Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
All I can say is this: If you're so sure the brain is just a "meat calculator," don't you think scientists would've figured out how it works a long time ago? They're figured out more complex organs and processes than that, throughout the body. Why not the brain?
Or do you really believe humans are just biochemical toasters?
|
Why haven't we figured out cancer? Why haven't we figured out why an otherwise healthy heart can go into irregular patterns and bug out? Where do you get that the human brain is not so complex, and which organs are there of greater complexity? There's so much we haven't figured out in nature, but none of it necessary implies there must be something more behind it than "it is complex and we don't have the tools/knowledge to fully unravel it... yet". Neuroscience is just getting started. How long have non-invasive non-destructive brain scanning tools been around, and how good are they right now?
Yes, we are meat machines. I don't agree with the "just" in "just a meat calculator" - nothing wrong with meat machines. We are glorious and fantastic meat machines, evolved from countless generations of earlier meat machines in a great big orgy of natural selection and changing environments. Just because I know a sunset is nothing but light scattering due to atmospheric conditions does not reduce my enjoyment of it. Just because my enjoyment is an electrochemical response to external stimuli and perhaps partly conditioned does not make it less valid or enjoyable.