alt Hacker NewsI hate to "umm, akshually" but apparently we have been studying the brain for thousands of years. I wasn't talking about purely modern neuroscience (which ironically for our topic of emergence, (often till recently/still in most places) treats the brain as the sum of its parts - be them neurons or neurotransmitters).
> The earliest reference to the brain occurs in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, written in the 17th century BC.
I was actually thinking of ancient greeks when writing my comment, but I suppose Egyptians have even older records than them.
None of that counts as studying the brain. It's like saying rubbing sticks together to make fire counts as studying atomic energy. Those early "researchers" were hopelessly far away from even the most tangential understanding of the workings of the brain.