The Complex Joke of Our Existence (Neuroscience Writing Assignment)

Hi. My name is Israel, I am majoring in psychology, and my interest in this course has much to do with my fascination with human beings and how they/we operate. More specifically, I am interested in how the brain and mind/consciousness interact and are related to each other. I am also very intrigued by the different methods that have been developed to study the brain. I play the guitar. I have recently picked up the drums as well. I also sing, and in the past, I have led the services/prayers for the Jewish high holidays (Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur) in a synagogue in Toronto with over 700 participants. 

The video we watched in class, where the researcher was able to predict the behavior of the participant 6 seconds prior to the participant's observable hand movement, was definitely the most interesting and striking part of the lecture for me so far. This was of interest to me because the question of free will is one that I have been thinking about for a long time. If I understood the video correctly, the researcher’s conclusion from this experiment was that all human action is predetermined by an unconscious force. The researcher seemed to claim that the results of this experiment are evidence for a “Deterministic” point of view/philosophy regarding human behavior and choice. Based on my previous knowledge, the idea of determinism is that the choices that people make are not really choices but rather an inevitable outcome of their DNA, environment, and other outside factors. Thus, true free choice does not really exist even if it feels like we are active participants in our own decisions. In this course, I hope to gain a better understanding of the biological processes of how the brain works, and the different ways the mind affects our behavior. By gaining a better understanding of our cognition and the neurological underpinnings, I hope I will be able to better understand and address the question of how and why we do what we do.

I am a finite human being who probably does not fully comprehend who he truly is. What I have gathered so far is that I am a culmination of many years of survival and reproduction. As for consciousness, this is still a mystery to me. It is possible that based on the emerging evidence about individuals having accurate memory after being proclaimed dead, the concept of death and when all of one’s senses are truly not working needs to be redefined. Perhaps the same way that it isn’t unusual for a dead body to have some movements post-death, a person can still be perceiving things after they are dead, and if somehow revived, that person will recall what his senses were absorbing in this intermediate phase. As far as consciousness in machines, I am rather skeptical about machines somehow gaining full consciousness the way we know it. 

To me, the mind-body problem is one of many indicators that humans are finite in their knowledge of the inner workings of the universe. I have not yet come across an answer to this question that is concrete enough for me to subscribe to it. I, therefore, prefer to claim not to know than to be the one with all the answers… The contradiction arises when we see that on the one hand, by monitoring the brain, one can conclude how a person will act or react. This seems to indicate that the mind is the direct output of the brain. Hence, we can conclude that our mind and thoughts are nothing but the result of brain activity. On the other hand, if after the brain shuts down it is still perceiving its surroundings, then this might indicate that the mind is not entirely dependant on the brain but is rather something that transcends it or emerges from it as a separate entity. I think that the mind is very much connected with the brain and the nervous system. However, there appears to be an element of the mind that is not tangible, almost untouchable. This leads me to think that there is something to the concept of a soul. Not in a religious sense - I don’t think that our soul suffers after death, but there is an energy/aspect of the human being that cannot simply be reduced to physical and material matter. So I think both can be true, the mind is inextricable from the brain and nervous system, but it is also far more complex than just chemical actions and reactions. This all boils down to one big joke: we are constantly working hard and trying to navigate our day-to-day lives when in truth, we pretty much don't even know who we really are and what truly motivates us to do what we do.