A bit of “death” – PART 2

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A BLOG FOR EXPERTS – STAY AWAY IF YOU ARE ONE OF THEM !!!

Hello everyone out there,

After the long, perhaps kind of not-so-interesting, story of death this time we will turn our attention to the more meaningful subject – the neurology of death. Before we begin, let me confess that I am not a professional specialist in brain, or in general biology. All my knowledge here is at best secondary and hence cannot be treated as authentic reference. However, I believe that it may be a kind of introductory, curiosity provoking piece for a faction of people, however small in number may be.

Let us begin by understanding “life” a bit. Then we can understand what we mean by death and eventually human death and finally the brain ! The first thing – it is incredibly complicated ! Also I am no expert in these areas and will not go in any depth. But what I would like you to appreciate that

1. All animals (as a matter of fact, all “living” forms following the rule of nature that disorder or entropy increases monotonously) die
2. All ingredients of life are non-living – nobody could find a mysterious vital force !
3. Some animals have pretty primitive nervous system
4. Death cannot be reversed – at least till now

Therefore, death is not exclusive to brain. However, if we put forth the mechanistic analogy described in the last time we come to realise a “living” collection of “non-living” molecules keep on living by “re-organising” the eventual mess due to increasing entropy (disorders). This is the law of our nature and surely nothing can deny it. The “living” system, however, survives it by spending energy on “re-arranging”. Therefore a life sustains as long as the system can “repair” itself. No energy – no repair – no life ! Clearly it is a balancing act. Now if you have a car which needs to be driven by only you and the car needs to go through a violent surrounding, where will you be – outside of it or in a safe place inside ? Of course the later one is your choice if you are not me – a certified insane ! The interesting fact is that the nature also more or less follows this centralised dictatorial attitude – there will be a boss – safe and secured which will dictate what others will be doing. As you know, no intelligent human being can stay with such dictators. However, there are some who just follow and they feel terrible if nobody orders exactly what is to be done. They are good when the boss is healthy and keeps ordering in a loud voice when he feels any need. However think of a situation when the boss is, by some way or another, so hungry that he is no more able to shout. What happens ? The cook will not send him food – he did not get the order. The boss dies – the corporation dissolves – no employee gets salary and dies as well – including the cook ! If the cook was a bit more intelligent and could feed the boss even if he could not order – well, that does not happen ! The life forms are similar. They, most of the cases, depend on a centralised organ, the boss, to dictate them. This is particularly true for vertebrates. These guys have a dedicated organ for processing signals from the outside and send back the decisions – much like your computer microprocessor- the nervous system. As the vertebrates advanced along the evolution, this system became more and more powerful and complex and – you got a brain !!! We can, in fact, physically see that the human brain has three parts – lower, middle and upper. The uppermost layer that developed more recently has all the poetry and musics and mathematics and paintings. The middle brain is a bit older and stores memory and controls instincts. Indeed, rot learning does not need intelligence and emotional outbursts are often animalistic ! However, beneath both these layers we have an ancient layer. It gives a damn to any of these “human” behaviours – it do only mean business ! This part is called the brain-stem. What it does ? It is like the labours of our society – they work hard to sustain “life” !!! It controls how fast the heart will receive that divine electric spark via nerves with the loud order – “JUMP !!!”. It maintains the body temperature. It controls the involuntary breathing and sends us SOS once we try to hold our breath for long. And in return to this maintenance job, the cook – the heart supplies it the food – the oxygen ! When by some reason or another the brain does not get oxygen it stops functioning – expected. But since it cannot function – remember what happens when the boss dies ?

Now after all these things, realising that we are probably no more than a beautifully crafted and highly efficient machine whose goal is to sustain the “me”, does anything matter ? Why do we need to live if we are just machines ? Do we mean anything or nothing ? Does anything make any sense at all ? Why will I go to see my loved ones and work heart and soul for our dreams ? I do not know but I have reasons – many and many more ! What are they ? May be next time ?