Big Picture
If you are a wood cutter you use the axe(tool) and get your job done. After the job is done, you take the wood and make it into more useful things in life but have you ever thought about your axe deeply? 🤔 Well, metaphorically we are all wood cutters using different types of axes to get things done every single day. Our brain is one of those axes(tools) that we use extensively.
As a designer, I work with human cognition, perception, memory, decision making, response action, feedback, attention, processing aspects of human. Been doing this for years. I never stopped and asked what is the tool behind all these mental activities in a human being?
When I did, my life changed. I could not ignore the biological brilliance we all hold (the brain ). I was curious to know what is this tool all about? how can it do so much? what are it capabilities? why does it fail? It looks like a blob of meat but how do we know what happens in which part of the brain etc? The questions took me to the depth of the most magnificent (meat) machine known to mankind.
As a science community are still figuring it out by the by. We don’t have a succinct understanding of personality, consciousness and other such murky genres. However we have come a long way in understanding how the brain works, what happens if it doesn’t work as intended (mental disorders) etc.
Neuroscience aka brain science deals with scientific study of nervous system and their relation to behaviour and learning. The subject is an amalgamation of the anatomy, physiology, molecular biology, behavioural biology of nerves and nervous tissue.
Our brain weights about 2% (around 1400 grams) of our body weight. It consumes about 25% of the total energy required by the body (yup, it is an energy sucker).
This is why we say that, the most important job of our brain is to NOT think. The more it thinks, the more energy it needs. When it needs way more energy, it shuts down, takes shortcuts and conserves energy in all possible ways. This is why you should not trust your brain with the immediate estimates and decisions.
Have you noticed that when you cram for exams you crave for more sugar (chocolate, soda etc)? That is your brain signalling it is thinking too much.
We will dig into the anatomy of the brain tomorrow.
🥂to the meat machine!
Yo! Thanks for reading. Means a lot to me as attention is the hardest currency 🙏
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Meat machine's introduction looks fascinating.