Awesome!

Over the past couple of weeks I've been studying the brain and how our senses work in Psychology class.  Did you know there are as many neurons in our brain as there are stars in the Milky Way?  That's pretty amazing.  We looked at the hindbrain which keeps our hearts pumping, our lungs breathing and our glands doing their thing at the right time.  The midbrain is a kind of relay station for the sensory messages coming at us (except for smell which bypasses it).  My professor got more animated when we got to the forebrain where all the higher mental functioning happens.  His comment was that the word "awesome" should be reserved for the brain.  "I've heard people refer to a hamburger as 'awesome' but it is the brain that is awesome." 

The brain is amazing.  Our vision is one simple example.  Well, maybe it's not so simple.  My textbook takes 20 pages to briefly describe how what we see gets translated into an electrical signal that our brains can understand and then how our brains interpret what we see.  I don't often stop and think about how it is that I can see color, or know that there is an edge to the table or have depth perception or how I can ride in airplane and know that those little cars down there aren't toys.   Scientists are still trying to figure out how it all works.  Numerous times the book talked about theories for how our senses and the brain work.  We don't really know.  Yes, the brain is amazing.  But I differ with my professor.   Superlatives like "awesome" should be reserved for the Designer and Creator, not for the creation.