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Single Idea 13154

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain ]

Full Idea

Is it with the blood that we think, or with the air or the fire that is in us? Or is it none of these, but the brain that supplies our senses of hearing and sight and smell.

Gist of Idea

Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain?

Source

Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 097a)

Book Ref

Plato: 'The Last Days of Socrates', ed/tr. Tredennick,Hugh [Penguin 1969], p.153

A Reaction

In retrospect it seems surprising that such clever people hadn't worked this one out, given the evidence of anatomy, in animals and people, and given brain injuries. By the time of Galen they appear to have got the answer.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [philosophically interesting features of the brain]:

20914 The directive centre is located in the whole head [Democritus, by Ps-Plutarch]
13154 Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato]
23218 The brain has no responsibility for sensations, which occur in the heart [Aristotle]
23219 Stopping the heart doesn't terminate activity; pressing the brain does that [Galen, by Cobb]
24027 Nerves and movement originate in the brain, where imagination moves them [Descartes]
7882 Researching phenomenal consciousness is peculiar, because the concepts involved are peculiar [Papineau]
2952 A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood]
4902 Pain doesn't have one brain location, but is linked to attention and emotion [Carter,R]
4904 Proper brains appear at seven weeks, and neonates have as many neurons as adults do [Carter,R]
4915 In primates, brain size correlates closely with size of social group [Carter,R]
4932 A conscious state endures for about 100 milliseconds, known as the 'specious present' [Edelman/Tononi]
23216 The brain is not passive, and merely processing inputs; it is active, and intervenes in the world [Cobb]
23226 There is a single mouse neuron which has 862 inputs and 626 outputs [Cobb]
23513 Single neurons can carry out complex functions [Seth]
23514 The cerbellum has a huge number of neurons, but little involvement in consciousness [Seth]