The Seat of Intelligence

I am very happy to be currently attending my first actual Neuroscience classes. As a result of the new type of instruction, new questions have risen in my mind in places or subjects that I never considered before. The most recent comes with an interesting historical detail that relates strongly with the Book of Mormon

Of course with the beginning of a new subject, the curriculum calls for a quick summary of historical facts about the subject. Neuroscience followed this same pattern with a description of the various scientific breakthroughs starting at the beginning of man and down to today in connection with the brain and nervous system. The history is long and probably uninteresting to most so I will not share it all. What I do want to share is an interesting fact that I had not really given serious attention. As humans we have no always known about our body and their several functions obviously. One important case is the brain and its intelligence center role. It wasn't until the 4th century B.C. that man first proposed that the brain had control over intelligent functions. Before that point, the heart was largely considered the center for the mind and control of the body. Now this is not a breath taking fact and I don't expect it to amaze anyone. The importance of this fact has to do with the history of the Book of Mormon and even the Bible and I'll show you why.

We must first remember the chronology of the Bible and Book of Mormon. The Bible is easy because it records from the beginning of the Earth until today. Earliest records were written by Moses so we must more strictly keep in mind the chronology of the writers instead of the content. The Book of Mormon is even more interesting however because it takes place from approximately 600 B.C. until 400 A.D. According to the two of these timelines, the writers and authors of these records were among the generations who still believed that a humans intelligence, emotions, and judgments were controlled by the heart. Large evidence of this can be found in the Egyptian traditions that date possibly even in the time of Moses. When embalming their dead, these people thought so little of the brain and its necessity that instead of placing the brain in a jar with other important organs, they scrambled it, pulled it out through the nasal openings and threw it out. Gross yes, but this must make one wonder then about the certain beliefs of even prophets and men of God all across the world during these very early days.

When Lehi took his family into the wilderness and his family sailed across to the Americas, he had missed the first serious objections to the heart-mind theory by approximately 200 years. He took with him the original feelings of the egyptians and possibly other cultures who still believed the mind remained in the heart and that intelligence and control was seated in that same organ. Realizing this lack of knowledge, I took my investigation to the Book of Mormon itself. Again, I could list an incredible amount of sources to back all of this up, but I don't care to spend the time on that here in this post. However, I recommend looking up "Heart" in the index of the Book of Mormon to see how it is used in the language of the people of Nephi. Essentially, there are many many references which place the heart and mind as connected things. Phrases like "Open your hearts that you may understand the things of the Lord". "...and understand with their hearts", "...and he prophesied whatsoever the Lord put into his heart", "...and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.", "... ponder it in your hearts.".

Of course as is my way, I will not make a declaration of truth in this case, but I do find it overwhelmingly evident that the people within scriptural record must have had a knowledge of the mind that is different from what we now know today. Now this obviously does not alter the intent of the doctrine and the principles that we learn from the Gospel, but it makes one ponder the minute details in which how people pictured the reception of knowledge and the governance of oneself.

Also as is my way, I notice that there are also some details that refute my findings. You'll notice in certain repeated phrases that words like Mind and Heart are always separate. Meaning one is never used to completely describe the other. An example is the common phrase "Heart, Might, and Mind". Phrases like these make me ponder the distinction even though their understanding should clump pretty much all three together into one. Perhaps there is simply no word to describe it all together or they had a decent understanding of separate functions of the heart knowing it as a life giving organ, a strengthening organ, and (to them) a center of emotion and belief. There are many more examples of this interesting mind-heart separation that I will not include here but i again encourage the reader to investigate this deviation from my theory.

