Journal of Alzheimers Disease & Parkinsonism
Open Access

Abstract

The question in the title has social, legal and religious implications. If the mind controls the brain, then there is free will and its corollaries, dignity and responsibility. You are king in your skull-sized kingdom. You are the architect of your destiny. If, on the other hand, the brain controls the mind, an incendiary conclusion follows: There can be no free will, no praise, no punishment and no purgatory. Our brain is the riverbed that holds and channels our stream of consciousness. It is molded by the family and the culture we were raised in. Dementia will pay an unwelcome visit to many of us at the end of life. It will disrupt the internal structure of our neurons or their nourishing blood vessels and we will be living evidence the mind is the product of the brain and has no influence on it.

Biography

George Paxinos has studies at University of California at Berkeley, McGill and Yale. He is currently an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow at Neuroscience Research, Australia. He has published 51 scientific books and one novel. His Rat Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates is the third most cited book in science. He has served as the President of the Australian Neuroscience Society and of the IBRO World Congress of Neuroscience.
Email:g.paxinos@neura.edu.au