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one concept that came up in class condradicted everything that i have always believed. it was when paul said 'what's being asserted is that there's no mind and brain as seperate entities. the mind is the brain'

now, i know that the mind is often construed as just another word for the soul. and im not religious at all, but i like to believe that there is a part of us that isnt constructed and directed by biology. that we arent made up of only chemicals. that we need more than a pill to fix a mental problem. that there is a part of us that is connected to and works with the rest of the universe. and this doesnt necessarily have to be the mind, or the soul, or any other word scientists are uncomfortable using, but i do believe that there's something more than biology keeping us alive. in fact, it could even be the brain. if we are then comfortable asserting that all of the brain isnt just chemicals. because we havent completely unravelled the brain, and we're still searching for answers.

something else that came up was education as brain surgery, with educators who manipulate the brain, causing it to fucntion in a certain way. now, at first, i agreed with this completely, and at the same time, wondered what we were doing in a system of education that was trying to teach us how to be. but after thinking about it for a while, i realised that yes, education does have a very large impact on the way we percieve the world, but here we are, questioning that system and structure itself. obviously it's still given us room for iur thoughts and contradictions to develop. and honestly, the entire society we live in is based of structure - in your family, at school, at work, in your neighbourhood, the way you interact with people -- all of it has some structure. and you need that, in order to know how to function. in order to make functioning easier.

compartmentalising things is a natural function of our brains, we put everthing into little boxes so that we can process information faster. and maybe, compartmentalising isnt the problem at all. its the labels we add to the compartments that cause problems. its like what we spoke about in a Gender Studies class i once took, the words 'male' and 'female' or pronouns 'he' and 'she' dont cause the problems, in fact we need those in daily conversation or thought, it's the stereotypes and lables we attach to them that make things uncomfortable and suffocating. so maybe its the same with structure. maybe structure isnt bad. but structured structure - the holding on and incessant need for structure is what causes claustrophobia. if structure existed and loose boundaries, maybe we'd be alright.