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Article: The human mind: touching the intangible. (includes related article on brain functions)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- December 26, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ONLY connect. Forster's injunction is the crux of modern thinking on the mechanisms of the mind. As neurologists have taken the brain apart, they have been astonished at how bitty it is. Outwardly coherent behaviour, like talking and listening, is subcontracted all over the place. Nouns are stored here, adjectives there, syntax elsewhere. Verbs spelled with regular endings are learned using one sort of memory, those spelt with irregular endings are learnt by another; for memory, too, has been atomised into so many pieces that psychologists cannot agree on their number. And the senses, the brain's link with wider reality, do not simply imprint an image of the world upon it; ...