I wield the highest power on this planet.
One that is often imitated, but never truly bettered. This power raises cities, fells mountains, tames wild beasts, makes fire and steel and stone and light obey to shape the world how I wish it to be. In its spare time, I put this power to work to make my world beautiful as well as comfortable, filling it with art and philosophy and literature and cinema and florid prose on internet forums.

It's my brain. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without my brain, I am nothing. Without me, my brain is nothing.

Every creature visible to the naked eye on this planet has a brain, but the human version stands apart from all the rest in the sheer overwhelming force with which it makes the world do what it wants.

Okay, this cuts both ways; I'd hardly argue that all human effect on the Earth is beneficial, but the point is it happens. On top of that, there's a lot of failure to actually engage the higher functions, but again, there's also a lot of the other.

I'm proud to own a brain like the one I do. I have a reasonably high IQ, better self confidence than some but more humility than I sound like I do right now. I don't have any major psychological or neurological issues - wait, actually, I'm epileptic, but some other nice brains working away in the heads of doctors have come up with drugs that mean I don't suffer for it, which is why it slipped my mind there. I'm an atheist (because I think about it), I hate advertising (because I think about it), and I love words and wordplay, but not maths and numbers. I'm also an irredeemable gamer, computer and otherwise, but not a big fan of sports.
I like being me.

Obviously, as I said already, our brains cut both ways. I, like all other humans, have appalling short term memory, compared to what it could be. My brain uses up more of the body's resources than it needs to, because of overdesign. My pattern recognition wiring ruins other aspects of my eyesight; my risk analysis is badly flawed in favour of short term gains over long term. I'm innately selfish the same way everyone is, because that was evolutionarily favourable. Arguably, I'm genetically hardwired against monogamy, but culturally programmed towards.

I'm subject to epilepsy; others have schizophrenia, neuroses, nerve damage, brain damage, anger management issues, psychosis, paralysis, an irrepressible desire to take the piss out of people - the list of potential defects is as long as your central nervous system; precisely because it needs to be so complicated in order to do what it does, there's so much more that can go wrong (hello engineers!).

What cuts both ways the hardest in my opinion is also the thing that most distinguishes us from anything else that can scrape together more than three nerve cells. I would argue that the greatest definition of consciousness is 'awareness of awareness'. Certain people I have "discussed" this with, _{hello StapMyVitals}, disagree and claim that everything which reacts to its environment is sentient. Balls.

We are uniquely conscious of what is in our own heads.
We perceive things not just as they are, but as they might or will be.
We have a unique view of time.
We therefore have a sense of our own mortality.

We know we are going to die.

This has caused more problems on the planet than any other aspect of human existence. There can be no greater fear, once one has realised the power available at ones fingertips (or nerve tips rather) than having to acknowledge that it will all, someday, be taken away.
Or can there? I think there is, because death doesn't terrify me.

Senility, on the other hand, does. I can't imagine anthing worse than watching myself as I know me cease to exist, until I'm no longer conscious of doing so. Except maybe watching someone I know doing the same. My father's mother died ten years ago, but went to her grave last year. It's far more harrowing than merely losing someone, because you've lost them but they're still there, helpless as a child, scared of the world, but looking like somebody you loved and relied on, somebody who now simply is not there. I fear my mum or dad could go the same way, and it breaks my heart to even contemplate.

So there we go. Absolute power, as close as we can come, and the limits thereof. Apologies for lack of humour, but I'm in a deep and serious mood today. It's longer than I intended too, but my brain got carried away.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 13:15, 25 replies)

What makes you think all creatures visible to the naked eye have a brain?
There are plenty that don't. Some of them are quite large.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 13:42, closed)

Didn't really think about it too hard, except to disqualify single celled orgamisms.
Given that I'm going to define any assemblage of neurons as a brain, what creatures are you thinking of?
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 13:45, closed)

Jeremy Kyle
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:01, closed)

Oh, he has a brain.
He got it from the heads of three snakes and a newt, combined using dark alchemy.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:09, closed)

I was thinking about lancelets,
but the way you are defining a brain shoots down that argument.

Carry on, nothing to see here.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:07, closed)

Ooohhh hang on a moment.
What are those things that are lumped in with the chordata because the larval stage are similar to tadpoles. I think they're sea squits. Do they have a brain in the adult form?
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:15, closed)

Possibly, possibly not.
I think you're missing my point though, which is that out of all the brains on the planet, the human one is pretty unique.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:24, closed)

I probably am.
To be honest I didn't read the whole post. I just got to the bit about all creatures visible to the human eye having brains, and saw an opportunity to be a pedant.

