The Legacy Letters By Carew Papritz

The Mind Controls Everything

“Just because you’re breathing, doesn’t mean you’re alive,” (Papritz) said Carew Papritz, the award-winning author of the bestselling book The Legacy Letters, described as a chronicle of the human condition for those in search of meaning in their lives. This quote is compelling and is similar to the topic of whether the heart is being controlled by the brain. Many people believe that living is about having a functioning heart because it will keep a person alive, but living is actually about the brain and people’s minds since the mind controls all that people do, and a functioning heart needs a brain to function.

To begin with, let's talk about the brain and how it controls what people do. “The brain has eight different

The brain is a vital and complex organ. “It controls everything that is happening in the body, like breathing and heartbeats. Therefore, if the brain stops working, the individual is brain dead. This does not mean that the individual is in a coma. It means that the person is dead but the heart is still beating thanks to life support”, (“Brain death”). This quote proves the point that the brain is what defines living and not the heart. Brain death is a perfect example of that because the heart is still beating distributing oxygen throughout the body but because the brain is not working the individual cannot do anything for the body to function meaning that it’s dead. “The brain controls the heart directly through the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system”, (“Brain-heart interactions: physiology and clinical implications”). This source shows that the heart needs the brain to function because the nervous system connects them both and without the brain’s information the heart wouldn’t be able to adapt to different situations and would not be able to

“Technically speaking, the body can still be alive without a brain. On the other hand, it's pretty difficult for a body to be alive without a heart”, (Laird). This demonstrates that even though the heart is being controlled by the brain, it is still somehow possible to live without a brain but it is almost not possible to live without a heart. Although, “While the heart is a vital organ, the brain (and the nervous system that attaches to the brain) make up the most critical organ system in the human body. The human nervous system is responsible for coordinating every movement and action the body makes. More importantly, it controls every function inside the human body as well”, (“The Most Important Organ in the Human Body”). Just like the source said, yes, the heart is a vital organ to the human body just like the other organ, but the brain is still the mastermind since it is the one that controls all of the organs throughout the body including the heart.

To sum up everything, the heart is the meaning of living might not be true. The heart is being controlled by the brain all the time just like all the other organs in the entire body. Therefore, the brain is the most important organ in the human body because it controls the body, the heartbeats, and provides all the senses necessary to live. Without