For today’s class, you read the first chapter from Michael O’Shea’s The Brain. Spend the first ten minutes of class writing a summary of your reading in your notebook. After class, type up your handwritten summary, save it on your computer/drive, and copy-and-paste it into a comment to this blog post. To receive credit, this has to be done before our next class.
ENG1101 D340 English Composition I, SPR2015
Official site for ENG1101 D340
Hello, world!
Zahirah Hutton
ENG 1101 D340
2/10/2015
Summary:
This particular chapter I found very enlightening because I never thought I would fine the brain an interesting “Machine”. It’s funny because it’s amusing to talk about the brain while using the brain to talk about itself. However the fact that the brain can decode words without the proper spelling is awesome. I knew that there were a lot of things I wouldn’t be able to accomplish without the use of the brain but it’s one of those essential parts of your body that makes you feel like you have total control of what you do. This machine give you the sense of freedom like your in control of your every thought and dream.
My “ruined” Laptop
When I was eighteen (18) years old I had my first laptop computer. The laptop was given to me by my father to help me with my studies, when I was pursuing Computerized Accounting. I was very happy when I received the laptop, for I was really in need of one to help me with my studies/practices. The laptop then became very useful and important to me in regards to my Computerized Accounting studies and what I wanted to accomplish.
A few years after, I started to use the same laptop my father had given me to do my research and assignments for an Architectural Drawing course that I was pursuing at Guyana, Government Technical Institute.
One day, I was working on two assignments that were due that evening, when all of a sudden my laptop was no longer useful because it was “ruined “by my own foolishness.
That day, I was using my laptop to complete my two assignments and the time was running out on me. The assignments could not have been submitted 15 minutes later than the hour after the class started, or else, it would not have been marked, even though it was to be graded for finals. So, I panicked and lost control of myself and threw my laptop towards my bed causing it to ricochet off the bed and fell to the floor with the screen facing downwards. The fall on the ground resulted in the screen being broken.
After that foolish incident, I felt really bad because I “ruined” the laptop that was given to me by my father. I found it very hard getting my other researches and assignments done without having my own laptop, and I had to raise money to buy myself a new laptop which took me a while to do so.
Many people say that most humans only use 10% of their brain. Well that is a myth. Different parts of your brain are use for different functions. Just reading a passage, is a lot of different functions that the brain is doing at the same time. It’s amazing how your brain can store long term memory and short term memory. For example if you meet a random person and learn their name you will remember their name for a short amount of time. After a month, maybe even less, you will forget the persons name. However, something like reading, its a skill that takes time to learn. Once you learn how to read its something takes many years to forget if ever. The brain is constantly sending out millions of nerves and messages to different parts of the body. Every movement that your body does is being directed to do so from the brain. The reason that you can see is because your brain sends signals to the eyes. So the brain does a lot more than people know. The brain is the reason we can feel emotions and pain. Even though scientist may never know how the brain works as a whole they are excited to face the challenge to find out new things. These are just some of the things that caught my interest from the reading.
Shen LeCheng
Scientist said our brain is like a machine, similar to a computer but way better. The Brain is an evolved biological entity made from materials such as small organic molecules, proteins lipids and carbohydrates, a new trace element, and quite a lot of salty water. Our brain is a very mysterious ‘Machine’. Our well-developed brain provides us with some very distinctive abilities. It operates in the background of every action, sensation and thought and it is the reason why we can feel emotions and pain. What I found interesting was that the order of letters is not particularly important because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole. For example; It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aer, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht eth frist dan lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The brain can store information in short term or long term memory, which must be represented by physical brain changes. According to Michael O’shea, we need to use our brain to think about our brain. Reading demands concentration and attention. Therefore, as you read these words your brain must direct your attention away from the many potential distractions that are constantly in the background. While writing this response to the chapter, I thought in Psychology the study of the mind. Meaning that we choose what to do or our free will. However, it is funny that we see our nose at all time and our brain just chooses to ignore it. Our brain routine perceived touch, taste, smell, hearing, and vision which is very important and we usually don’t think about it. More important, the brain is compare to a computer.
In the excerpt of Michael O’shea’s “The Brain” he focuses on the basics of the brain. With a personal approach in the text, O’shea writes how humans learn to read and how words are associated with images and further thoughts in our mind. What I found really interesting was the fact that humans can understand full paragraphs of jumbled text, as long as the first and last letter in the words are in correct order. To add on to that, the brain is so smart that we don’t even have to read every word in a sentence to understand its meaning. We simply have to take a glance at the sentence and will understand it in most cases. Although we normally look at the brain as only the operator of our thoughts, O’shea points out that the brain is just one part of a large system operating our whole body. Our brain sends signals to our blood to transfer, it tells us when to breathe all while we may not believe that we are consciously making that decision for ourselves.