Ultimately I still believe that the ancient believers understanding of anatomy was significantly limited and therefore their beliefs of functions of inner organs are most likely skewed in some way. One last confusing note came from a temple visit I made a few days ago. While participating in certain ordinances, prayers were said that described portions of the body and their functions. One of those prayers described the brain being the center for intellect. Now, remember that from modern revelation and careful scripture study it is evident that the saints of the New Testament performed temple ordinances as we do today. Whether the prayers said then were exactly the same as we perform them today I have no idea and there's really no way we can know. However, if they WERE the same, then there arises an interesting thought. Although Hippocrates would have already made his theory that the brain was the seat of intelligence, Aristotle later refuted that claim and cemented once more that the heart controlled the mind and once again the heart was viewed as the control center. Those living in the time of Christ most likely were still living in a time influenced by Aristotle theories. Thus, for the prayers of temple ordinances to claim that intelligence was in the brain, they would be challenging the common beliefs of the time. Did some members have a trouble with this concept? I have no idea. Were the prayers said differently in conjunction with their current beliefs? Again I can't say. One more question to ask the God above when I get back home.

The Illusion

A day or so after I returned home from my mission, I watched my first movie. For no particular reason it was the movie Wolverine. I barely even remembered that such a movie had been made so there was little to no reason for choosing to watch it. However, because of watching that movie, I had the surprise of my life. I encountered one of the greatest contrasts that I've ever seen. A contrast that I continue to see appear in my life on a very regular basis. Keep in mind the specific timeline that I had JUST returned home from my mission. My mind was still focused solely on the Lord and the eternal perspective of my life. No other alternatives had been introduced to me as to what the world was made up of. Then I watched Wolverine. This movie depicted mutants with special super powers who were fighting the war of good vs evil. The world they lived in accepted the fact that such mutants existed and that it was a normal way of life. Upon finishing the movie I noticed something both shocking and disturbing. Just from watching that one movie, my own vision of the world around me had temporarily been altered. For a few moments I was almost willing to believe that mutants did exist on this world and that that was the world that I was a part of. As I returned home from watching the movie and knelt by my bed to pray, I noticed that it was incredibly more difficult to feel as if I was in the presence of the Lord. It was more difficult to have faith that the Lord was hearing my prayers. For a moment I actually questioned which world existed, the one with a Heavenly Father and the other with mutants. Of course because I had only watched a movie I was relatively quickly able to establish for a certainty what the truth was. However, the fact that I had to question that gave me quite the uneasy feeling.

This is not a once in a lifetime experience. It did not result from a lack of faith or a wobbling in my testimony. Remember that I had just returned from my mission so my faith was incredibly strong. Because of this experience, I have taken careful note to watch what experiences I have when I watch certain media productions, whether they be movies, television, or even plays. Each one present a new reality, a new possibility, a new world. The frequency of these presentations is daunting to he who desires to stay on the straight and narrow.

It is my feeling that this is surely in favor of the devils initiative. He seeks to make the truth, the real world, the actual reality seem like it is simply an option between other possibilities. He creates so many stories, so many fables and myths that man is forced to question which one is fabricated and which one is not. What faithful followers of Christ once had no trouble distinguishing as truth now have trouble wondering if the story of the creating of the world is simply another story to be presented for entertainment. Of course it is silly for one to believe that superheroes fly around in the sky, aliens come and destroy the world, or that one could find lost treasure right in their own basement and become the most popular person ever. Despite the silliness of this, these are the fantasies of a prideful people. Satan knows this and therefore with the increase of media presentation technology, such fantasies become more and more plausible to the mind. In someones mind, they may watch enough movies about superheroes that these super people are just as plausible as Heavenly Father. They cant see their superheroes but they have faith that they're out there. How sad it is that the devil is able to use the same methods that followers of Christ use to strengthen their testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to strengthen the faith of every day people that man made fantasies are in fact true.

The question then is how do we separate the fakes from the truths? This brings about the importance of the famous scripture in Alma 32. Here Alma teaches that faith can only be acquired by doing, not just believing. Each principle of the Gospel must be tested so that one can understand the reality of the Creator. The Gospel teaches true principles that offers good promises that will be fulfilled every time. The land of Narnia in the books and movies also teaches principles, but they too must be tested for their reality. Solid truths, and no falsehoods must arise from a true source. As many times as you want to try and get to Narnia... you will fail. As many times as you want to feel the spirit from serving a neighbor... you will always succeed. As many times as you try and jump off a building and fly you will most definitely fail. And as many times as you attempt to change your life through repentance through the gift of the Atonement, you will succeed.

