Dear Oristar,
Living our lives happily means different things to different people, doesn't it? For some, it is having enough to eat, for others it is keeping their calories down and their bodies slim, and for a few others, it is knowing that everyone has enough to eat. Of course, since everyone does not have enough to eat, those few are never really happy.
The ways to determine the mechanisms of the brain are similarly scattered and each also has its own validity. Some scientist are trying to solve the mystery by measuring the chemicals of the brain. Others, think it can be discovered by how people react to experimental questions, and there are a few who say that our seemingly invisible consciousness can only be understood philosophically.
A year ago, I attended a short series of lectures on learning bird songs. The scientist who led the talk amazed us with his experimental findings -- that the ability to learn a bird song (by a bird) was linked to hormones which caused certain parts of both the bird's brain and the bird's throat to enlarge & change during the course of the seasons. Timing was everything -- it could only happen during a certain short period in the age of the young bird and the ambient light and temperature of the air had to be just right. Each bird baby needed to learn from a male of its species (which had previously been taught in the correct way). Both needed a specific set of hormones in a certain order that could enable them to teach and learn. Each needed to be healthy, well-fed, and living in the proper environment. (Do I need to say that in order for this to be figured out, many birds needed to be "sacrificed" on the altar of science?")
Despite the scientists' understanding of the mechanism (and this was for just one species of songbird), there was still no way to understand why it had come to be in such a way. We say they evolved, but that is just as a word. The more we know, it seems, the more questions need to be asked.
Can we learn anything from those birds? Our children also need to be taught at the proper times in their development. Their teachers need to be available. The culture needs to be stable and the environment healthy. Of course we know that because of our short lives, this passing on of information is vital in order for our species to continue.
So our minds can be observed from the process of education. Or, our thinking can be observed from a comparison with other animals. That professor, William Calvin, has become (among other things) an expert on great apes and how their thinking processes compare to ours. Do they create internal maps of their surroundings? Do they think ahead? Do they recognize death? How do they teach their young? We know that they are different from us, but how different and in what ways are they similar?
We can also view our thinking processes from the freeform patterns of our dreams and our creativity. Those are an extraordinary window into the connections that exist within our minds, a weaving of memories and experiences with emotions and, some say, a genetic set of iconic symbols inherent in each of us. All these ways to look at ourselves are very interesting and leads us to better ways to teach, to heal and, in the end, to be happy. But will it ever make us understand what a single individual needs?
Apparently, the leader of NK has stronger needs than most of us. Can you imagine being called "Golden Sun" by an entire country, especially when that country is neither golden nor sun-kissed? False promises and a false identity are, I think, the signs of either mental illness or criminal behavior. Perhaps what he really needs would be found in Hollywood where, if he were truly popular, he could receive the accolades bestowed on a movie star. What of the North Koreans themselves -- Have they lost touch with reality? Are they saying these things because they know nothing different? We can look at the lessons from the songbirds and wonder if the education of an entire country was warped at a crucial stage in their lives.
Thanks for sharing that photograph. It is sad. It makes me wonder if there is anything we can do to help or whether, like the Chinese, they must help themselves.
The English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote an ode to a songbird that to me is appropriate here. These are the last few stanzas of
To A Skylark:
Quote:
... We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(c.1820)
It is funny to think that the beautiful birdsong may just be a mix of the right hormones.
Somehow, that doesn't have nearly the poetic value of believing that bird is singing its heart out with gladness.
Best,
Piffka
), but how humans came to be (and why) are still beyond our grasp. In the same way we know we can think about anything... but why?
