Entertain a Thought!

The adventure starts at the mirror. Oh yes, this is where I met him. I stood there and opened my eyes to this strange being staring back at me; imitating my moves, replying with the same words I use to ask him questions… Credit: pxfuel . And the closer I looked, the more perplexed I became, for he was no longer one. He was many. MANY!! Billions and billions of them staring back at me! Colonies and colonies of cells, each with a different shape and differentiation, yet all under the control of the grand designer … the DNA. For he has managed to make them all his slaves. He has made billions of himself … And utilized those poor cells for his own advantage. I saw them there standing strong as ever, bound by the matrix, nourished by the vessels … Yet I heard their desperate screams. "HELP!" But I could not help, for the DNA master has taken over, and I can only watch with sympathy as the agony continued. And then … with the blink of an eye … it vanished! I s...

A couple of years ago, particularly during the holiday between  the first and second year in college, I decided to watch a neuroscience course called Understanding the Brain  for the neuroscientist Jeanette Norden. It's a great course, especially to those who would like to get a philosophical and thought-provoking introduction to the field before getting loaded with the details of neuroanatomy and physiology. Credit: Wikimedia Commons . I was quite surprised at the fact that I never quite thought about such primitive questions as "how do I see things?" and even where the "seat of thinking" lied. Now, after two years of reading and listening of lectures and videos on the subject, I know why. It all stems from our tendency to introspect.We assume that there's a little man (or homunculus , if you prefer the proper term) inside our heads that represents the real "us" who actually analyses the data,  external to the actual hardware ...

Credit: Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan . The past ... Our perception of time is one of the great testimonies to our faulty sensations and imperfect perception of reality. We all have this perception that we live in the present; that we are aware of what goes on around us, as it happens, in real time. But if you think about it, is this truly the case? Let's start with the easy one. Suppose you're watching a live show on TV. It takes a second or slightly less for the microwave radiation used to transmit the signal to the satellite and resend it to your receiving dish. Then it takes a fraction of a second, albeit very short, for the signal to get converted to an electrical signal that travels down the cables, gets reproduced into a visual signal on your TV screen. So technically, you are watching what DID happen a few seconds in the recording studio, not what is happening at the moment. Look up into the heavens on a clear night sky and open your mouth in awe, for what ...

Hello! Credit: Wikimedia Commons . Have you ever thought of (and I mean,  really contemplated) your blood as a solution? Have you ever thought of your cells as a solvent containing dissolved electrolytes and solutes. i.e. as a lipid containers with a jelly protoplasm and a fine meshwork of actin polymers to hold them together? Have you ever thought of your limbs as mere layers of proteins and lipid, organized in various mixes and shapes to form the muscles you move with and the skin that covers them? Have you ever, at your deepest moment of emotionality, looked back and contemplated how your pounding heart is a mere pump? Have you ever thought of your thorax and abdomen as containing a cavity? Have you TRULY ever tried to imagine that the food that passes your pharynx still has a long way to go down a muscular tube? Have you ever thought of your hormones, transduction cascades, DNA replication, protein synthesis and cellular movement as chemic...