I do still find it sad that we must take such time to distinguish between the true and the false realities but this is the world we live in. This shows me the true foresight of the Lord in preparing such counsel for our generations that we might know how to distinguish the Lord's will and the Lord's way from what is depicted by the media. Because of this realization of the heavy impact of media on my mind, I now cant help but caution myself in how frequently I watch certain types of movies or other type of media productions. Video games are high on that list as well since with those situations you are actually in control of what goes on and therefore you become a part of a different world. For an hour you picture yourself as a Jedi Knight or a WWII soldier. Neither will ever be true of your identity but for a moment you have the chance to experience it. The way you look at yourself becomes warped and you feel as if you are capable of things you once were not. However, it is sadly the case that many find this to be untrue. I reflect on stories I hear through the news of those who became lost in video games centered around violence. They wrapped their minds around the idea that they were trained killers on a mission to either save or doom the world for whatever reason. In real life they put themselves in a real violent situation and soon learn that they are not the immortal character they created for themselves in their games. They are weak and in fact have close to nothing because they gave it all up for their gaming world.

I personally warn all individuals, both male and female, to avoid addictive media entertainment. Media is for enjoyment and uplifting purposes and not to drown out the world that we live in. There is nothing we can do in a false world but we can do anything in the real world. God is real, it has been tested and it has been proven. He has actually appeared to man on a number of occasions and he has a plan for us. If we follow it and live the Gospel we will not fall short of the happiness that he promises for us. Moderation is absolutely necessary when we place ourselves in situations in which we are presented with a number of false realities. Otherwise, the devil will have his way and the eternal world that we live in will simply become one possibility out of thousands.

Time To Make A Difference

I learned in my Psychology class a few months ago about the different interests and mentalities of certain age groups. One mentality of an early college student is a desire to find a place in the world and have an impact on it. Though we may now simply label it as "natural" and therefore typical of a college student to have those desires, I can't help but wonder if this is not also something that was intentionally placed in the heart of man by our Heavenly Father. Psychology calls it a developmental phase, I call it a preparation by God. Let me first make a comparison.

Though also subject to opinion, I also find the rapid development of children to not only be biological, but spiritual. We are taught that the Holy Ghost is the teacher of all truth. Therefore, of course when our teachers in 2nd grade taught us that 2+2=4, the Holy Ghost would confirm the truthfulness of that logic. I believe the Holy Ghost can confirm many of those same sorts of topics. However, the difference with children is their spiritual purity. The Holy Ghost has no trouble filling the hearts and souls of those beautiful pure and innocent children so much so that it may testify at will and the child will receive the witness just as the messenger delivered it. How I wish that I could be as a child and remain so pure that the Holy Ghost could speak to me so! This example shows how the spiritual development and biological development of a human can cooperate through life periods.

Prepared with an active mind and full of eagerness for new experiences, the young adult mind is primed for instructions from the Lord. A college student is looking for their place, their mark, their opportunity to make history. What a great time for the Lord to send forth his specific calls to His children so that they might properly prepare themselves for the world to come. How those calls come or how to know that the Lord has spoken to you in such a manner I wish I knew. Being a college student myself, I can't say I've had personal experience enough yet to know what the whole stage is like. What I do know though is that my heart is open and my spirit willing.

I would not be surprised if the Lord has prepared the development of our persons to fit the biological/spiritual patterns necessary to make our lives completely in sync. I am anxious to see in my future life how my biological preparation prepares me for spiritual callings. One such stage that comes to mind is the wisdom associated with the older generations. Such wisdom must be well developed for callings prepared by the Lord for those He can trust to lead and perform great works. I personally would feel much more comfortable speaking with an experienced and learned Bishop than one that was not. I thank the Lord for His careful preparation and design for this wonderful existence. I know I can trust Him completely.

