IUBio

Ten Percent Myth

mat mats_trash at hotmail.com
Wed Feb 20 07:33:26 EST 2002


To be honest with you I haven't a clue what you are trying to say. 
Neurones are specialised types of body cells.  They perform some
specific and unique functions but essentially are no different to
other cells in the body.  They have no mystical or ethereal properties
so lets get that out of the way.  As such, anything that is influenced
by these neurones can be said to be under neural control.  In the
human, neurones (with glia) form the CNS and the peripheral and
autonomic system.  Further, *you* (in the strongest sense - as in the
mental you) are exhausted by the nervous system, you exist *within* it
and not anywhere else.  Of course this is my physcicalist viewpoint,
but for the following it doesn't actually matter:

The nervous system innervates several effector systems, notably
muscles, endocrine glands etc..  Therefore these are under neural
control, whether they are under apparent volitional control is another
matter.  However things like wound healing are local events mostly
mediated by local humaoral and immunoligcal responses.  Though you
could argue that given the body is an integrated system, some
endocrine gland activation distantly influenced the wound healing, to
say it is under an degree on neural 'control' is just plain wrong.

Are you trying to say that conscious control = neural control and that
unconscious control is everything else?  This is a very different
usage from most people's where they take unconscious to mean a type of
neural functional level that does not seem to be directly accesible.

Of course all behaviours and thoughts are under neural control, but
the conscious/unconscious debate is not actually relevant to the
functionig of those neural systems and in fact talking about such
issues as been an almost no-go area for neuroscientists for a long
time.  Interest is resurging recently, but it is a much a matter of
philosophical speulation as science proper.

All you are giving is quasi-religious speculation about your
subjective take on how your brain works wthout having actually
examined the physiological and neuroscientific evidence.  Thats your
perogative, but don't claim then that you know how the brain works.


> Bearing in mind that I can use language to chop all this apart, at
> times I choose not to.
 
What?




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