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We're Are Not Just Our Brains!

  • Don
  • January 30, 2024 at 9:53 PM
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SUNDAY WEEKLY ZOOM - 12:30 PM EDT - Ancient Text Study: De Rerum Natura by Lucretius -- Read the post for our December 7, 2025 meeting -- or find out how to attend.

 

  • Don
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    • January 30, 2024 at 9:53 PM
    • #1

    A fascinating TED Talk on the importance of our microbiome in shaping our personalities and behavior. Maybe Epicurus was (by chance) onto something when he said "the rational part resides in the chest"! "Chest" here translates θώραξ (thorax) taken as the part of the body covered by a corselet/body armor: chest, abdominal cavity, trunk, midriff. I still think a rational case can be made for Epicurus's idea that the rational mind resided in the thorax with our own terms like "sick to my stomach" "heart-broken" and "I had butterflies in my stomach".

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, θώραξ

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    • January 30, 2024 at 11:36 PM
    • #2

    According to Johns Hopkins [https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellnes…-gut-connection], there are "more than 100 million nerve cells lining your gastrointestinal tract from esophagus to rectum", which seems to be more robust than the brain of a golden hamster. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567708/). The digestive tract seems to be only slightly dumber than a cat ... and that depends upon the cat ... and boy have I met some cats. The TED Talk reminded me of the proposition of a "second brain", which seems reasonable.

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