More on that Matter 

Editor:

One might add to the brain computer comparisons that a computer has no body ("Field Notes," Aug. 8). Why does this matter, so to speak, given sayings such as mind over matter?

Because, first of all, there is no telling where the brain begins or ends, and same with the body. Is it at the end of the fingertip, the eyeball, the nasal mucosa, the interior of the gut, all of which are simultaneously brain and body?

Recently, a neuroscientist studying consciousness opined that the way to understand consciousness is to understand every synapse and other relationship between and among neurons and their associated neural structures. An astronomical task. In nearly the same sentence, he defined consciousness, much to his credit, as our ability to feel and sense, instead of the usual non-sense about awakening, purposeful thinking and so on.

Apparently he failed to appreciate the paradoxical contradiction in that his theory of research ignores the very embodiment of consciousness, the body.

Bottom line: I feel, therefore I am; or, the corollary, I think, therefore I am ... confused.

The reversal of the significance of thinking vs. feeling illuminates the dark matter of human behavioral science, and repudiates the current medical model that our feelings are meaningless neural signals ripe for suppression with all sorts of psychotropics.

It may be that Heisenberg was only partially right, that no one ever can be on the mark in the objective world, but in the realm of pure emotion, unambiguity is the hallmark.

Remember the brain-computer conundrum? Solved. E-motion. Get it?

Ken Miller, McKinleyville