Here's an important question from someone who visited my website...

While I have no issue with your assertion that brain is not a machine, I was wondering:  are there folks who still think that way? 

A whole western culture!

A "reductionist" approach of reducing the brain to its "bits", exploring those bits, and thinking that will tell us how the Whole works is machine-thinking.

Looking at sexy fMRIs and deciding what "parts" of the brain "do" which functions is machine-thinking.

Taking medications to "adjust" chemical "imbalances" has a basis of machine-thinking.

Inserting electrical probes to give zaps to "under-performing" areas is machine-thinking.

Taking herbal medications to "enhance" specific functions is machine-thinking.

Treating people who fall outside the "average zone" as somehow pathological (e.g., "ADD") -- that we should all fall within "acceptable specs" is machine-thinking.

Talking about the brain as a computer is machine thinking.

Machine-thinking is linear thinking and linear thinking is machine-thinking, since those are the only really reliably linear systems out there. And our culture is overtaken by linear assumptions, which are just plain wrong applied to humans and their bodies~brains.

That's what I hope this blog and the other offerings I am creating will show are just not the most useful and respectful ways we can engage with our brains, our lifes, and our relationships.

If we could lose the idea that we all can and should tweak our brains here and there and "fix" them or "enhance their performance" without having all sorts of ripple effects, then we can open the door to really becoming who we are and how we are.

Here's a challenge for you: Listen this week and see how many mechanical metaphors about the brain you hear. Feel free to come back and share --- it's everywhere, I promise you!