Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain
“‘The mind remains a great frontier, and we need thinkers and artists to join us in exploring the perplexing cosmos within our heads.’”
Can the human brain understand itself? The very organ is the very thing we’re trying to understand. Will AI’s take over my job? Can we push the limits of memory? What makes us human? And, do we have free will?
To grapple with these questions, the authors take the reader on a journey to the visual story through the brain in comics and cartoon.
The book is divided into sections of two or three chapters with an interlude. The first ones are an exploration of the mind, love and hate and an interlude about fear. The authors take the readers back to the fourth century BCE and their philosophers. One such was Aristotle, who believed that the heart controlled all the functions of the body. Later centuries, neuroscientists were to prove that the brain, a three-pound organ, is the controlling organ.
In the 19th century, an unusual accident led to the discovery that the brain consists of specific parts, each controls a part of the body. In 1848, Phineas Gage, a railroad worker, was building roads. Suddenly, while he was packing gunpowder into a rock, it exploded. “A 14-pound iron rod pierced through his skull and brain.”
He survived but his personality was changed. This earthshaking discovery was to change the way neuroscientists were to look at the brain. “Gage’s story tells us that even something like personality can be mapped in the brain . . . today, our maps of the brain allow us to know with millimeter precision which areas are linked to everything from perception, memory, and emotions, to judgement, logic and even humor, using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).”
The authors ask the question: How come the brains are the same in all peoples when each individual is unique? They posit that “your uniqueness is inside your brain areas. It’s in the internal wiring that connects each of those areas’ neurons.” Mine is not wired the same as yours.
In the 1940s, psychologists devised scales to measure love intensity. “Of course, these scales only gave us a view of love from the outside.” Today, brain scanning is more accurate because it opens a window into the brain. Neuroscientists discovered that the brain has a reward system. It shouldn’t be surprising that our brain’s reward system lights up when we think about love or when we see our loved ones. “Love is supposed to feel good, and this area rewards you for it.” Brain scanning shows that this reward system is activated when one looks at pictures of a loved one. The brain gets input from other parts of the brain also. “Throughout your life, your brain has grown and been shaped by your genes and by your life experiences.”
Hate wires the brain in a different way. Some of the reasons are fear, anger and avoidance of pain. “Not only do humans have the capacity to hate, we also use our intelligence to organize and find ways to spread It. . . . More disconcertingly, hate is an emotion that can drive individuals to extreme acts of violence and aggression . . . this can lead to dehumanization of an entire group of people, and even to terrorism and genocide.”
Neuroscientists’ findings were that certain parts of the brain and a gene can activate hatred and fear. “Studies have linked the weakness of this gene to a range of personal characteristics, including aggression and hate. Others studies are pointing out that “our brains are configured to think in terms of groups . . .”
“Like any emotion, hate is a complex mix of brain circuits, chemistry, attitude, and social factors. In the age of the internet, the spread of hate is a growing concern . . .” The authors give their solution to combat hatred. The brain can be retrained to feel love and compassion and to hate less. “We should all be inspired to look harder for those qualities within ourselves—and exercise them like muscles we’re trying to grow.” These principles are illustrated with a comic interlude.
The chapter on AI shows the reader how your enslaved mind works. “We hope reading this gives you some ideas for how to use your brain to outsmart those pesky machines.” Most of the population is worried that AI will taking over their jobs. This chapter is a technical explanation, using cartoon figures, of how the human brain processes information. “One thing’s for sure—if we’re to understand artificial intelligence, we’ll need to explore and better understand how our own intelligence works.”
‘Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” (Dr. Seuss)
Thus begins the chapter on memory. It is an insight to the limits of memory and what happens to the wiring in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease. “Like a murky recollection itself, our understanding of memory is crisp and clear about some aspects, but completely hazy about others.” The chapter continues with an explanation of short and long memory and its effects on our emotions. There is a how-to improve one’s memory using repetition and even technology.
Take the rest of the journey through the inner workings of the brain from the pursuit of happiness to a philosophical treatise on free will, what happens when we die and what makes us human.
“The mind remains a great frontier, and we need thinkers and artists to join us in exploring the perplexing cosmos within our heads.”
There are still mysteries to solve about this complex machine, but the answers are there, waiting to come out of your mind.