Inaugurations

Hello!

This is a blog called 21 Grams of Electric Meat. This is the first post. One day, when I grow up, I'd like to be a science communicator, journalist, or educator. Or maybe I'll just become some sort of wild mountain person and live in total isolation. We'll see.

But what, you might ask, is 21 Grams of Electric Meat? Well, it's a blog where I'm going to put some thoughts. Sometimes it'll be about queer stuff or feminist stuff. A lot of it will  probably be about SCIENCE, and sometimes it'll just be a place to write words. I've been meaning to write more and you're going to be the people I subject to it. Sorry.

Oh, the name, you mean? Well, 21 grams is the popularized "weight of the soul," made famous now in movies and a Snopes page. At the turn of the century, a Massachusetts-based physician set out on an attempt to measure the weight of the human soul. Dr Duncan MacDougall weighed patients dying of consumption on a scale originally tasked with the purpose of weighing silk. His first subject on the scales lost a purported three-quarters of an ounce, popularized as 21 grams.

I don't remember now where I found the phrase "electric meat" as referring to the brain; I think it might have been in a Carl Zimmer or Mary Roach book. What I'm hoping to say, in a very silly way, is that I'm a big proponent of the idea that I am what my brain does. While sometimes I practice a mind-body duality (you know, not taking care of my body and instead feeding a ravenous brain), I don't believe in one. I am my mind. I don't believe in a soul.

That's a pretty rough first post, but from here on out, expect a lot of low quality writing, hopefully followed by posts on increasing skill and determination.