Label Me Not

It's been awhile since I've been here to write down some thoughts, but such is life, always drawing us this way and that. Just because I've been busy though, I still continue my pondering over many unnoticed things that each of us participate in every day.

An American Master Pieces class and a psychology class both contributed to this thought and conclusion over the past 2-3 months. Apologies for the lack of sources, but a great author in early American history wrote a very powerful piece asking his audience to avoid labels. Psychology class talked about the stereotyping ability of labeling and the adverse affects it can have on someones self perception. I certainly relate to these claims as I quickly search through my memory and recall comments made by others who will say that I'm shy or quiet and therefore perceive myself as such and label myself as such for the rest of my life. However, the extension of labeling goes so much further than I realized.

The American author can be best attributed to the thought that labeling even exists among some of the things we do and choices we've made. The greatest example of this is our occupations. When we walk into a hospital we see the doctors and the nurses and therefore label them as such and mental distinguish them with the average qualities that every doctor or nurse should have in our minds. This occurs for every profession, police officer, farmer, president, etc. The fact that we stereotype each of these individuals is not even the whole of the issue I'm coming to however. Its how concrete we accept these labels ourselves is what I ponder about. Will a farmer always think as a farmer? Will he, simply because he's taken on such an occupation, act like most farmers do just because "thats what farmers do"?

Further pondering takes me to consider the limitation a label could impose on an individual simple because of how strongly they relate to it. Will a farmer for example, be less likely or willing to assist in a medical situation simply because they've taken upon themselves their new life of farmer? I wonder if a doctor would be less likely to chop wood or wash the dishes by hand simply because thats not what a doctor would normally be found doing? Then we must think about certain hobbies, opinions, and even political views that each of these individuals might take simply because thats what people of their profession generally accept as correct. I do personally believe that there may be opportunities, beliefs, or doings that we may avoid in life simply because that's not "us", or, in other words, thats not who we've been labeled to be.

The solution? Just as I've mentioned in the title, we reject the labels. No longer is that man growing corn a farmer, but he's a man that grows corn to provide for his family. A doctor is a man that enjoys helping others and takes time out of his day to help heal the wounds of those around of him. These are the things that they chose to do every day, not something that they have been cemented in. I am someone that loves learning about the brain. So i hope one day to learn enough about the brain that I can help people with neurological problems. But that is something that I will do and I will do it because I chose to do so. Along with helping those with neurological problems i will choose to fence, to read, to marry, to do many many things because my life will continue to be active and different, ever increasing. Avoid the stationing of labels. Avoid their ability to limit what you THINK your possibilities are. You are not the doctor, you are someone who chose to heal. In fact, the only label we can truly accept is that we are sons and daughters of God. That is the only permanent label that will allow for all of our possibilities to still be realized. And so here I am world, Andrew Berrett, one of the children of God who seeks to chose a wonderful life.

Which World Are You In?

Here's a thought for the thinkers: How many worlds do we enter into every day? Defining a the specific meaning of world that I'm referring to, I mean "world" as in the view, surroundings, and influence that a person experiences around them at any given moment. As I sit in a college campus library right now my "world" is limited by a few walls and I personally have restricted it just a little farther by wearing headphones so that I am cut off to the audible effects around me, at least to a certain point. The student sitting across from me, whom I know nothing about, is sharing this world with me right now and is experiencing many of the same elements, minus the music and the direction in which he is viewing the things around of him. The other 30 or so students in this room all each have their own worlds in which they are currently a part of. These worlds are all unique and are only available to one person at a time. Though we may be involved in an activity with someone, there is always still a slight variance in the experience and surroundings. So here I'll repeat my question again. How many times in the day do we enter into a new world?

When I get up from this table and begin to walk back to my car I can count right now off the top of my head that I will enter into and leave at least 25 different worlds, different places or environments with different circumstances and different views. As I walk simply through this floor to the stairs I will find a number of these worlds. This I can use as example.

