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Houshalter comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong
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Is this true that most people believed the brain was where thought came from? I know the Egyptians used to rip it out because they didn't think it was important.
I was literally just thinking about this the other day, about how ancient people didn't notice that people that got head injuries would change their behave or die instantly.
I don't have a single friend whose behavior I'd have noticed changing after a head injury: the only reason I know it happens is because I've read case reports of it happening to someone. Maybe some doctor might have noticed, but then, I'd expect ancient peoples to also have fewer head injuries that were serious enough to change behavior but also mild enough to be survivable.
That is good evidence, on the other hand.
People that got heart injuries tend to die instantly, too :-/
A better clue would be that you can knock someone out by hitting him on the head, but not on any other part of the body.
If you hit someone hard in the region of the heart, they die.
You're missing the point. There is only one part of the body that you can apply physical shock to in order to make someone lose consciousness for a time.
But you could also say that death is a more permanent form of losing consciousness. To someone who doesn't know better, I could certainly see someone thinking "If something happens to the brain, you get seriously messed up. But if something happens to the heart you die, period. So perhaps the heart is more important than the brain since even the slightest injury or malfunction means instant death. Therefore, our life force must reside in the heart, not the brain." This could even lead you to thinking that the brain's purpose is in someway indirectly related to the heart, e.g. blood cooling, such that damage to the brain can cause damage to the heart, which is why some but not all damage to the brain is deadly.
I get what you are saying, but I think that connection is only obvious in hindsight.
For the purposes of this subthread we should distinguish "life force", "soul", and "mind". They were commonly thought to be separate concepts and not necessarily residing in the same body part.
Depends on the culture.
You can pass out from serious injuries, even if they're not in the head.