How People Used to Visualize Their Brains 🤯

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Throughout history, metaphors for the brain have shifted alongside technological and cultural advances. Today, we often compare the brain to a computer, thinking of it as a processing system for information. However, before the computer, people used other metaphors to explain how the brain worked. In the 17th century, influenced by developments in physics, thinkers like René Descartes described the brain as pneumatic or hydraulic. They imagined fluids traveling through tubes and valves, much like water flowing through pumps. This mirrored the mechanical technologies of the time.

Going further back, in the Middle Ages, the brain was sometimes seen as a mystical organ responsible for balancing the humors—substances that supposedly governed health and temperament. Ancient Greek scholars like Aristotle didn't even believe the brain was involved in thinking. They thought it served a much more basic function: cooling the body. For Aristotle, the heart was the seat of thought and emotion, with the brain acting like a radiator for excess heat.

Each metaphor reflects the tools and understanding available at the time, from primitive cooling systems to complex computer networks today.