Medical science thinks of the human body as a machine. Anatomists and physiologists have mapped out the structures and functions of nearly all of it; we’ve got a great working knowledge of what everything is and how it should operate. Doctors know that to fix a problem they can troubleshoot for data, and repair or replace the defective parts.
Doctors must then allow the healing energy inside the patient to finish the process, hopefully with positive results. It’s the standard approach to medical intervention, but the fact is that with any treatment, there’s never a guarantee of healing.
There are a number of interesting and complex phenomena at work inside the human body and unexpected results from medical treatments will occasionally occur. It’s been documented, for example, that a liver transplant recipient who never much cared for french fries suddenly got wicked cravings for them soon after the surgery. When the surgical staff investigated the situation they learned that the donor was a guy who frequently enjoyed fried foods. They began to wonder… could the liver itself cause the cravings and even affect the behavior of the recipient?
There’s something going on here that’s a lot more interesting than the physical nuts and bolts of anatomy, don’t you think?
Was this a case of transplanted intention? An inscrutable example of a consciousness not localized in the brain but alive and active in every cell of the body? Scientists are working to learn just how tissues in the body respond to our habits, predilictions and behaviors.