Questão de Língua Inglesa

Why the brain-body connection is more
important than we think

Our brains aren’t flying solo; our emotions also come into play when we’re interacting with the world, new research finds.

1 The book The Biological Mind explores two opposing
ways of looking at the brain: one in which our bodies and the
environment we live in affect how we think and what we do,
4 and the idea that the brain is an isolated and all-powerful
entity.
The idea that our brains are like giant
7 supercomputers, orchestrating and determining everything
we do, has gained ground in recent years. So too have ideas
that a short time ago would have been regarded as science
10 fiction, like downloading the Internet directly to our brains,
or creating a new kind of human, one with enhanced
cognitive powers.
13 In his new book, Alan Jasanoff, professor of
biological engineering at MIT, explains why this “cerebral
mystique” creates a false dichotomy between the brain and
16 the body and ignores bodily influences on our psychology,
from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut.
Speaking from his office at MIT, he explained why
19 Red Sox legend Ted Williams had his body frozen in hopes
he could be thawed and re-animated someday; why changes
in temperature influence how much Dutch police shoot
22 their guns; and why the idea of downloading the Internet
directly into our brains is not a good one.
This book is largely about two opposite ideas: the
25 biological mind centered on the brain, in which influences
from the rest of the body and outside the body shape what
we think and do, and the cerebral mystique, a complex of
28 stereotypes and ideals about the brain, which tend to treat
it as an isolated and all-powerful entity, almost like a
modern version of the soul.
31 The problem with having a dualistic view of the brain
and its relationship to the physical body, and the physical
world, is that it makes us see ourselves as unnaturally
34 self-contained, both as minds and as autonomous agents.
In other words, we view ourselves as things that operate
from within, so we’re less sensitive to things that influence
37 us on the outside. The idea that the brain is a machine, an
abstract entity like a giant supercomputer, has been around
for a while, basically since computers. Other people have
40 used a quantum analogy for the brain. But the idea of the
brain as a computer is the most common in this day and
age.
Internet: (adapted).

According to the text, judge the following items.