We tend to think of the brain as being intelligent, and that the brain controls the body, while the body is just dumb flesh. Indeed, the brain is a network of almost infinitely interconnected neurons; it has been called the most complex object in the known universe. But the whole body is a network too, which is why the psychologist Michael Hyland has put forward his “intelligent body” hypothesis. Dr Hyland takes further the idea that there is no strict division between brain and the rest of the body. He proposes that intelligence is not confined to the brain, but rather it is distributed throughout the body in an extended network.
Medicine, if it is to get to grips with health rather than just confront disease, must comprehend the living body’s extraordinary ability to maintain conditions stable enough for life to happen at all. Too hot or too cold, too acid or too alkaline, too many waste products or not enough nutrients, and we die. The same goes for the body’s internal architecture and outer form, for they are not fixed, but are constantly broken down and rebuilt.
The sense of self, too, although it seems stable, is formed out of a whirl of sense impressions and memories. At a biochemical level, the properties that emerge from the network provide its ability to self-organise, control the myriad chemical reactions that provide energy and produce the living tissues. At the structural level, these so-called “emergent” properties allow the body to move through space and constantly reconstruct itself; at the level of awareness they give us the ability to sense, respond to, and reflect on our experiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment