Nervous system in psychology with examples

NERVOUS SYSTEM

The neuron is the basic building block but isn't there like a master neuron or isn't there a structure that gives orders to these neurons. How does it work the best analogy that is that of the internet. Have you ever wondered how the internet works; internet is in fact a very, very large parallel network of computers made up of different hosts and clients. Our brain is not in fact very dissimilar to the internet. Imagine an internet of 70 billion plus computers all of them exchanging information in a parallel way with no command-and-control center. 

Well, it's easy to say that our brain is the control and command center. The brain itself lacks a control and command center. All the neurons interact with each other in parallel exchanging information. This is mind-blowing if you think about it. 

How do all of these neurons get together to decide which arm to move which leg to move, when they work in this beautifully coordinated way just like the internet. You need a piece of information, you enter the information into google you search, and you're given the answer. 

We can't say that a neuron is like a thought, we can't say that a neuron is like an emotion, but it does have a role to play together hundreds, thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of neurons coordinate these bodily movements that we make, these thoughts that come to us, these emotions that we experience are all inherent in this internet of nerve cells or internet of neurons. So, these neurons or nerve cells work together in parallel to create thoughts, impulses, movements, emotions whatever we experience or do, whatever we feel, whatever we think everything is generated by this conglomerate of neurons this multitude of neurons working together. 

A lot of people think that our brain is our mind while it is true that our brain has more than 70 billion neurons, which is a huge overwhelming majority of neurons, the situation is not limited to the brain our heart itself has thousands and thousands of neurons, so it is no wonder that when we are worried our heart starts to beat in a weird manner our gut, our stomach, our intestines have again thousands and thousands of neurons, so it is no wonder when we are anxious we feel butterflies in the stomach we feel strange feelings strange sensations in our stomachs or in our abdomen when we're anxious. 

But the important thing to underscore and emphasize once again is that the neurons work together in parallel to generate human experience to, they also work together to understand human experience. 

So, if you think about it my eye sees something, but is it really my eye that sees something because what we have is an image falling on the eye. How is this multitude of information processed? it is not processed by the eye; the eye sends the image via the optic nerve to a central part in the brain and that optic nerves when it sends this information it transmits relevant bits of information a lot of information that is considered irrelevant is usually thrown away or shed before it reaches the brain and then the brain processes it. 

EXAMPLE:

For example, if you're shown a very, very small picture of an elephant on your table

 or you're shown a very, very huge picture of an elephant near you.

How do you decide that the elephant is in fact near or far or is it big or small, the size distance problem is resolved rather easily by the brain it uses context to decide whether it's an elephant far away and therefore small or is it a miniature toy of an elephant placed on your table.

So, the point we want to emphasize is that the neuron is the essential building block of the nervous system. The neuron works together with other neurons to make feeling of the world to figure out the data that comes to it and it doesn't do it alone, there's some neurons that participate in processing visual information, there are other sets of neurons that are associated with figuring out the sounds that we get and yet there would be other neurons that process taste, touch and smell and together these five kinds of neurons then combine with other neurons in the nervous system that actually generate meanings. 

Think about how many words we have in our vocabulary, perhaps one word and its meaning are stored in thousands or hundreds of thousands of neurons, just as in a dictionary it would take a very small space, we would have many different neurons generating meanings together.

EXAMPLE:

For instance, let's look at the word apple there would be lots and lots of neurons involved in storing the word apple in our memory, but what about the word fruit, now what happens is as we know from our research that the neurons that are involved in processing the word apple are also involved in processing the word fruit, but the neuron the number of neurons that processes the word fruit is much larger and so therefore there would be neurons that together form the concept apple, there would be neurons that together form the concept orange and together they generate the concept fruit, and there would be so many other different fruits in these categories and there is no single unit neuron that says oh this represents the fruit and this represents orange or this represents the apple, because as told you it's a very, very large network of things there would be sets of neurons that look at the color of the apple if it's green or if it's red there would be many different bunches of neurons processing the shape is it circular or is it sort of oval or what shape is it. 

There would be similarly many different neurons that would be processing the smell and together they will form the image have you ever wondered what happens when we are confused when we see a shape but we're not really sure what it is, it is because there's a very, very large number of neurons working in parallel without any central control system of their own, without a single cell or a bunch of cells to decide what it is there are no decision making neurons there yes there are parts of the brain that are involved in decision making but for now, it suffices for us to understand that our brain is made up of neurons which form together an internet of billions and billions of neurons. 

I sincerely wish that human society could be like that where we have no control and command systems running the lives of citizens were everybody works together to make sense of the world around them and to live a decent life.