Where art thou soul?
Nowadays it seems almost intuitively evident that the brain is in the head and it controls our behavior. However, it was not always this clear. A popular notion was that the heart ultimately controlled thoughts and behavior – until a brutally direct “experimental” observation was made…
Galen, perhaps the most influential medical scholar of the past 2 millennia, observed that when priests cut out a bull’s heart in a special ritual the bull continued to move and run around for a few moments. But when the priests – in an even more special ritual – decapitated a bull it was immediately still and lifeless. He went on to reason that, therefore, the brain must be the body’s interface to the soul. From that point forward the medical community generally believed that the brain controlled the body; but through Descartes’ dualism and into modern day, the existence of a soul remains unknown.
Jul 01, 2007
So what’s the deal with chickens still being able to move after having their heads cut off?
Jul 01, 2007
Madam Fathom wrote a great explanation of “How a chicken can run around with its head cut off” here: http://madamfathom.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-chicken-can-run-around-with-its.html
Jul 02, 2007
How odd – the only bit of that mentioning chickens is the title – the rest is about cats and humans. (Though I presume the theory is the same.)
Anyway, thanks that is interesting… and helps explain why people act like mindless drones in the town centre – because they /are/ mindless drones!
Would like to find out more about CPGs – don’t suppose you have any good links handy?
Jul 02, 2007
Yeah, the applicability to chickens is left implicit: If their walking central pattern generator is ‘on’ when the head is cut off, the chicken will run around for a bit until it dies. I’ll let you know if I find any additional interesting CPG links.