Are Brains Really Necessary?

It turns out that some people who have almost no brain tissue are able to perform as or more intelligently than people with normal brains. This article discusses some documented cases. I personally met someone who graduated from Harvard graduate school and then went on to be a senior strategist in the computer industry. Later during an unrelated x-ray of his head they discovered that he had less than half of a normal brain! I'm not kidding -- this is true. He was highly intelligent and well-respected in his field; nobody would have ever suspected that he was pretty much brainless. Of course the obvious social commentary here is irresistable -- maybe there are many more brainless people who graduated from Harvard??? In any case, the interesting point here is not that you don't need a brain to graduate from Harvard, but rather that it appears that in some documented cases people with little to no brain tissue are able to demonstrate full cognitive abilties. If that is the case, then (a) what is the brain for?, and (b) what is enabling them to think without a brain?

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[Lucas]

It is known that there are neurons in the heart and in the gut. We "think" with our whole body it seems...