Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett hopes that her materialist perspective will help us deal with our current anxieties:
First, in her view, your brain is merely a “command center” that evolved from a “tiny sea creature” over countless aeons to run your complex body. Your brain doesn’t even exist in order to think:
“Your brain’s most important job isn’t thinking; it’s running the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even when your brain does produce conscious thoughts and feelings, they are more in service to the needs of managing your body than you realize.” — Lisa Feldman Barrett, “Your Brain Is Not for Thinking” at New York Times
She asks us to image our brains as operating a series of deposits and withdrawals …
For one thing, if the brain is really just a mechanism for deposits and withdrawals, who or what thought up the image that describes it that way? Unthinking things cannot characterize themselves. The brain is characterized, correctly or otherwise, by something that operates with but beyond the brain. For convenience, we refer to it as the mind.
While we are here, neuroscience tends to support the reality of the mind, even though many neuroscientists are not in a rush to tell us that.
News, “Neuroscientist: Your brain isn’t for thinking, just surviving” at Mind Matters News
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