Brain Reflections

Poet Emily Dickinson once wrote:

Sparknotes translates Dickinson's poem as:

“[It's about] the mind’s capacity to absorb, interpret, and subsume perception and experience. 

The brain is wider than the sky despite the sky’s awesome size 

because the brain is able to incorporate the universe into itself,  

and thereby even to absorb the ocean. 

The source of this capacity, in this poem, is God.”

This poem makes me think about how the human brain is so complex...its capacity for understanding is so impressive.

Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, it evolved tailored by the environment, and we developed handy tools like feelings, learning, and memory. 

Then after humans evolved a questioning brain, they naturally began searching for answers to the  mysteries around them. But to what end?

In a book called Chess Metaphors, author Diego Rasskin-Gutman says,

"During the last 30 thousand years (at least), the human species has incessantly questioned its own nature and it's position within the universe—an overwhelmingly empty enterprise because of the paucity of valid answers and always led by a search for religious meaning.   

Little by little, this search has been stripped of its divine sense as attitudes evolved through the influence of the scientific community and by the transformation of societies in modern nation-states. 

Thus, a huge role has been played by scientists:

•  Copernicus and Galileo showed that we are not the center of the universe, 
• Darwin recognized the animal with our being,
• Freud placed consciousness at the center of the scientific quest,
•  and Einstein equated matter with energy and showed nature's dependence on point of view."

It's all about perspective.

And the evolution of not only our brains, but of our shared experience.

How one defines God is a very personal journey, but the collective pursuit of that definition influences our relationship with the world and our relationships with each other.

Any path taken is both personal and shared. Am I open and feel awe? Am I closed and feel fear? Am I confused?

So then why is Western society so "mum's the word" about the discovery of a higher truth in the secular context?

I very much respect Dickinson for expressing her inner reflections via poetry, like past poets Rumi and 寒山.

In Dickinson's opinion, the mind is a manifestation of God, or the individual is an instrument of God. 

[here's a little poem response dedicated to her]

----

hey, brain. 

you may be wider than the sky...

swallowing endlessly 

for total absorption

but why

resist the ocean's deafening roar

participate with silence

Then witness 

the love within 

-also boundless-

our own reflection(s).

simple reflection.

----

Optical Delusions

An optical delusion is when you see things as you want them to be, not as they truly are. 

Humans make excuses, overlook things that shouldn't be overlooked, hold onto optimism or pessimism, fall into complacency, make assumptions, etc. etc. etc. 

It's so easy to do. 

What's not easy is looking beyond the immediate.  

Is it even possible to fully see if we come pre-programmed with years of conditioning, biases, and opinions?

After all, personal history directly impacts world view. My interpretation of the world is no one else's truth but my own. And of course, your interpretation is uniquely yours.

When we come together, it's so much easier if we work from a compassionate, loving, open, and communicative playbook. Then at least we can help each other draw—if not the right conclusion—then at least a pretty decent one. Because 2 (and more) heads are better than one.

Here's some insight from the brilliant Albert Einstein:

"A human being is part of the whole called by us 'the universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

This delusion is kind of a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. 

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

How Free Is Our Will

Sometimes I wonder: am I free to make my own choices, or is my behavior determined by my genetic code? By the chemicals in my brain? By my social environment?  

Philosophers have put forth some interesting food for thought-

Do we have free will? In other words, do we act solely on our own accord? Without being forced to be influenced by others or natural law?

Or is the universe deterministic in nature? That means that every action that has occurred up to this point has its own predictable root cause, so it was all bound to happen. Therefore, our very behavior must also be deterministic.

And then there's compatibilism which argues that the concepts of free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. Both free will and determinism can co-occur.

I like the explanation of Hume's Fork in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:

"Either our actions are determined,
in which case we are not responsible for them,

Or they are the result of random events,
in which case we are not responsible for them."

We probably won't land on a definitive answer during our lifetime, but we can at least take solace in our own individual pathway. As Matt Ridley points out in his book Genome, there's at least some comfort in realizing that we are at the very least each able to express our own determinism and not somebody else's.

So while I think long and hard about how I make the choices I do, I will also remind myself to enjoy the cognitive and societal freedom (or perception of freedom) to make them.