1) The world in which I am now situated which involves sitting in a room full of tables and chairs and surrounded by books. Bookshelves line the perimeter of the room and I can see many students surrounding me.

2) When I begin to leave I enter into the world adjacent to this. In that world there will be a check out desk and a small set of public computers with students busily working on homework. I will be a new entry into that world and will therefore be the cause for bringing a change to the environment or surroundings. Someone will look up and see me and therefore bring about an established effect of my being in the perspective of that student.

3) Once passing that area I will enter into one more world before I head down the stairs. That world will be similar to the one I am in now because there are students also studying at tables and many are also surrounded by bookshelves. That world will differ however in the frequent passing of students entering and leaving the 5th floor of the library. Again I will pass through that world full of perspectives of the 20-30 students that study there. I will for a moment be a part of their recognition and therefore have a momentary place. Quickly though I will be out of that world and on into the new world of the staircase which itself has multiple worlds as you proceed down the multiple levels.

This sounds a little crazy I know, but pondering on it makes the mind wonder how fascinating it would be to acquire or even just experience all of the various perspectives and "worlds" that we all live in. We are all intertwined, and therefore these worlds must overlap to an extend, but at the same time, with or without overlap, we are all still unique in what we have to see or to experience in our environment.

Take this one step farther. What kind of world forms when we then enter into different actions? Though I may be sitting here for the next hour.. two hours, whatever that time may be, what if a friend were to come and sit across from me and begin talking to me? Obviously I would listen and focus my attention on that individual. My world shrinks, it redefines, it changes. For this new action of socializing, I just had to enter a whole new world. I had to enter a world in which I still exist in the same surroundings, but the effect of the surroundings on me have been dampened. I focus so much more on the speaker that I no longer notice the pretty girl to my right or the creative project being worked on to my left. Just the change in activity has changed the way that I view the world I am in and has brought about the existence of a new one. What kind of world shows up when a foe assaults me? I'm not in the same world I was in before when my defensive actions begin. My world has been once again shrunk to the point of seeing and experiencing an environment with only one person. There is only overlap between me and my foe. No one else is involved, no one else is of any matter, I must focus and respond accordingly to this one individual. That is a very small world until an outsider comes in and breaks the concentration, disrupting the cause, the place of the new world.

I challenge anyone to try and count the number of different worlds they experience in a day, whether they be places or focuses. I've tried but I quickly lost count. I'll rephrase that, I didn't lose count, I couldn't count fast enough to keep up. This is a very general wondering, but I am curious if any sort of social or psychological diseases are related to this view at all? Are there people in the world that can't associate their world with another? Are there people who don't see the worlds of other individuals and therefore believe that the only world is their own which is only one continuous world? Could it be possible to completely lose this perspective so that there is a complete loss of wide view? Due to the social disorder of Asperger's Syndrome being present in my family, I learned that part of the effects of such a syndrome is the inability for an individual to understand or see the perspective of another, or put more simply, to relate with others and/or interpret others feelings. Is this related? Is there a world gap? I know this is not an explanation for it all but I've pondered what it must be like to have such symptoms. Is there really a restriction to a single world? Or is there simply no interaction between their own world and the worlds of others? Maybe there are plenty of personal world changes but no interactions of worlds between them and other people.

I question: How far is it possible to integrate your own world into the world of another? A personal experience might be my twin brother and I. There must have been multiple times while we grew together that our worlds were very similar and therefore learned much of the same things and thus have always related well. What about beyond that? How far is it possible to bring someone into your own world? I don't think I can answer that question because there may be no way to know if two individuals are truly experiencing the same things. But does God have access to all of these worlds? Does the Holy Ghost see it all that we might be able to receive the greatest help and the greatest revelation? Is this an element of the Omnipresence of God? Again I cannot answer my own questions but I ponder deeply on the ability that God may have to be incorporated in each of our own various and changing worlds. I would not be surprised if quite simply our many "worlds" are but a part of His great view and it all is viewable in an instant. I will not be able to answer that until the time comes that I meet the Maker Himself.

