Friday 11 May 2012

The Totem Pole

More climbing, this time, in Tasmania, on the Totem Pole, with Paul Pritchard.  Paul wrote "The Totem Pole", which tells of his climb and his ongoing fight for recovery from the terrible injuries he received there.

We went to Tasmania many years ago - in Autumn.  And how lovely it is.  It was the perfection of Autumn.  So quiet, so peaceful, so beautiful.  And the night sky!  For the first time we understood why the Milky Way is called The Milky Way.

"The Totem Pole" is unputdownable.  A very good read.   Paul, in his fight to recover from his terrible head injuries studies the brain, trying to understand what has happened to him.  And I want to quote this for today's blog.

He lists some of the textbooks he is reading and says:  "I find that I am in a much better position to get a handle on my predicament if I can begin to understand it.  The human brain is the most complicated of organs with over a hundred billion cells and more possible connections than there are atoms in the whole universe, so no-one can truly understand it. But you can have a pretty good go."

The human brain is such a complex computer that it has more possible connections than there are atoms in the whole universe.

Is that in accord with the theory of Evolution, or with the Hebrew Scriptures which tell us that we were created - and created to live forever and go on learning forever?

In fairness, I think Darwin did say that the complexity of the human brain, insofar as they understood it then, was a problem for his theory.

I do feel a little better today, but very tired and want to sleep and sleep and sleep.  So I did very little today beyond getting supper, studying and catching up on some emails.  Captain B has kindly offered to take me to the Assembly at Haysbridge tomorrow, but we will leave at lunchtime so that we are back in plenty of time for Janet. And also so that i don't set back my recovery.

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