In The Embodied Mind, Thomas Verny draws upon neuroscience, epigenetics, and mindbody research to show that intelligence, emotion, memory, and consciousness aren’t confined to the brain but are distributed throughout the whole body.

Our embodied mind is not the old enskulled one. It is an extended mind that relies on the intelligence of all the cells in our body that contain specific bits of information, micro-memories. (xiii)

All memories, consciousness, and the mind emerge from this linked sentient network. (xiii)

The union of sperm and egg at conception leads to the formation of a fertilized ovum, a one-celled organism, the zygote, that, if successfully implanted into its mother’s womb, will eventually become an adult.

Epigenetics teaches us that life experiences not only change us but that these changes may be passed on to our children and grandchildren down through many generations. (1)

In a very short time, the social environment can radically change gene expression and behavior. (12)

Thoughts and feelings are much more powerful than we realize. (24)

A thought is a set of neurons firing that, through complex brain wiring, will activate multiple intersecting pathways, emotional and pain centers, memories, the autonomic nervous system, the genome, and other parts of the embodied mind. (24)

It is in these cytoskeletons inside neurons where some of the leading scientists in the world believe that memories are stored. All cells in the body contain cytoskeletons. (35)

The spinal cord retains learned motor movements independent of the brain. (37)

The gut is able to learn [and] the gut is smart. (38)

In addition to cortical neurons, glial cells (the neurons in the spinal cord and the gut) actively participate in regulating our bodies and minds. (38)

Octopuses lack a central brain [so] their brain is their body and their body is their brain. (39)

Radical removal of half of the brain is sometimes performed as a treatment for epilepsy in children. (39)

[Researchers at Johns Hopkins were] awed by the apparent retention of memory after removal of half of the brain, either half, and by the retention of the child’s personality and sense of humor. (39)

Vaccination (immunization) is based on the premise [of] immune system memory. (49)

Cells can play the story of their development in reverse to switch on genes that were active in the fetal state. (65)

When cells grow up, they remember their childhoods. (65)

Neural-like computation, decision-making, and memory have been observed in a wide range of systems well beyond the traditional CNS, including sperm, amoebae, yeast, plants, bone, and heart. (67)

Just like the neurons in our brain, bacteria use ion channels to communicate with each other through electrical signals. (78)

Communities of bacteria within the biofilm appear to act as a kind of microbial brain. (78)

The gastrointestinal tract is now recognized as a major regulator of motivational and emotional states. (81)

Intestinal bacteria produce serotonin, dopamine, and other brain chemicals that regulate mood. (81)

When their heads were cut off and their bodies regenerated a new head, many of the regenerated worms demonstrated by their responses that they remembered their training. (92)

Memory in the flatworm was not localized in the head but was distributed throughout the animal’s body. (92)

Repair of damaged tissues or organs is not top-down but bottom-up, not controlled by the brain but organized locally by the affected cells or assemblies of cells in body tissues and organs. (102)

Your body, believe it or not, remembers everything. Sounds, smells, touches, tastes. But the memory is not held in your mind, locked somewhere in the recesses of your brain. Instead, it’s held in your body, all the way down at the cellular level. (102)

The more senses are activated by a stimulus, the better we recall the event because additional cells in the body, along with the brain, have participated in processing and remembering the experience. (106)

The heart, like the gut, also contains an intrinsic nervous system that exhibits both short and long-term memory functions. (118)

The heart, like the nervous system, possesses the properties of memory and adaptation. (119)

The heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the love or bonding hormone. (120)

The rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change significantly as we experience different emotions. (120)

The heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember, and make independent functional decisions that do not involve the cerebral cortex. (125)

What we perceive is deeply influenced by our subjective beliefs. (144)

Strange Connections

Thomas Verny’s book led me to this mind-blowing Michael Levin interview.

Emergence is just the measure of surprise for the observer.

We need to give up this unwarranted confidence in what we think matter can do.

We are really bad at recognizing what kinds of systems can give rise to minds.

Bioelectricity functions as a cognitive glue. It enables individuals to merge. The new self will have memories, goals, and preferences.

A cancer cell has a limited cognitive light cone (a smaller, more ancient sense of self).

We can use bioelectric information to turn normal cells into cancer cells, and it’s reversible.

Consciousness cannot be exclusively studied in the third person.

For the same reasons we associate consciousness with brains, we should take very seriously the possibility of other forms of consciousness in the rest of our bodies.

An individual is a collection of interacting perspectives and interacting consciousnesses.

You don’t feel your liver being conscious, and you don’t feel me being conscious either.

As I work on Natural Information Architecture, I’m sharing notes and quotes from my sources of inspiration and provocation. As always, your questions and suggestions are welcome.