Lets Really OPEN the Window!

The  WindowView metaphor is among other things a place holder for seeing unique thoughts and ideas.  This is not mere whimsical thinking.  Consider this: No one yet knows where the mind is or memory is stored.  And, no one yet knows where the blueprints are that direct the assembly of all those proteins and lipids and other molecules that make up your body.  No one yet knows where the body plan is stored.  Think about it!

An Interesting Thought on Memory:

The more we see of modern research on the brain the more we encounter  the presumption that the mind is wholly located within the brain.  We see an organ that interacts with thoughts, but with little to no real evidence that the brain does nothing more than serve as a processor.  Here’s a twist.  A two-way radio receives and sends signals.  When researchers use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to explore the brain, they see areas ‘light up’ with brain activity.  During an operation the surgeon can place a probe on or in the brain and stimulate activity.  Might the brain be like the radio ‘transceiver.’  With no real tangible evidence that the mind and memories  are actually stored in the brain as a whole, we are then faced with the radio analogy pointing to mind beyond the physical location of the brain.

We’d like to see comments regarding the material brain and the more non-material aspects of mind.  Current research may be pointing to a mind and memory that is being tapped by the two-way radio-like function of a brain.  It’s possible.  And if so, the brain and mind become more a marvel than ever.  If the mind is outside, then where is that!

Inheritance Beyond DNA:

Equally interesting is the notion that DNA is not the sole source of inherited biological information.  In recent time science has discovered that the DNA does account for genes that direct protein production.  Some stretches of DNA with no known function were originally called junk DNA.  This is often referred to as leftovers from prior steps in evolution.  But the marvel here is that more and more of the junk is being ascribed to information processing tasks.  This is more like instruction code in a computer program.

The real challenge is the finding the location of the instructions, the blueprints, that put all the proteins and other biological molecules into their proper place in three dimensions.  And it turns out that certain physical locations in the egg cell and in membranes may be part of the blueprint.

What comes to mind is the criticism that apes and humans had to have evolved from one another because the DNA and genes are so similar.  But the sum total of biological information is just not the genes that make proteins!  The blueprints, where ever they end up being located, may prove to truly distinguish man from ape … and distinguish in a way that is orders of magnitude more complex than the apparent similarity in genes.

The Marvel of it ALL

We assume things way too often without knowing the real story.  Might the mind reside in extra-cranial space?  Might the instructions that direct the construction of an ape body be in fact dwarfed by the complexity of the blueprints for a human.  Or, at the very least, let us add the differences in blue print complexity to the known differences in the DNA of ape and human.  The sum of these differences is far greater than just in the genes in DNA alone.

In amidst all the talk of origins we forget the brain is a marvel of complexity that really defies an evolutionary explanation. Something happens in an organ beyond its physical structure that requires as much exploration and explanation than cell or tissue structure alone.  Inherited information that makes the brain (that supports the mind) is also a marvel and we have yet to learn more about this aspect of the complexity of our being.

Time at this window reminds us to consider our being here as the potential product of an act of intelligence.  This comes with some interesting prospects.  Some of which science cannot yet explain–if ever!  We think being here, living today, is a marvel and an opportunity to think of what purpose life offers.  And if we are purposed into being, then the location of the mind and blueprints of our body plan may be a wondrous bit of evidence in support of our being here by design.

Director,  WindowView