When asked, “How do you know that you exist?”, French philosopher René Descartes replied, “I think therefore I am”, meaning that since he is aware of himself in thought he must exist. But what is the physical process of thinking? Let’s think about this and break our thoughts down to smaller and smaller components and decide if we do indeed exist.
On a chemical scale (atomic and quantum scales to come) our thoughts are simply electric impulses flowing along nerve axons leading to chemical discharges at synapses that trigger more nerves to fire in some coordinated way among brain cells. How this leads to forming a thought, memory, or other sentient functions, scientists still do not know. Continue reading
oldman blogger 