The Body: A Guide for Occupants

by Bill Bryson

For an object of pure wonder, the human brain is extraordinarily unprepossessing. It is, for one thing, 75 to 80 percent water, with the rest split mostly between fat and protein. Pretty amazing that three such mundane substances can come together in a way that allows us thought and memory and vision and aesthetic appreciation and all the rest. If you were to lift your brain out of your skull, you would almost certainly be surprised at how soft it is. The consistency of the brain has been variously likened to tofu, soft butter, or a slightly overcooked Jell-O pudding. The great paradox of the brain is that everything you know about the world is provided to you by an organ that has itself never seen that world. The brain exists in silence and darkness, like a dungeoned