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I guess if we’re sharing how we developed in the class, here’s where I started: “Behavior is a continuous interaction between this marvelous evolutionary creation called the brain and the environment it has created and feeds off of. Our world is what we make of it, and in turn our behavior is what our world makes of us through its interactions with the brain. It’s a never-ending cycle.” I think I didn’t really agree with Descartes mainly because I hate ambiguity and his suggestion that we are controlled by our mind and brain is somewhat ambiguous. What is the mind anyways? Now that the class is concluded, I am more sure of myself in believing that behavior is a construct of the brain. However, this does not mean that I didn’t get anything out of this class, because I DID. One thing that this class emphasized was the variability of the brain. We continuously talked about how our realities may differ, how our perceptions differ, and this idea is probably what makes studying the brain the most difficult and the most interesting. This class was as juicy as it was only because of the variability in the audience. Thanks you guys for making me see things differently. Another important thing that I learned was that our brain does a lot more for us than we realize or are conscious of. (However, I also want to emphasize that I believe that we are still responsible for our actions.) Finally, I really liked how the web papers could be on any topics we desired because I learned a lot more about the brain in just the selection of a topic. I explored a number of topics before choosing one and read a lot of papers on that one topic before I actually narrowed it down and eliminated a bunch of sources.

I loved our last class in particular. I initially made a “story” up to describe the relationship between the neocortex and the rest of the brain saying that the neocortex is the captain of the ship while the rest of the brain is the crew that does basically all the work. However, the crew is subject to insubordination should the captain be doing a bad job, for example forcing the body to stay up and not get enough sleep. However, by the end of the class I revised my story to say that it’s somewhat like a checks and balances system of our government where the neocortex is the brain but doesn’t have absolute power.

I thought this was cool, because Dr. G said that the main benefit of having a bipartite brain is so we are able to continuously learn and revise ourselves. I also love how this revision process is fueled by brain to brain interaction. I was only able to revise my story after hearing more of what Dr. G and the class had to say.