Justin Echevarria
2/10/15
Michael O’Shea style of writing is very unique, at least in my opinion. While I was reading “The Brain” I felt as if I was actually in a lectured class. All the knowledge, mechanics of the brain is something I already had learned in my previous years from other professors/teachers or my own type of research; for example, the brain operates along side with the spinal cord which allows control of the body. This is transmitted by neurons that send electrical signals to the part of the body that you decide to move, actually in some parts of the body it’s actually uncontrollable. The body fluids that help digest foods aren’t a thought that humans have it is controlled by the brain without thinking. During the reading of “The Brain” there was definitely questions that came to mind that way I can get a better understanding of the brain.
Michael O’Shea begins the chapter by classifying the human brain as “very special machine”. He then would go on and mention a few mind blowing facts about the brain that many readers are most likely unaware of. For example “containing one hundred billion nerve cells, none of which alone has any idea”. O’Shea was pointing out that every part of the brain down to the last cell all works together in order to work in the magnitude that it does. Afterwards, O’Shea went on to mention that referring to the brain as a independent agent is incorrect because the human brain is influenced by every corner of our body. The works of the brain allows our every movement, every thought and every emotion. The brain is capable of storing information in short term memory and long time memory. A skill like reading is almost impossible to forget but remembering a persons name after meeting them once is a lot easier to forget. Human brain is so intelligent that we do not need to read a whole sentence in order to comprehend the sentence. The most interesting part about reading this chapter is getting to understand how involved the brain is with everything we do whether we realize it or not.
Thinking about the brain
When I started to read this chapter I couldn’t stop because O’sheas has a very particular way to talk about the brain, the style he uses to express what his thinking is very special. He described our brain as a “very special machine” and I agree with him because it is one of the more complex organs of our body, to control our physical and mental functions is a hard job and it takes a process to be done even if we feel that is not. It’s funny when he said that you can only think about your brain with your brain because sometimes we don’t take the time to analyze this kind of things that are obvious and are part of us even if sometimes it looks hard. Our brain is something wonderful, it never stops, it’s always working and even in this moment, writing about it, all its cells are connected and working together to organize my ideas, do every movement and sensation required. Literally, our brain is responsible to everything we do, it got the ability to form pictures in our mind, to perceive the things, to make us feel sad or happy, to fall in love, to make us decide what’s good or bad for us and also it has the ability to generate conscious awareness, which convinces us that we are free to choose what we will do next, as O’sheas said in the chapter. But the brain “works” in team because other things are required to complete all this process. All of this is controlled directly or indirectly by the action of the nervous system. I think I’ll read this chapter again because I want to analyze better the way our brain works and reading O’sheas is the best way to do it because he has a unique way of explaining this so it’s easier to understand it.
“Very Special Machine”. The statement made by Michael O’shea is so accurate and interesting at the same time because although a brain is full of “knowledge” he also states that the brain itself doesn’t have a clue what we are or what it is, basically “because you can only think about your brain with your brain”. Pretty ironic? When reading the chapter, I found it pretty interesting when O’shea mentions that when you read, “your brain is commanding your eyes to make small but very rapid (about 500 per second) left-to-right movements”. I never knew that the amount was so much or even existed. Since reading the chapter, I can’t read without thinking about the fast movement my eyes are making and the sudden stops or intermissions in between to protect me from visual overload. I Didn’t even know it was physically possible to suffer from visual overload! Since reading truly isn’t my forte, I actually have an interesting thing to cope with my reading every time. Michael O’shea did an amazing job on the deliverance of “Thinking about the brain”, and hope to read more of his work.
The chapter beginns with Michael O’Shea classifying the human brain as a very special machine. The human brain weighs 1.2 kg and containing one hundered billion nerve cells communicating with each other to create conscious awareness. Thinking about your brain is itself something of a conundrum because you can only think about your brain with your brain. The brain is the most complex and extraordinary machine in the known universe- according to the brain. It is clearly that this is and may be nothing more than the brains opinion of itself.
Another thing that really cought my attention in this texts, was the fact that we were able to read words, even though they are spelled wrong. As long as the first and last letter of a word is correct, the letters in between can be arranged at random and still we are able to read it without consciously having to decode it.
Thinking about the Brain
Summary
“The human brain is probably one of the most complex single objects on the face of the earth; I think it is, quite honestly.” –Bill Viola
The brain in of the most known complex machine on earth, yet one of the more mysterious machinery in the planet than even scientist have been puzzled with its sophistication and its multidisciplinary functions. From simple mathematics to masterpieces of art, the brain is always working by recollecting, comparing, synthesizing, and analyzing vast amounts of information. So, how is the brain works? The brain fundamentally consists of brain cells called neurons, and people have hundreds of billions of them that are interconnected one to another. These connections send information one to another depending of the activity that we are currently doing or thinking about. Those connections are always fire up in order to make new connections, and there are trillions of these connections. Also, It’s been said that thinking about the brain is a logical paradox because scientist studying the brain with the brain, still there is so much to found about and its truth potential and full functionality. In addition, the brain allows us to perceive the world with the help of our senses such as writing, dancing, listening to music, expressing our feelings, and many other activities. This is why is the brain has a tremendous capacity we can even study the mysteries of the universe, still, the brain itself is one of them.