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The Significance of the Brain and Conscious Experience in Human Life
I have chosen to write on this topic of chapter one because it discusses the study of all of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience. Much of biological psychology is concentrated and focused on studying the brain functions that a person will have to encounter when having to deal with the “machinery of the body” (p. 3). An example of the body’s machinery are all of the chemical reactions of the body that allow “hormones to influence brain activity and the routes by which the brain activity ultimately control the contractions of muscles” (p. 3). Also, I think it is important to understand the meaning of consciousness, which is defined, by Wikepedia, as a state of the nervous systems of humans and other animals that defies definition, by which may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and an awareness of self, however, consciousness is not necessarily all of these.
I believe it to be a topic of great importance and much misunderstanding, as well as the center of many arguments amongst philosophers, scientists, doctors, psychologists, neuroscientists, and so on. Furthermore, I believe that this phenomenon of the conscious experience is essential to human life and our human experience.
The mind-body, or mind-brain, problem has been addressed by many philosophers. The question which this problem has always posed has been what the relationship between the mind and the brain really is. The belief that the mind and the body are two different kinds of substances that exist independently, but that somehow interact is the most widespread view known as dualism. Although this idea of dualism is the most
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widespread view, almost all of the philosophers and neuroscientists reject the view of dualism (p. 5). The law of conservation of matter and energy in physics states that “the only way to accelerate...