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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: • • • • 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.