The Brain

This explains how important the brain is ...

The Biggest Part: the Cerebrum

The biggest part of the brain is the cerebrum. The cerebrum makes up 85% of the brain's weight, and it's easy to see why. The cerebrum is the thinking part of the brain and it controls your voluntary muscles — the ones that move when you want them to. So you can't dance — or kick a soccer ball — without your cerebrum.

When you're thinking hard, you're using your cerebrum. You need it to solve math problems, figure out a video game, and draw a picture. Your memory lives in the cerebrum — both short-term memory (what you ate for dinner last night) and long-term memory (the name of that roller-coaster you rode on two summers ago). The cerebrum also helps you reason, like when you figure out that you'd better do your homework now because your mom is taking you to a movie later.

The cerebrum has two halves, with one on either side of the head. Some scientists think that the right half helps you think about abstract things like music, colors, and shapes. The left half is said to be more analytical, helping you with math, logic, and speech. Scientists do know for sure that the right half of the cerebrum controls the left side of your body, and the left half controls the right side.

The Mystery of Consciousness

This is an artical about consciousness from the Time.

"The young women had survived the car crash, after a fashion. In the five months since parts of her brain had been crushed, she could open her eyes but didn't respond to sights, sounds or jabs. In the jargon of neurology, she was judged to be in a persistent vegetative state. In crueler everyday language, she was a vegetable.

So picture the astonishment of British and Belgian scientists as they scanned her brain using a kind of MRI that detects blood flow to active parts of the brain. When they recited sentences, the parts involved in language lit up. When they asked her to imagine visiting the rooms of her house, the parts involved in navigating space and recognizing places ramped up. And when they asked her to imagine playing tennis, the regions that trigger motion joined in. Indeed, her scans were barely different from those of healthy volunteers. The woman, it appears, had glimmerings of consciousness.

Try to comprehend what it is like to be that woman. Do you appreciate the words and caresses of your distraught family while racked with frustration at your inability to reassure them that they are getting through? Or do you drift in a haze, springing to life with a concrete thought when a voice prods you, only to slip back into blankness? If we could experience this existence, would we prefer it to death? And if these questions have answers, would they change our policies toward unresponsive patients--making the Terri Schiavo case look like child's play?"

Reality vs Truth

This is a part of an article. I sometimes think that even thought what we persevere in our reality to be true, sometimes it does not seem that way like sometimes its had to grasp the truth in reality.
"Can you articulate the difference between “reality” and “truth”? Think about it for a minute. “Reality” reflects the varying conditions and circumstances that characterize our world—right or wrong, they’re all a part of “real life.” “Truth,” on the other hand, is objective, eternal and absolute."

Religion, Power, and Violence

To me religion, power and violence most of the time goes hand in hand. Well you have at least 2 of these most of the time.
" Last three decades have seen the violence world over under the flag of religions. Is this violence done to save some religion or its followers? Is it done to protect the moral values, din, ethics, and dharma of the particular religions? Is this violence done to save the traditions and communitarian ethos of the followers of those religions? How are religions related to the massive violence, which goes on in their name?"