities of the brain. 

Second, do we know about the brain completely?  Nowadays, people are searching for the existence of the ‘God spot’ in our brain to explain why some people are religious.  We try to unlock the secrets of the brain that would further explain the relationship between the brain and behavior but it is an ongoing process.  Without knowing the brain completely, I don’t think we can say that the dualism is right (or wrong) because the entity--the brain-- we are dealing with is not fully graspable.  So, I would rather lean toward Dickinson’s view because that opens more possibilities.

The study found that religious or mystical experiences activate more than a dozen different areas of the brain at once. Also, it is found that the region called caudate nucleus has been implicated in positive emotions such as joy, romantic love and maternal love.  So, from my observation I know that there are many more things that we don’t know about the brain than we know.  And this aspect is the reason why I am leaning toward Dickenson’s view because there are so many things about the brain yet to be discovered. Some say only 2% of the brain is being used.  I believe that the 98% part of the brain can show more examples of Dickinson’s view.