Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Xin on 26/02/2006 06:29:43
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Obviously, most people have the ability to control certain aspects of their own body - moving your arm, unfocusing your eyes, breathing. Simple things that we do everyday. But there are so many parts of our OWN body that we cannot control, or maybe don't know how to control. For example, can you stop your fingernails from growing? Can you increase your heartrate on the spot? Can you make your stomach stop digesting food? Can you turn on or off any range of emotion at any time?
Perhaps there ARE people that can do some of these things, and I would think that it makes sense that you should be able to control your body. I mean, I can stop breathing if I want to, but I can't just stop my heart (Not that I want to!).
I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than I wonder why we can control certain parts of our bodies and not others. Is there a particular reason? Is it simply a lack of practice?
-Xin
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When you say that you cannot control certain functions within your body, I assume you mean that your concious mind cannot control them, not that those functions are beyond control. After all, you do control your heart and digestion, it simply is not under concious control.
I don't know how familiar you are with the workings of a computer, but computers a designed in a layered fashion. At the bottom layer, you have the hardware, which has some built in intelligence, and performs some primitive functions. Above that you have you have the BIOS, and above that the operating system (although modern operating systems sometimes bypass bits of the BIOS). Above that you have the application programs. Above that, you have the end user interacting with the application.
Each layer is expected to perform its functions automatically for the layer above. When you as a user ask to load a file into an application, you do not expect to have to worry about how that is done at the lowest level, you just ask the application to open the file. The application then asks the operating system to do its bit. The operating system then asks the hardware to do its bit.
Your body has the same sort of layered protocol. Your concious mind expects to do high level functions, but it expects lower levels of the body to take care of the lower level functions. There is no need to burden the high level concious mind with precise management of the heart. In fact, if it were to have to deal with such detailed operations, it would actually pose a risk, since it could accidentally switch off the heart while you are asleep. So, heart management functions are delegated to lower level control systems that can function even while the concious mind is asleep, or distracted doing other work.
George
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Xin, one can hold ones breath but sooner or later you are going to gasp and start breathing again under subconscious control.
There are a few people who can in fact raise and lower their heart rate under conditions which have taken some preparation..ie: meditation or some other type of ritualistic procedure.
I think if we had conscious control of all our body functions then I suspect we may not be around for very long. Such a lot of the body is under fine tuned metabolic function that our conscious mind I think just wouldn't be able to cope.
Of course if the body was designed in a way via evolution that we could control those functions then that would be a different matter.
very interesting topic...thanks
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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So perhaps, because of the intricate way our bodies behave with us needing full control...I wonder if this points to the fact that we have been "created" by a higher power.
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quote:
Originally posted by Xin
So perhaps, because of the intricate way our bodies behave with us needing full control...I wonder if this points to the fact that we have been "created" by a higher power.
I think it points to the fact that in order to make something complicated, you make it in separate modular bits, each bit doing what it does well. This is true whether what is being made is by natural evolution, or by intelligent design.
George
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In my opinion...I don't believe a higher power has anything to do with it...it's the result of a few aeons of evolution...our bodies are so damn clever that the major functions are self regulating...we really are quite amazing creatures !
Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!
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Xin, one can hold ones breath but sooner or later you are going to gasp and start breathing again under subconscious control.
Yeah, I've read somewhere that you can't commit suicide with holding your breath. I think that's because you would faint first and once you fainted, you start breathing automatically.