You know the statue I’m talking about—The Thinker. He sits there, chin on hand, lost in the abyss of his own mind, looking like he’s trying to solve the Grand Unified Theory of physics or perhaps just remembering where he left his keys. We look at him and see the epitome of human intelligence: a solitary brain doing heavy lifting while the body just acts as a pedestal.
But recently, I read an essay that completely flipped this image for me. The author describes standing in front of that statue in Paris, starving after a morning of black coffee, and watching the bronze head mentally melt into a cucumber salad .
That hunger wasn't a distraction from thinking. It was the thinking.
I’m Gerd, and if you know me, you know I spend my life in a wheelchair. My relationship with my body is... complicated. But being a physicist and astronomer has taught me that the universe is rarely as simple as "mind over matter." We love to believe that our brilliance is locked inside our skulls, safely separated from the messy, fleshy stuff below the neck.
I’m here to tell you that’s nonsense.
We need to challenge three massive misconceptions we hold about who we are. We think thinking is cerebral, we believe we are solitary units, and we assume the brain is the undisputed CEO of the body.
Let’s smash those ideas.
The Cucumber Epiphany
We have this modern obsession with the brain. We treat it like a computer processor encased in bone, and the rest of us—the heart, the gut, the toes—is just the power supply and cooling system. But have you ever tried to solve a differential equation when you really, really need to pee?
You can’t.
The author of the essay points out something hilarious but profound: we have "Brain and Body" research institutes, but you never see a "Liver and Body" institute . Why is that? We assume the liver is just a part of the body, but the brain is somehow special, made of magical "mind stuff."
It isn't. It's biological tissue, just like your spleen.
Here is the reality check: thinking requires a body. To contemplate the meaning of life, you first have to not die. Your body is constantly running a massive, complex operation of self-preservation—regulating temperature, fighting off bacteria, and pumping blood—without you ever signing a consent form . This isn't just plumbing; it’s a form of intelligence.
If The Thinker was actually a living guy, his ability to sit on that rock depended entirely on his body’s ability to maintain homeostasis. His "higher" thoughts are built on a foundation of "lower" bodily wisdom.
The Original Bouncer
So, if the brain isn't the only thing doing the thinking, what else is?
Let's talk about the immune system.
Long before you had a brain to worry about taxes or quantum mechanics, you were a cluster of cells trying to figure out a very basic problem: "What is me, and what is not me?"
This is the most fundamental cognitive task in existence.
The essay argues that the immune system is actually a cognitive system . It perceives the environment, remembers past encounters (that’s why vaccines work), and makes life-or-death decisions. It’s the bouncer at the club of your existence. It filters out the noise and fights back against the crashers.
If your immune cells get tricked and let a virus in, it doesn't matter how smart your brain is. The show is over.
This suggests that "cognition"—the act of processing information to survive—isn't a luxury of the brain. It’s a property of life itself, extending down to the humblest cell in your big toe . We are smart from the bottom up, not just the top down.
We Are Not Solitary Geniuses
This brings me to the most radical shift in perspective. We love the story of the lone genius—the Newton, the Einstein, the Rodin—sitting in an ivory tower (or on a rock) figuring it all out.
But that’s a lie.
Every single one of us spent the first nine months of our existence inside another human being. We didn't just pop out of a cabbage or drop from the sky .
We tend to ignore this biological fact because it’s messy. It implies dependence. But think about the placenta for a second. Science used to treat it like a passive barrier, just a wall between mother and baby.
New research shows the placenta is an active negotiator . It’s an immunological organ that facilitates a complex exchange of resources. It creates a safe zone where two different immune systems—which should theoretically attack each other—cooperate instead.
This means our very first experience of being alive wasn't solitary thinking; it was a biological conversation. We are built on connection.
The Takeaway
So, what does this mean for us?
It means we need to stop treating our bodies like Ubers that carry our brains around.
When I’m working on a physics problem and I get stuck, I used to force myself to sit there and "think harder." Now, I realize that my brain might be stuck because my body is stagnant. The "self" isn't a ghost in the machine; the self is the machine.
We perceive the world through every cell, not just the neurons. When you feel a "gut instinct," that’s not a metaphor—that’s your basal cognition talking to you.
Rodin’s statue shouldn't be a man alone on a rock. If we wanted to be scientifically accurate, it would be a man eating a salad, perhaps holding hands with someone else, acknowledging that the energy firing his neurons came from the earth and his ability to sit there came from a mother.
The future of understanding artificial intelligence—and human intelligence—lies in accepting that you can’t have a mind without a body.
So, go eat a cucumber. Your brain will thank you.
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