SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
An Idle Brain May Be the Self's Workshop
from the Los Angeles Times
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The resting brain is anything but
idle--that simple proposition would be
clear if you could peer into Mike
Mrazek's noggin as he putters around his
kitchen preparing his daily morning
feast of scrambled eggs, oatmeal and
fresh fruit.
As he plods through his quotidian
ritual of gathering ingredients,
cutting, chopping, bringing the pan to
the correct temperature and boiling
water for tea, Mrazek's thoughts, too,
are something of a scrambled feast, as
he later recounts. Childhood memories
jostle against thoughts of his
girlfriend's progress on a cross-country
journey. Reflections on the tomatoes in
his garden give way to a rehearsal of a
meeting he's having later on at the
university. ...
... Until recently, scientists would
have found little of interest in the
purposeless, mind-wandering spaces
between Mrazek's conscious
breakfast-making tasks--they were just
the brain idling between meaningful
activity.
Read more...
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