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LAJW's picture

Reflection

 

I think last week's discussion involved a lot of information that was novel to me. I really enjoyed discussing the idea of the construction of the brain. After reading the article “ the Phantom in the brain”, I do not take my body, more precisely my brain, for granted any more. I was really amazed by the extremely complicated interactions occur in our brains everyday. I realized that there are so many things about brain that normal human beings do not appreciate. After this week's discussion, I think I appreciate my life to a larger extent than before. However, while enjoying reading the bizarre functions of various parts of brain and how they are interconnected to give human beings the sense of reality and consciousness, I am very confused about one concept. It seems that Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran can give us very justifiable and logical reasons to explain various problems faced by patients. However, if we really explore the question deep, do you think it is contradictory to study our brain functions using the brain itself? Is it just another story that is constructed by our brain to explain the phenomenons we have observed so far?

 

Yeah, Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran actually introduced a lot of ideas and wise experiments to prove his hypothesis. However, he himself also committed that human beings need to have a coherent belief system to maintain a sense of continuity and that belief system is constructed by the brain at left hemisphere. If so, consciousness and reality are actually constructed by the human brain. How can he prove that the “reality” constructed by his brain is reality? It may be just the case that his reality happens to be shared by a large percentage of the whole human population? Like what we have discussed in class: there is nothing that accounts for everything. There is indeed no truth and we live in our own brain constructions.

 

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