Download You Are What You Think

MIND
How A Thought Becomes A Molecule
OR
Research Project for
V08SP: Anatomy & Physiology II
Margery Anderson
April 2008
BODY
I started this project by asking the question, “How does a thought become a
molecule?” Now I see that the question as stated prevents the answer, because a thought
doesn’t become a molecule at all. A thought, which is non-material, does not become a
molecule, but rather exists in the body as a molecule.
First, let’s look at the body, about which scientists have learned so much. They
have discovered the intricacies of the human anatomy and physiology by breaking them
down into their components and observing how these components interact with one
another.
They have organized this information in the order of complexity with which we
are familiar: organism-system-organs-tissues-cells-molecules. Further, molecules are
described as being composed of atoms arranged in certain patterns that can change. The
atoms themselves have component parts, and the way these components are arranged
distinguishes the atom of one element, like oxygen, from another, like iron. Oxygen and
iron seem so different to our common understanding, and yet they are both elements
whose atoms share some features:
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both have subatomic particles including protons, neutrons and electrons
the protons and neutrons are located in the atom’s nucleus
the electrons orbit around the nucleus, creating an “electron cloud”, the spherical
shape and size of the atom
the electrons are held in place by the attraction of their negative electric charge to
the positive electric charge of the protons in the atom’s nucleus
What makes iron and oxygen atoms different is the number of subatomic particles
each contain. This affects the number of electrons in the outermost ring of the “electron
cloud,” the electrical charge each atom carries, and the manner in which it interacts with
other atoms. In reality, both atoms are more space than solid matter. As Deepak Chopra
puts it in Quantum Healing, “…everything solid, including our bodies, is proportionately
as void as inter-galactic space.” (P. 96) The solid particles of which our bodies are
composed are held together by electrical force. We are not as solid as we seem.
Now let’s look at a thought. A thought does not have an atomic structure; it is nonmaterial. As such, a thought is not bound by the limitations of time and space, as matter
is, and yet it exists. Its non-material existence is complex, fluctuating, and impossible to
measure or diagram, as we have done with the atom. Nor does a thought exist in isolation
from other thoughts. If they could be captured and measured, we could say that thoughts
are the units that comprise the mind. What we are looking at here is how thought – or
mind – not limited by space or time, exists in the body, which we have reminded
ourselves is not so solid after all.
Now let’s have a little look at quantum mechanics. This will be a very tiny look,
because all I know of this science is what I discovered in my big Random House
Dictionary this afternoon as I strived to understand the principles that Dr. Chopra refers
to Quantum Healing.
As I mentioned earlier, scientists study things by breaking them down into smaller
and smaller pieces. With the development of highly sophisticated instruments, they have
been able to “see” increasingly tinier components of our world. A quantum is, according
to my big dictionary, “the smallest quantity of radiant energy.” Quantum Mechanics is
defined as “a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems
that are subject to the uncertainty principle.” Uh-oh. Now I had to look up the
“uncertainty principle.” And then “Planck’s constant.” It was getting way out of hand.
But I discovered one item of note: “quark.”
A quark is “any of the hypothetical particles…that, together with their antiparticles,
are believed to constitute all the elementary particles classed as baryons and mesons.”
Physicists are exploring the nature of the universe – matter and energy and time and
space – and arriving at the point of hypothetical particles, antiparticles, and belief. What
this definition reveals is that when you get to a certain point, you really can’t keep
cracking things apart to see what they are. Science has always played that edge, but
current discoveries compel us increasingly to accept that reality is more than the sum of
its measurable parts. We must consider the intangible patterns and fluid relationships of
reality equally important as its physical systems and chemical reactions.
Now meet Candace Pert. “Dr. Pert is currently Scientific Director of RAPID
Pharmaceuticals where she is developing Peptide T, a therapeutic for treatment of HIV.
She is best known for her opiate receptor, endorphin and peptide research. Her work is
based on how the bodymind functions as a single psychosomatic network of information
molecules which control our health and physiology.” (Taken from her website,
www.candacepert.com.)
