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For me, the most interesting part of the concept of the nervous system as “boxes within boxes” is the idea that some of those “boxes” cannot be opened. That is, some things in our brains happen without our realizing. We are not conscious of how our eyes work, or that our heart is beating, but it still happens. On another level entirely, we think things we don’t mean to, and react to events that happened last week or last year without them being brought back to our conscious mind for any discernable reason. The fact that the brain can trick itself and react to itself is a bizarre concept, one that I would love to explore further. How do we know what is going on in one part of our brain and not in another? Why can we control our breathing when we try, but at the same time don’t usually need to think of it at all? Why do we consciously react to some of the stimuli we receive and not others?

On another note entirely, it’s a comforting thought, that people who we remember are not exactly dead, but at the same time, not one that I’m just not sure I can accept. In my opinion, being alive involves having new thoughts, new ideas. Life is change, and a memory of a person, and any of their thoughts that they left behind cannot do that. Not being forgotten gives someone’s life meaning for those they leave behind, and is a part of that person, but not all of them. The greater part of them is lost to death. Oddly, this concept of the records and written thoughts that people leave behind being them is explored by a new science fiction TV show, Caprica, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica_%28TV_series%29) so the idea seems to be on people’s minds outside our classroom.