I close with the question that I titled this blog with: "What World Are You In?" and now I extend that question with "What world will you be in in thirty minutes? three hours? tomorrow?" I can assure you that you will begin to see many different worlds around you for there are many people and many environments. This does well to prove that no two days are ever the same. This may go as far as to specify that comment farther by saying no two thirty-minutes are the same. You may ponder yourself how much more specific that could be. I'd like to close this with a personal recommendation. We seem to have a choice on our own who we narrow our worlds around or who we are willing to invite into our worlds for any given moment. I believe God would wish that we had him a part of every one of our worlds, every one of our experiences and environments. No matter how far that world narrows down to, even to the point of defense from a foe, God must always be in that world. When He is in every one of our worlds, He is always there to be an influence. Of all the people we can invite to be a part of our ever day, He should be the first. May that be the intended conclusion to this blog. It's been a thought provoking exploration, but the ultimate realization I've had from this is just how involved God really can be in our lives and just how much control we COULD have but many of us do not use. Explore those thoughts on your own.

Mission Miracles

Well im just on a roll with these blogs lately huh? I guess I've just had a lot to think about lately. A few things during the past week have come to my mind that seemed to have been forgotten for a short while but thankfully, and I'm not sure why, I finally brought the memories back. One of those is a miracle that occured on my mission that I wanted to go ahead and share publicly as a testimony of the marvelous workings of God. Yes this is a miracle so all that read this should understand and treat it as such. But I feel that it is more on the degree of an awe to the power of God rather than an experience that needs to be held private. And so I feel it completely appropriate to share it. It's a longer story so I apologize for the lengthy story but believe me its worth it and it is very true.

As background I'll start with saying that this all occured in a city called Fort Wayne, Indiana. It's the second largest city it Indiana and so for that case the area we covered had a lot of people in it. We had responsibility of carrying the gospel to about 100,000 people or so. This statistic adds to the incredible nature of the miracle so that is why I am sharing it. Quite frequently my companion, Elder Michie (pronounced Mickey) and I would work in some of the more sketchy parts of the city simply because we had so many referrals down there and while there we would find more people to teach. One of those people that we taught in the Fort Wayne ghetto was a girl who called herself J. She lived with her mom who, following the family standard, called herself B. That made it easy for us to remember believe me. J was an awesome girl, she had little religious background and really at first had no interest or care in it. She was turned off by other pastors and preachers who had repeatedly told her that she just needed to repent and that the questions that she had would be answered in time, she just had to wait. No matter how much she pleaded of these church leaders to answer her questions (which were quite simple I have to say) they turned her away and told her to figure it out herself. And so she didn't trust pretty much all church officials. When we approached her and began answering her questions right on the spot, she was impressed and began to absorb it all in. It quickly turned into an investigation and we were teaching her quite frequently. Her mother B was much less interested simply for the fact that she cared more for the partying and drinking than much else at the time. She didn't really want to get into anything big. So we kept on with J and taught her as regularly as possible.

One day when we came to visit J she was not at all herself. It didn't take long before she confessed what hat happened quite recently. Her mom B had a boyfriend that she'd been dating for a reasonable amount of time and they had began to all become really close at least as friends. The boyfriend (we'll call him G for sake of keeping the awesome name selection going) G was headed to work one day when he decided to stop by to see B. He said that he couldn't stay very long since he was headed to work but quite out of the blue he began to bear his testimony to B and J. Both of them were quite surprised because they didn't know G even had a faith, let alone went to church. Well, he outright testified to them that he knew God was real and that they needed to figure that out too as soon as possible. He left on that note with B and J still trying to figure out why the sudden testimony. It wasn't long before they found out. G worked at some sort of construction facility in outer Fort Wayne that had a lot of heavy machinery and other heavy duty things. G was on the ground working on something while a partner was in a backhoe of some sort lifting some objects into place. While in this work, the backhoe lost grip of its holding and dropped it all to the ground. Underneath the dropped cargo was G. He had unfortunately been in the wrong place in the wrong time. It's obvious that G did not plan this in any way, but for some reason, he had been killed on the same day that he had offered his first and last testimony of the Father. When B and J heard about this they were obviously very distraught and very sad, B even had a bit of depression going on for a little while, but they felt blessed to have been the listeners and recipients to G's last testimony. They committed to living a much more righteous lifestyle and doing exactly what G said, find God. Now you may think that this would be a good ending to the story, but it gets better.