The peptides she has studied are the ones the body creates when we experience
emotions such as fear, anger, love and happiness. They have been studied through various
measuring and monitoring devices and sophisticated imaging techniques such as fMRIs
and PTscans that allow scientists to see what is happening in the body when a subject
thinks about or reacts to certain situations. Dr. Pert refers to these chemicals as the
molecules of emotion.
I believe emotions are thoughts felt in the body. For example, if you see a bear,
you may or may not be frightened; it depends on your thought. If you think, “Bears are
dangerous. This one might eat me,” you will feel fear in your body. If you think, “This is
not a dangerous bear; she won’t bother me. I’m so lucky to see this bear. I will be very
quiet so I don’t frighten her,” you will not feel fear. You might feel gratitude or happiness
in your body. When Dr. Pert speaks of emotions, my view is that she is speaking of the
mind.
As she states, “the key concept is that the emotions [mind] exist in the body as
informational chemicals, the neuropeptides and their receptors, and they also exist in
another realm, the one we experience as feeling, inspiration, love – beyond the physical.
The emotions move back and forth, flowing freely between both places, and, in that
sense, they connect the physical and the non-physical.” (Pert, Molecules of Emotion, p.
307).
Now consider light. Light exists as both a wave and a particle. As a wave, it has
frequencies, which vibrate to produce different colors of the light spectrum. As a particle,
a photon, it activates receptors in the retina of your eye, which send a signal to your
brain, which interprets what you see.
I suggest that in a similar way a thought can exist as matter (information carrying
neuro-peptides and their receptors) and as non-matter. As non-matter, a thought is not
limited by time or space. You can think of something that is not physically present; you
can think of something that happened or will happen; and you can think of something that
does not exist at all.
As matter, thought exists as molecules that form, break down, reform, and
communicate with each other everywhere in your body – stomach, skin, adrenals, nerves,
blood, lymph, heart. These molecules carry information throughout your body so that
every cell in your body “knows” what you are thinking.
“Neuro-transmitters are the runners that race to and from the brain, telling every
organ inside us of our emotions, desires, memories, intuitions, and dreams. None
of these events are confined to the brain alone. Likewise, none of them are strictly
mental, since they can be coded into chemical messages. Neuro-transmitters touch
the life of every cell. Wherever a thought wants to go, these chemicals must go
too, and without them, no thoughts can exist.” (Chopra, p. 58)
This relationship is the basis of new branches of science such as
psychoneuroimmunology, which studies specifically the connection between the brain
and the immune system, and neuroplasticity, which studies the brain’s ability to generate
new brain cells. This ability decreases when one is under chronic toxic stress; that is,
when one is having bad thoughts for a long time.
We can no longer think of the body, as early biologists did, as a machine, made
up of little machines that do their work independently. Nor can we see the mind, as
Descartes did, as being devoid of physical substance. There is nowhere in your body that
your mind does not exist. Neuro-transmitters, their receptors, and DNA – “almost as
much sheer knowledge as it is matter” (Chopra, p. 71) – are as much of the mind as they
are of the body.
Dr. Pert refers to the mind-body as a network of information: “I see the flow of
information throughout the whole organism as evidence that the body is the actual
outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind.” (Pert, Molecules of Emotion, p.
187)
That is to say, “You are what you think.”
List of references on following page.
LIST OF REFERENCES
Books
Chopra, D. (1989). Quantum Healing. New York: Bantam Books.
Flexner, B. F., & Hauck, L. C. (Eds.). (1987). Random House Dictionary of the English
Language. New York: Random House.
Pert, C. (1997). Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel. New York:
Scribner.
Articles
Integrative Fitness: the New Science of Body-Mind Medicine. P. Peeke.
IDEA Fitness Journal 4.6 (June 2007): p56(7). (4511 words) Retrieved March 16,
2008.
The Mind-Body Connection: Granny Was Right, After All. C. Q. Thomas. Rochester
Review 59.3 (1997). Retrieved March 16, 2008 from University of Rochester website
www.rochester.edu
Psychoneuroimmunology. A. Woodward. Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative
Medicine. Ed. Jacqueline L. Longe. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2005. p1666-1667. Gale
Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine. Retrieved March 16, 2008.
Tape
Pert, C. (2000). Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.