X-Message-Number: 3803
Date: 06 Feb 95 03:34:13 EST
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: CryoNet #3787 - #3793

Mike Price writes about the body-brain dichotomy with authority and certainty
stating that it is ALL in the brain.  I doubt this, but find myself in close
agreement with most of his points.  As I've said from the start, these factors
have never been major issues for me, and I have still opted for neuro.

However, where I think Mike may  be going a bit too far (by implication) is to
say that people select WB only for the aesthetic/emotional reasons.  This was,
in my considered and I believe informed opinion, not the case for Jerry Leaf,
and is not the case for others; but I amsure it is  it is for many for many who
do..

I feel confident that people who learn ver fine skills form NEW neuromuscular
junctions and radically alter the threshold of of many more.  I also tend to

agree that the effets of aging may well swamp out any such learned changes.  But
not always.  You should listen to Horowitz playing in Moscow when he returned a
few years years before his death.  He must haveen in his late '70 or early
'80's.  His performance was magnificent.  Or look at the aged Churchill; not
just his statemanship, but the his painting which, in my opinion, reached its

zenith in his old age, ditto Grandman Mosesr who did start to paint till she was
at a very advanced age.  Most of the abilities are probably cortical and
cerebellar, and most could probably be replaced by inferring (from the brain
and/or past) works and creative peripheral rewiring.  Of better still giving
them expanded "prosthetic capabilities which greatly widen their range AND
incude their previous "unique" abilities a subsets.

But not everyone agrees.  Labelling them fools isn't going to answer the
question; and as I've aged I've gotten less arrogant about the results of
experiments not yet done.  

Also, I must confess that I see the body as more of feedback loop the older I
get.  The brain IS important, maybe even the ochestra leader.  But we may (much
to our surprize) find out that tye secind fiddle has some big effects on the
brain too.  I think it is this feeling, of the person as a unified whole (not
just their brain) which drives many whole body people.  I do not think this
point of view totally without merit or loony.  It simple remains to be proved;
as does almost everything ekse we are doing.  I can live with that, AND treat

those who hold these views with respect.  Failure to do this proved verty costly
to me in the past.  It is not a mistake I intend to repeat.

The laboratory teaches great humility.

Mike Darwin

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