A little less than a week after the incident that killed G, Elder Michie and I were found again driving through Fort Wayne after being cancelled on again for an appointment. Our back up plans had failed quickly behind the appointment and we were left to use our creativity and imagination on what to do next. Knowing the city quite well by that point I told Elder Michie that we might as well just do some light tracting until our next appointment that would be only about an hour away. So we headed to a completely random street that I pointed to and went with the intention on talking to the first person we could see. We parked the car and began walking the street with our eyes wide open. Surprising to me was to see that the first person we saw was a 19-20 year old guy out watering his front yard plants. It was surprising because he seemed to be doing it for the fun of it and I don't know about you but I don't know very many 19-20 year old ambitious gardeners haha. But, we approached him and inquired of him what his faith was. He said he was Muslim and had no Christian ties and so he wouldnt be interested. Well, being the persistent missionaries that we were I asked him if he could teach us then a little about his faith and then maybe we could find out how our faiths related. We had a good short discussion on this and then the young man made the comment "Well I'm not the person that knows a lot about my faith in my family though. My dad is much more into it" And so we quickly inquired if we could meet his dad. What he said then stunned us. He said "Well, now might not be the best time to talk to him. He just went through a very hard time. He works at a construction yard and there was an accident recently in which my dad was carrying a load in his machine and it accidently fell on a guy and killed him. My dad is way depressed about it" My companion and I looked at each other with very wide eyes of amazement. Was this the same guy that had accidently killed G??? I quickly demanded of the young man that he get is dad so we could talk to him. He reluctantly complied and his dad also was very reluctant to come out to speak with us. We promised him as he came out that he would not be disappointed about what he was about to hear. I told him that we knew exactly what had happened at his work the other day and that we wanted to tell him the great blessing that had happened from it. Keep in mind that this man was extremely depressed, to the point in which I thought he might have taken his own life had he enough guts to convince himself of it. His personal guilt level was extremely obvious. I rehearsed to the man the story of B and J and what had happened the morning before G had gone to work. I told him that because of all that had happened that day, B and J were more faithful to God than they had ever been in their entire lives. I continued to say that although we may not have the same beliefs about God or diety or the purpose of life, the miracle is still the same and either way, these two people are now brought closer to God. Truly God works in mysterious ways to save His own children. It seemed like this conversation gave that man much to ponder on but it was obvious he was still not completely comforted by it. I don't blame him at all, but I think there was finally some flicker of hope added back into his heart. His life may have been saved that day from depression and whatever act he may have done in his remorse.

Let's consider the chances of this happening. What are the chances that we happened to know B and J in this trying point in their lives? What's the chance that we happened to come by at the right time to find out about this event and J trusting us enough to tell us about it? What are the chances that in a few days our appointments just happened to fall through so that we'd have to make the choice to go tracting somewhere? What are the chances that we happened to pick that one street on that certain day when that certain man would be home and that his son would be first person we tracted into? What are the chances that we would know exactly what to say so that we'd be able to get to meet that boys dad and offer that comfort? In a city of hundreds of thousands of people, I'd say that all of these chances are extremely slim, down to the point of being practically zero. I feel blessed myself to have been used by the Lord in this way and to have been even just trusted the Lord for a task like that. I wish I knew what happened to that man but I will simply trust that if God could get my companion and I there like that, he could certainly take care of that man the rest of the way too. Never underestimate the abilities of God.

