Nicholas Eaton

19 January 2015
English 10H 0 Period
Ms. Gardner

The Worlds of the Mind

The brainan organ so vital to human existence, so powerful as to be

able to dictate the fate of humanity, so potent as to be able to control and
manipulate other people like puppets, yet it is found in every single human
on this planet. More effective than any tool, drill or explosive, more deadly
than any gun, blade or bomb, and more complex than even the most distant
and mysterious galaxies in the universeit is truly all powerful.
For myself, the brain has always been a symbol of power; strangely
enough, my first realization of this came while watching The Matrix for the
first time. Near the start of the movie, the heros main assistant, Morpheus,
told the protagonist Neo a line that profoundly affected me: What is real?
How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you
can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals
interpreted by your brain. After this, I began to develop a new viewpoint on
life, on what mattered, and on the nature of reality itself. It was this new urge
for knowledge that empowered me to seek out some of the most amazing

and mind-bending aspects of science, which in turn gave life a whole new
meaning to me.
My thirst for knowledge, I realized, is an urge rooted in human nature
and desire, and it is this natural human desire for knowledge that made me
realize how powerful the human brain is from a biological perspective as
well. For as long as hominids have existed, our claim-to-fame has been our
enormous cranial capacity, surpassing the majority of other animals in this
world. The human brain has been directly and largely responsible for the
modern world today. Through the constructs of our human imagination, we
have, in conjunction with physical labor, made into reality much of what we
once could only dream and speculate about. From personal computers and
microprocessors to drones and robotic technology in the workplace and
home, the world we live in is limited only by our imagination. As we move
into the future, we continue to dream up grand new ideas, which we hope to
one day transform to reality, spawning our own creations, and creating our
own legacy. That, in my humble opinion, is the wondrous and yet still
mysterious quality of the human brain. The fact that we can learn for as long
as we seek knowledge, discover to our hearts content, and have the
freedom to do with it what we wish almost seems like a surreal vision; yet,
this is the basis for everything mankind has ever done. It is this freedom to
seek and obtain knowledge that makes our minds both awe-inspiring and
paradoxical to understand. It also raises more questions than it answers
such as, how did we ever develop such a mind-numbingly complex organ?

How can we understand the universe? And ultimately, do we really have the
free will that is thought to distinguish our species?
Free will is a topic of much depth and complexity, and one that can
cause people to go mad debating. A few recent neurological studies from the
Netherlands point to the idea that, with the right equipment, knowledge, and
time, it is possible to predict what someone else will do. And while this may
seem ludicrous, recent evidence in quantum physics shows that we can write
equations that can precisely describe the exact probability of where single
atomseven sole electronswill move. While these calculations cannot give
one exact answer to where a particle will be, it is as near exact as one as can
be while taking into account the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This
principle states that if you double the accuracy of your knowledge of the
position of a particle, you halve your knowledge of its acceleration and vice
versa. Therefore, it is impossible to know the precise location and velocity of
any particle in this universe. In this way, it is easy to say that no, we do not
have free will due to our own knowledge of being able to predict, and
calculate, exact probabilities of particles moving, and thus, with enough
computing power, to be able to calculate what a person will do. However, to
make these calculations for a single movement of a single person, you would
need to fill over a billion Empire-State buildings with super-computersand it
would still take longer than the current age of the universe to make the
countless rigorous calculations involved in that kind of project. So, while it
could be considered impossible with todays technology, it is possible to

speculate that free will is actually an illusion, and that human behavior is
scientifically predictable.
While the brain may be the most convoluted and amazing organ in our
bodies from the standpoint of creative vision and the ability to absorb
knowledge, the paradox of the brain is that is also can be one of the most
susceptible organs to disease and other negative conditions, due to its very
complexity. Diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Alzheimers
can have the potential to cause serious damage to people at various stages
of their lives. And there are other ways the brain can be steered in a
negative way. The brains ability to be manipulated and influenced,
especially at a young age, can cause some people to become radicalized,
have a distorted vision or to become evil themselves. They may come to
believe in such unjustified ideas as one race being above another, or that
certain physical features dictate who a person is or their value in this world,
such as the Nazis did under Hitlers rule. When we consider things such as
brainwashing, we realize again how fragile our all-powerful brains can be and
the profound effects they can have on others if used in a subversive way.
No matter how powerful our brains are, they are constantly changing,
adapting and processing our experiences in this world. In perspective, the
movie The Matrix only took up about 1/328728th, or around .000003%, of
my expected life span! Yet it still changed my life in a way I sometimes
struggle to comprehend myself. It goes to show just how easily a person can

be inspired, how rapidly we can adapt to new ideas, and how open we all are
to the power of suggestion and the concept of change.
It is because of our ability to change, as well as this duality of strength
and weakness in our brains, that humanity both flourishes and also falls
short at times. While some of us may fall victim to the weakness in our
minds, we all must struggle together and maintain the strength our brains
impart on us. We must continue to learn, to strive for knowledge, to go all
out to get what we desire, to build what we please, and to construct, for
ourselves and others, a better world in which to live.