It has been
possible to broadly study the anatomy of the brain. The way the chemicals
influence the personality demystifies the dark matter of human anatomy which is
the study of the brain. Despite leaps in the scientific approach to the study
of the brain there is a fundamental aspect which holds the most important organ
in darkness. It is the existence of mind. There are diverse definitions of the
mind. One is that it is a stored warehouse of emotions and thoughts that could
not be expressed over time. Another definition points out that the mind is
tantamount to consciousness without which the brain would be rendered numb.
There are dualistic theories and materialistic theories of the mind. The
dualists liken the mind to the spirit while the materialists hold the
hypothesis that the mind can be reduced to organic terms, which supports 'Medical Science'. If the mind were to be a spirit then the phenomenon of memory
defies it. If the mind were to be a spirit then why is it that some people lose
memory when they are alive? It has been testified as one grows older that
memory becomes weak in many cases because the brain maybe decaying. This
contradicts the dualistic theory.
Let us take
the materialistic view where the mind is supposed to be reducible to matter. If
the mind is nothing but a physical component then what triggers the flow of
chemicals? Why is there something called ‘personality’? Why are there individual
differences in the consequence called ‘personality’? There are answers to these
questions. Chemicals, personality and differences are explained by the
materialist in that they are consequences of a complex process of conditioning.
This conditioning is the result of responses to stimuli from the environment.
They start off as instinctive responses in infants and are later expressed with
sophistication which is the result of the norms that are observed. As emotions
get more and more channelized and as there are many responses possible a person
reacts in a predictable manner which is the result of self-programming.
The fact
that personality is a complex mechanism is because it has taken years to
construct it in the first place. We do not have the means to factor in the
number of variables that go into the formation of personality. But it is not
the result of involuntary calculation. It is more to do with manipulation which
the determinists hold to be predictable due to predispositions which have
nothing to do with the existing life time. In this manner they account for the
existence of a spirit which is beyond the brain. But this to me is not
convincing as the spirit cannot be conscious without a brain on one hand and it
cannot have any personality to carry forward to a brain because memory itself
is prone to destruction in the same lifetime. There are enough reasons to
account for personality in one life time. Just because it is complex does not
mean that there is a spirit beyond the brain. At the same time we cannot jump
to the conclusion that there is no spirit at all. Why is that? The spirit
itself can be the consequence of the way a human being finds himself forced to manoeuvre
his way through the events of the world. The spirit can be that very
personality which is the result of a defense mechanism. It is deeper than ‘ego’
and more subversive than matter but it does not precede matter. It could be in other words the last stage of
the evolution of matter. It could be a creative product of the limitations of
matter.
A brain can
still function without the existence of the spirit but the spirit cannot exist without
the brain. The spirit can be thought to be an abstract reaction to the
experience of existence. It is the seat of personality as the latter can be
observed while the former can only be inferred. Whether this inference is valid
or not cannot be determined by the existing instruments of Science as neither
memory nor abstract experience can be observed by them. But what can be
inferred is that there is a creative response at some point where instinctive
reaction is curbed and diverted. Scientists are still grappling with the
phenomena of creativity and do not have access to the variables in question. Or
maybe they are just limited by what they know. There is some unlearning
required without which the education that we undergo itself can be an enemy to
progress.