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You and Your Brain: Upgrading the Relationship

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Although the marvels of the brain as an organ have been wondered at for decades, there’s a risk that science will make us feel like brain puppets. Neuroscience runs this risk by assuming, without any proof, that our brains think, feel, perceive the world, and make choices. In reality the brain is an instrument at the service of the mind. We cannot live without it, just as we cannot live without a heart, but by promoting the brain into a thinking machine (an M.I.T. professor who championed Artificial Intelligence dubbed the brain “a computer made of meat”), we demote ourselves.

You are much more in charge of your biology than you think. Your experiences constantly change your brain. Much of the time we fail to pay attention to how we relate to the brain, but no relationship is more important. One thing the human brain does, in fact, share with computers: It is programmable. We primarily use this fact the wrong way around. Instead of programming our brains to be open, creative, alert, and quiet, we program it to carry out a hundred short cuts.

For example, when a server asks you how you want your burger done or whether you want brown, white, or fried rice with your Chinese meal, it typically takes approximately one-fifth of a second to give your response.  In a restaurant this trained reflex is harmless, but it also takes the same amount of time to shoot back a response if someone asks, “Do you believe in God?” or “Who are you voting for?”

In place of a dynamic relationship, being driven by habits, reflexes, conditioning, and thoughtless opinions gives the brain too much power. In sci-fi a standard plot has robots taking over the world, but right now most people are dominated by a robotic brain. The old view of the brain as fixed for life, constantly losing neurons and declining in function, has been abolished. The new brain is a process, not a thing, and the process heads in the direction you point it in.

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Source
www.sfgate.com
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