A co-workers son asked him this, and I got a braincrash when I heard it.
EDIT: Co-workers son asked if the brain keeps the location (of internal organs) a secret from you?
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Because your brain gets information from your eyes telling it where your hands are. Eyes can’t see through solid matter so the only thing your brain has to rely on for the inside is nerve signals from an area. If no one ever opened up a human to check out what’s in there, you might be able to make some conclusions like, “I ate this berry and now the middle of my body hurts, it probably has something to do with the berry/eating”, but you wouldn’t know why exactly.
Of course it kind of depends on what he means by “knows”. The brain does know where your organs are and what they do because it has to send and receive signals from them, it’s just not your conscious mind because that isn’t the part responsible for those things. It’s not actively hiding the information, it just isn’t necessary for the “you” part of your brain to know, same as your speech centers don’t know you have legs.
It works on a need to know basis, you don’t need to know where your liver is but do need to know where your feet are to run without falling over.
Because your brain gets information from your eyes telling it where your hands are. Eyes can’t see through solid matter so the only thing your brain has to rely on for the inside is nerve signals from an area. If no one ever opened up a human to check out what’s in there, you might be able to make some conclusions like, “I ate this berry and now the middle of my body hurts, it probably has something to do with the berry/eating”, but you wouldn’t know why exactly.
Of course it kind of depends on what he means by “knows”. The brain does know where your organs are and what they do because it has to send and receive signals from them, it’s just not your conscious mind because that isn’t the part responsible for those things. It’s not actively hiding the information, it just isn’t necessary for the “you” part of your brain to know, same as your speech centers don’t know you have legs.
It works on a need to know basis, you don’t need to know where your liver is but do need to know where your feet are to run without falling over.
Because your brain gets information from your eyes telling it where your hands are. Eyes can’t see through solid matter so the only thing your brain has to rely on for the inside is nerve signals from an area. If no one ever opened up a human to check out what’s in there, you might be able to make some conclusions like, “I ate this berry and now the middle of my body hurts, it probably has something to do with the berry/eating”, but you wouldn’t know why exactly.
Of course it kind of depends on what he means by “knows”. The brain does know where your organs are and what they do because it has to send and receive signals from them, it’s just not your conscious mind because that isn’t the part responsible for those things. It’s not actively hiding the information, it just isn’t necessary for the “you” part of your brain to know, same as your speech centers don’t know you have legs.
It’s in your best interest for your brain to limit the information it gives to the conscious active part of your mind to just include information it can consciously act upon. There’s nothing to be gained from knowing where your liver or kidneys are, so there was no evolutionary incentive to grow an awareness of it. If anything being aware of all the automated processes going on inside of you would be a distraction.
It’s in your best interest for your brain to limit the information it gives to the conscious active part of your mind to just include information it can consciously act upon. There’s nothing to be gained from knowing where your liver or kidneys are, so there was no evolutionary incentive to grow an awareness of it. If anything being aware of all the automated processes going on inside of you would be a distraction.
It’s in your best interest for your brain to limit the information it gives to the conscious active part of your mind to just include information it can consciously act upon. There’s nothing to be gained from knowing where your liver or kidneys are, so there was no evolutionary incentive to grow an awareness of it. If anything being aware of all the automated processes going on inside of you would be a distraction.
There’s a special sense called proprioception, which is basically “where are all of my movable parts right now.” Your brain uses information from a couple sources, but especially from special sensors in your joints, to know where stuff is. Think of yourself as a stick figure drawing: If your brain knows the angle and twist of your shoulder/elbow/wrist/each knuckle, then it can figure out where your upper arm/lower arm/hand/finger must be. This is very useful information to help with movement even when you’re not looking, so the brain really needs to know.
You don’t have these position sensors in your internal organs, because it wouldn’t help anything. Your liver and kidneys aren’t movable parts; they’re tacked down so, they don’t move relative to the rest of you. Your intestines slip around sometimes, but that’s not really useful information for your brain (which already has a LOT of sensory input to deal with.)
TL;DR: Special position sensors, because hand position matters and liver position doesn’t.
There’s a special sense called proprioception, which is basically “where are all of my movable parts right now.” Your brain uses information from a couple sources, but especially from special sensors in your joints, to know where stuff is. Think of yourself as a stick figure drawing: If your brain knows the angle and twist of your shoulder/elbow/wrist/each knuckle, then it can figure out where your upper arm/lower arm/hand/finger must be. This is very useful information to help with movement even when you’re not looking, so the brain really needs to know.
You don’t have these position sensors in your internal organs, because it wouldn’t help anything. Your liver and kidneys aren’t movable parts; they’re tacked down so, they don’t move relative to the rest of you. Your intestines slip around sometimes, but that’s not really useful information for your brain (which already has a LOT of sensory input to deal with.)
TL;DR: Special position sensors, because hand position matters and liver position doesn’t.
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