In article <481b7864$1@news.povray.org>, voi### [at] devnull says...
> >> I was under the impression that your heart *can* recover from damage.
 
> >> Similarly, you can't regrow brain cells, but the brain has an impressi
ve 
> >> capacity to reassign functions and regain normal functioning after 
> >> fairly serious injury.
> >>
> > Well, actually, the brain can grow new cells, it just doesn't do so 
> > much, and it wouldn't help in some cases, since the *data* is encoded
 
> > into the existing cells. It might, in theory, repair itself with new 
> > tissue, but the result would tend to be a blank slate, with no means to
 
> > relearn the correct responses. Its likely that there is some genetic 
> > markers that strongly inhibit new growth, precisely due to how it could
 
> > destabilize the existing pattern.
> 
> I find it interesting that every single person's brain appears to be 
> organised in roughly the same way. As in, there's a specific part of the
 
> brain that does function X, and it's in the same place in [almost] 
> everybody's brain. Clearly much of the brain's structure must be 
> hard-coded genetically or something.
> 
> Anyway, as I was saying, apparently the brain has the capacity to move 
> those functions of other regions in case of damage. To an impressive 
> degree...
> 
It can also retask those regions to other things, which is the cause of 
phantom limb effects. Touch on the cheek is very "close" to where the 
motor cortex for an arm is located, so lose the arm, the tissue retasks 
to touch, and you get the "feeling" that your nonexistent arm is 
touched, when your cheek is touched. Wackier bugs show up in people like 
one women who went into uncontrollable sneezing every time she hit... 
well, lets just say got real happy. More minor mis-wiring can cause 
anything from minor auditory halucinations, vision errors, transposition 
of colors with letters and words, and a whole list of other wacky stuff. 
So yeah, there is a *general* framework that says X *should be* tasked 
to motor skills, and linked via nerve networks to Y body part, but 
beyond that, anything goes, and sometimes the diagram for which parts 
connect to what, and how separated they are, get coffee spilled on it by 
the Darwinian architect, and things get damn blury in those spots. lol

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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