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Reflections

            Thissemester I learned to stop accepting everything I hear, read, or see as fact.At first this was a very unsettling conclusion for me because I love being sureabout everything, but now I am enjoy the idea. The idea that our brain is able tomake up some of my reality makes me feel very unique (which sounds vain). Thisrealization also makes me want to challenge all the information that I hear orread, which has forced me to look certain issues from angles that I wouldn’thave considered before. I think that this is useful for scientists duringresearch because I feel like researchers (and humans in general) get started ona certain path and seem blinded to all information that may contradict theirchosen path.

            Ialso learned that our behavior is more than a simple output that is caused by asingular input from our environment. Even though it seems quite obvious today,I had never thought of an action potential starting from within the nervoussystem before, which helps to explain so much about my behavior. I am also gladthat I finally learned how an action potential works. I have been hearing thatphrase for years now and never thought it was really necessary to understandthe mechanics, but from our discussions I learned that action potentials areeverything.

            Asfor Emily Dickinson, I am still not convinced of her argument. I don’t thinkthat the brain can contain everything, but I do think that my brain contains me(me being my I-function). I think that parts of my environment are constructsof my brain, but I think (am hope) that parts of my environment are actuallyreality.

Three questions that I still have…

1. Why isn’t it possible to reconnect neurons after they have been destroyed? So many diseases are caused by cell death or weakening, so would it someday be possible to transplant neurons?
2. In the future, how will new technologies be able to help us better understand the animal mind? Will we ever be able to determine the thoughts of animals?