Right when Professor Vesna mentioned mind control in her opening lecture, I knew this topic of Neuroscience and Art would be one of my favorites. Art has been used in many different ways regarding to scientist. But most recently this topic of mind and body has been the topic of choice within the last hundred years. While art and science has been used in extreme and interesting ways, the Brainbow Project is beautiful and educational that allows us to study the neural connections in the brain.
The Brainbow Project is not only an extremely beautiful and artistic thing used in science but it is very helpful and useful in todays study of the brain. The scientific purpose is that each neuron is flagged with a distinctive color in order to understand neural connection in the brain (Vesna). Also scientist are able to investigate these neural pathways further then ever before, which helps our understanding of something that is so complicated. When art is used in this way, we get the best of both worlds. Art and science should only be used in ways which it helps advance our society in a safe way. When we start to tamper with things such as drugs to help bring a different perspective of life then that is crossing the line. 
Now another thing that has been talked about by many different philosophers and scientist is the mind and conscience. These things are separate from the body and are not physical things. It would make sense that something that is non-physical would not be able to affect something physical. Logically it would seem impossible. Many theories have been developed to try to explain the mind and conscience. Roger Penrose thinks that "there has to be something in physics that we don't yet understand, which is very important, and which is of a noncumputational character"(Penrose). However, I disagree with Penrose. I think that the mind is something that can not be fully understood. I think that somethings in this world are not meant to be fully understood and will not always have an explanation.
Vesna , Victoria. "Neuroscience Art Lectures."UConline.edu. N.p.. Web. 15 Nov 2013. <https://cole2.uconline.edu/courses/63226/wiki/unit-7-view?module_item_id=970446>.
Penrose, Roger. ""Consciousness Involves Noncomputable Ingredients"." Edge.org. Simon and Schuster. Web. 15 Nov 2013. <http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/v-Ch.14.html>.
"Brainbow." Center for Brain Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Else, Liz. "Out of Body Experience Highlights Clues to Consciousness." Consciouslifenews.com. Concscious Life News. Web. 15 Nov 2013. <http://consciouslifenews.com/body-experience-highlights-clues-consciousness/>.
The brainbow project sounds really interesting! The complexity of the brain can make a lot more sense if you are following each individual path of the neurons, thus creating a rainbow.
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about the brainbow project in my blog as i was equally interested. Its very interesting that scientists can label neurons with colors and create a roadmap. One thing i disagree about though is that some things are not meant to be understood. I believe that in due time we will continue figuring out new things about the human body, and the more we know about ourselves the better.
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