Why Neuroscience

I have this dream... and that's kind of why I'm at school right now... that dream is to be a Neurologist. One day, I may even enter into Neuroresearch. Why? I'll tell you why.

When I was in my senior year in highschool, near the beginning of the year, I was accepted into a highschool medical internship that took place at the local hospital. It was a great experience and I feel very fortunate that I was allowed to participate in such a program. We shadowed as many various positions as we could and I really got around to a lot of different ones. I at one time signed up to go see the "EEG unit" or so I though that was what it was called. Come to find out, an EEG was just a device used by the Neuroscience department of the hospital. I finally found my way to the place I needed to be and was greeted and taken by a Gail Phillips, one of the Neurologists at the hospital. She quickly apologized for the fact that there were no scheduled surgeries at the time and so we'd just have to sit and talk for a little while. (I had no idea I was getting into any surgeries that day anyway so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be disappointed or not). The entire time was taken up by our conversation, a total of 4 hours. She decided to give me a brief overview of neuroscience and then help me find some good neuroscience schools and then she began to show me what passion was driving her. I can now understand why that field is so important. This has now become my passion. Let me explain:

I can only explain the brains functions in the most general and uneducated terms right now because, well, im still uneducated about it all. But I'll still do my best to make sense and sound reasonable. When you have a pain in your leg, or finger, or wherever in your body, is the pain you feel truly in that part of the body? Surprisingly no. The injury is there, but signals from the nerves in the area send signals first to the brain which it processes and then tells you that you are experiencing pain in that certain location. Every feeling or pain, every smell or taste, all of these things first have to go through the brain to be translated. This is one of the thousands of reasons that the brain is so important. With the nerves after nerves after nerves going through our bodies, there is little that our brains miss, especially the things internally that we may not be able to "feel" but the brain will still recognize subconsciously.

The idea that Gail shared with me is the hope of all Neurologists. It would be the answer to all diagnosis' if there could be a way found to "ask" the brain what was wrong with the body. If the brain is truly connected to all of the systems and in control of the subconscious actions of the body, then there must be a way to take advantage of that connection. If say there were an odd pain in the stomach region that doctors could not explain, a neurologist would "ask" the brain by finding out what signals its triggering to send what chemicals down to the stomach area to fix the problem. If we know what the brain is trying to do for the body, we may be able to also know what to do to help. If there are things "short circuiting" then we'd also be able to tell in the body that something is not receiving the proper signals. So, in general, we want to know what the brain knows so that we can help the brain do what it needs to do. There are many theories for asking the brain these questions but many are very much debated, especially by those who are afraid of the evil in the world and the opportunity to abuse the possible technology.

Gail supported the idea of developing a probe that could be placed on a brain to receive a constant flow of nervous signals. Essentially were that to happen, ever person could even check their own signals from their own computers. A doctors visit would mean logging onto the computer, sending in your code/frequency, and your doctor pulling up the information on his computer. From the various waves given from different parts of body and different functions operating, the doctor would be able to see which waves are off and whatnot and diagnose straight from the computer. I imagine there's no way real doctor visits would go obsolete but there would be much less needed due to the convenience of the new probes. The obvious scare with this is the wonder of what people could do with the probes, are they dangerous? Could people tap into them? We dont know, but the plusses for this method are immense. I'm not sure how I stand on that as of yet, but the idea of being able to diagnose for troubles through the means of asking the brain seems fascinating to me.

Neuroscience has a long way to go still. There is so much that will be and can be learned in this field. I hope to be a part of it but I know its going to take a lot of learning. Right now neuroscience is limited to actual neurological disorders and hospital support in that a neurologist can protect a surgeon from making a mistake during surgery by watching a monitor that will tell if a surgeon is touching nerves that he shouldn't. This is obviously important for spinal surgery and other related operations. Neuroscience however has the potential though to become an overlapping field of being the center for diagnosis for a countless amount of troubles. The question is, how do we get the brain to help us? That is what I hope to help other researchers to figure out. And if they figure that out before I'm out of school, then I'll be right there helping people get those diagnosis'.