“What is the difference between a brain and a person?” my sister asks, gingerly opening the door and gliding into my bedroom, face scrunched from confusion.
I laugh. “Well, quite a lot and not much at all!”
She throws herself onto my unmade bed and releases a string of rapid follow-up questions: “When I’m talking to you, am I really just talking to a brain? Am I just a talking brain? Are we anything other than our brains?”
I sigh, spinning in my desk chair, my mind whirling with moments from AP Psychology and late-night Youtube videos and multicolor diagrams of the skull. They’re all useful in theory, but offer no pertinence to the question at hand, so I grasp for analogies and comparisons in the cobwebbed corners of my brain.
“I guess so,” I begin, using her face as a barometer for my explanation. “You know how people say your body is a temple? Well, think of that temple not as stationary, but rather as a moving temple, a vehicle. Of course, that vehicle isn’t going to get anywhere without an engine, right? Therefore, your brain is that engine because it’s moving the vehicle, but that doesn’t make the vehicle any less of a vehicle! The engine is just a part of it!” …show more content…
“Why does everyone in politics hate each other?” Christina wonders, sitting cross-legged on the black couch in the living room as soundbites from the presidential debate filter from the television. I look up from my government homework for a prolonged glance toward the pictures flashing on the screen, sadness welling in the pit of my stomach at the partisan rhetoric and disdain for compromise.
“What do you do when you disagree with someone?” I ask her in response, lowering the volume so that I can hear her
I laugh. “Well, quite a lot and not much at all!”
She throws herself onto my unmade bed and releases a string of rapid follow-up questions: “When I’m talking to you, am I really just talking to a brain? Am I just a talking brain? Are we anything other than our brains?”
I sigh, spinning in my desk chair, my mind whirling with moments from AP Psychology and late-night Youtube videos and multicolor diagrams of the skull. They’re all useful in theory, but offer no pertinence to the question at hand, so I grasp for analogies and comparisons in the cobwebbed corners of my brain.
“I guess so,” I begin, using her face as a barometer for my explanation. “You know how people say your body is a temple? Well, think of that temple not as stationary, but rather as a moving temple, a vehicle. Of course, that vehicle isn’t going to get anywhere without an engine, right? Therefore, your brain is that engine because it’s moving the vehicle, but that doesn’t make the vehicle any less of a vehicle! The engine is just a part of it!” …show more content…
“Why does everyone in politics hate each other?” Christina wonders, sitting cross-legged on the black couch in the living room as soundbites from the presidential debate filter from the television. I look up from my government homework for a prolonged glance toward the pictures flashing on the screen, sadness welling in the pit of my stomach at the partisan rhetoric and disdain for compromise.
“What do you do when you disagree with someone?” I ask her in response, lowering the volume so that I can hear her