![]() Dick whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? inspired the movie Blade Runner. Can the brain and its functions be replicated? This has long been explored by science fiction writers like Philip K. One of the current explorations in computer science is artificial intelligence. African Head Charge samples Einstein’s actual speech adding a superb rhythmic musical background in Language & Mentality. What distinguishes the human mind from that of other animals? One of the world’s most famous brains, Albert Einstein gave a radio speech in 1941 on The Common Language of Science in which he talks about the importance of language. We follow this up with rapper Young MC who also sings about the physiology of the brain but integrates some insights into psychology as he ponders what’s Inside My Head. It is one of his more serious songs and is a lead-up to a message – protect the brain – wear a helmet. Our playlist starts with a look at the physiology of the brain, deftly told by musical comedian Weird Al Yankovic in The Brain Song. Psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk writes about the intimate connection between the mind and the body and incorporates insights into the brain’s plasticity in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. The work of Taub and others revolutionised our thinking about the brain and how it works. ![]() As Norman Doidge puts it in The Brain That Changes Itself, behaviourists “embraced the idea that all movements are based on reflex responses to previous stimuli, because it left the mind and the brain out of behaviour.” This saw mental disorders as a chemical imbalance in the brain and led to a revolution in pharmacology and the dominance of psychotropic drugs in psychiatric treatment from the 1980s on.īehaviourism held sway in psychology until the work of neuroscientists like Edward Taub in the 1980s rediscovered the idea of neuroplasticity (which had actually been proposed by Sigmund Freud and others), that the brain is malleable and, in fact, is constantly changing. Psychology eventually drifted into behaviourism, a ruthlessly deterministic view that all behaviour is determined by reflexes. Gilbert Ryle dismissed this as “the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine”. The two were long thought to be separate entities, a theory was popularised by René Descartes who, after ruminating on the subject, concluded that “the mind or soul of man is entirely different than the body”. There are two distinct aspects to the brain – the physiological and the psychological.
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