AN INTRODUCTION TO HOW YOUR BRAIN THINKS
We all want to believe that we are in complete control of our body, yet that is not completely true. Our Brain makes an extensive number of decisions regarding function, existence, and survival on a daily basis without asking for your permission. How many times in the last day did you ask yourself. actually ask yourself, how many times you should breathe? or how many times your heart should beat?
The answer is not even once. No one does since our Brain decides these kind of decisions and much more constantly. Our Brain operates as if it is still in the jungle, and in the jungle the rules of nature reign supreme. Thus, knowing the rules of nature is important to understanding "how your Brain actually thinks", as opposed to you as a person.
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Acquiring these understandings will make several phenomena clear. For example, why is your Brain against burning fat, and in favor or storing fat, while most people would like to lose fat (burn fat). Why? Why is our Brain seemingly working against our will? - The answer is that in nature, storing fat increases chances of survival, and survival is the number one goal of all living forms in nature.
Energy is the ability to conduct work, and as it pertains to biological systems, energy is the ability to exist by conducting biological work. Thus, by definition, energy becomes the body's tool to exist and survive. As such, energy is revered by our Brain as crucial to survival, and becomes the center of function.
As a means to increasing the chances of survival, efficiency becomes important. Efficiency is often defined by the mathematical ratio between the work conducted and the amount of energy required to conduct that work. Efficiency is maximized as maximal work is conducted, while the energetic cost is minimal. Yet, efficiency is always second to survival since it is better to be alive and inefficient than dead and efficient. Survival first!
Rates, paces, and frequencies represent the occurrence of a certain process per unit of time (most likely over 60 seconds; one minute). For example, Heart Rate (HR, Beats per minute; bpm) represents the number of heart contractions (beats) per minute, while Respiratory Rate (RR, breaths per minute, bpm) represents the number of breaths taken every minute.
If we were to imagine paying one dollar for every heart contraction or every breath, and wanted to pay less for being alive, we would aspire to keep rates, paces, and frequencies as low as possible. If the goal is being alive, than the less paid to achieve this goal, the more efficient we become. In mammals and some other living forms, the greater the size of the mammal, the lower their rates, and the longer they should theoretically live if life span depended on rates and size alone.
Physiological capacities are often the outcome of multiplying a volume of sort by a rate / pace/ frequency. Mathematically, if the capacity is fixated and the volume increases, the rate mathematically decrease, prolonging life (in theory). Integrating what we have already learned in this post, increasing physiological volumes becomes a means to prolong life by decreasing rates and becoming more efficient as a result. This means that our body aspires to increase volumes and decrease rates as much as possible.
Eat or be eaten; Movement supports the ability to hunt or avoid being hunted. In the absence of the ability to move, a living form must be either toxic, huge, invisible, camouflaged, or any combination of these. Accordingly, survival becomes dependent of the ratio between attempts to kill you, and your success in avoiding them and/or surviving them.
Survival can also depend on speed that chemical reactions occur at. The faster these chemical reactions occur, the greater the efficiency, and the greater the chances of survival. For this reason and more, enzymes become a tool for survival. Amongst other abilities, the cause certain reactions to occur much faster than they would have occurred naturally. Thus, the ability to increase enzymatic concentrations is coupled with better chances of survival as a result of better, faster, and more efficient function.
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While the intention of this post is to focus on survival by physiological means to accommodate the rules of nature, it is important to indicate that the survival of a species is based on the ability to reproduce and have offspring.
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