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Wonder and Awe: The Brain






The brain is an important part of any living animal, but more so in humans because humans have the ability to reason on a higher level than other animals. Humans are able to ask why, but other mammals, such as a dog, doesn't stop to think about what it is doing.



Sure, you can train a dog to sit, lie down, and heal, but the dog doesn't think, "Why should I listen to this person?" Instead the dog obeys because it has been trained to do so. It is likely that the dog was trained to sit by receiving a treat when the dog obeyed its owner and it sat. But the dog cannot and doesn't think about why it does this. A lot of people are similar to the dog, they blindly obey without question, people might do this to try and remain in the group or just to be accepted by others, or for several other reasons. Even though this happens, humans have the ability to question what is going on.



A mouse in a lab experiment does not know why it is running through a maze, following the smell of cheese, but the mouse is so focused on finding the food that it doesn’t worry about how it got to where it is. I am not exactly sure what causes this difference in reasoning, but it exists. I don't know if it is from the memory available to be recalled by the brain of each animal, but if it is the difference between the short term and long term memories the animals have, then why does a dog understand commands if it doesn't have the long term memory to remember why it sits? The complexity of the brain is one of the many things that causes me to wonder why do humans have the ability to ask why when other creatures do not.



There are websites just for asking questions, but I have never seen anyone attempt to answer my question scientifically. We know many things about how the brain works, but the only reason for our ability to ask questions is because humans have been given free will by God. I have never found anything to answer my dilemma, and I don't know if it will ever be known, but either way, the brain is amazing.

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