That's how my brain works don't you know.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 14:39, closed)

Hippie

( Kroney, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 16:09, closed)

Toad. Dullard. Sluggardly blaggard.
Nymphomaniac. Fascist. Invert. Syrup-swilling, blocked-nostrilled, shit-squishing, lizard-fondling, straw-chewing, merchant banker. Cross-eyed badger botherer. Homosexual. Rapist. Virgin. One eyed trouser snake. Single barrelled pump-action yoghurt rifle. Addle-pated mouth breathing buffoon. Windowlicker. Communist. Octopus.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 16:39, closed)

who's cross-eyed?
Descartes died 350 years ago, it's all about the Materialism now. Get with the programme dude.

*snaps fingers*
( Kroney, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 16:47, closed)

Oh God, I can't stand Descartes.
I am absolutely a materialist. I'm certainly not making any claims for the soul or anything. What makes you think otherwise? I can't see it myself.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 16:52, closed)

Oh, nothing really
a section or two described thinking about and being aware of existence. I'm only pulling your leg.
( Kroney, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 17:01, closed)

My brain hurts!

(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 17:38, closed)

Agreed, it cuts both ways
The very thing that can enable you to appreciate everything there is to gain from the world can also make you ask yourself, "Is this all there is ?"
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 16:22, closed)

Well put
And I share the same deepest fear. Senility has got to be the worst way to go, due to the way it chips away at a person's identity and memories piece by piece.
(Cloudane, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 18:55, closed)

While senility is scary to watch
I suspect that those going through it are not aware. That is about the only comfort I find in it.
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 1:22, closed)

The thing that seems most horrible to me about it
is that you're bound to be aware of it in the early stages, as it encroaches, and you can watch your mind going. Even the terminally demented do have moments of clarity, sometimes enough to recognise that life is now totally alien to them. :S
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 10:33, closed)

I once worked with people with advanced Alzheimers
Although I had no way of knowing, I always felt that these people were all there, just 'locked out' from the ROTW somehow.

As we get older, we are increasingly encouraged by life to 'let go' of all sorts of things. I hope, by the time I'm 150 or so, I feel ready to let go, and see what happen's next.

Death to me doesn't mean a sudden abrupt halt to my personality, similar to a light bulb being switched off. Nothing in the universe (except a light bulb) does that, so why should I?
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 12:40, closed)

Despite the fact
that you called me a "dimwitted crotch monkey", I think this is a brilliant post. We all have more power over our own lives than we want to believe.
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 6:54, closed)

Thank you very much.
Dammit, I've been out-maturitied. Ah well.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 10:31, closed)

You might like this
www.amazon.co.uk/Prehistory-Mind-Origins-Religion-Science/dp/075380204X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278885465&sr=8-1

Title is a bit misleading. It's mostly about how human minds differ from animals and why, from an evolutionary point of view.

My favourite fact: we're really bad at knowing what other people are thinking because consciousness developed as a tool to predict what other people are thinking based on what we're thinking. If they're not thinking along the same lines we would, we're really, really bad at dealing with it - hence why we anthropomorphise animals.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 23:01, closed)

Jellyfish
They don't have brains.
(caescarna Hell's Roomba, Mon 12 Jul 2010, 14:32, closed)

Fortunately for my point, whales, monkeys, spiders, lobsters, crabs, fish, cats, squirrels, platypuses, octopuses, fruit flies, fruit bats, quails, snakes, lizards, sharks, squid, dinosaurs, beetles, eagles, beagles, flying squirrels and orangutangs have or had brains, as well as a couple of other creatures.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Mon 12 Jul 2010, 14:47, closed)

nicely put
My gran has advanced dementia or something very like it. My gran, the furiously self reliant woman who did everything for herself and still worked voluntarily for a charity shop in her 70's ceased to be around 6 years ago. She is now helpless and has to have 24 hour care. The very worst thing about it is the thankfully increasingly rare snaps of lucidity she has when some sort of connection is made and you can see that she knows what is happening to her. Seeing her eyes when that happens is heart breaking. She had a heart attack last year and i felt truly awful for hoping that she wouldn't recover. I don't go up to see her as often as i should because i hate to see her like she is.
sorry this isn't funny i am just having a soul searching day
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Thu 15 Jul 2010, 12:24, closed)