I’ve been reading that neuroscience has made significant inroads toward determining how exactly the brain makes possible our biological existence. Apparently, the mind can be thought of as a neural computer comprised of modules, each with specific tasks, that respond to the input of information that arrives through the senses. Within the brain, billions of neurons make up various organs that control everything from toe wiggling to eye blinking.
I find it all pretty hard to picture but maybe it can be thought of as a sort of ‘light show’, neurons sending electric pulses down a line to a ‘blink center’ (in the case of eye blinking) which converts the pulse to a chemical which is sent to nerves in the eye lid and blinking happens.
As I think about it, I suppose there must be another organ with it’s contingent of neurons that keep the lungs inflating and deflating, another one that processes the oxygen and delivers it to the blood cells and yet another that maintains blood flow to the extremities and on and on; and all of this brain activity happening just to keep us animated and more or less cogent.
In the light of such knowledge one might not be surprised, I guess, if mental lapses are experienced occasionally.