The Art of Happiness

modes of analysis is a very strong rationalistictendency—an assumption that everything can beaccounted for. And on top of that, there areconstraints created by certain premises that aretaken for granted. For example, recently I metwith some doctors at a university medical school.They were talking about the brain and stated thatthoughts and feelings were the result of differentchemical reactions and changes in the brain. So, Iraised the question: Is it possible to conceive thereverse sequence, where the thought gives rise tothe sequence of chemical events in the brain?However, the part that I found most interestingwas the answer that the scientist gave. He said,‘We start from the premise that all thoughts areproducts or functions of chemical reactions in thebrain.’ So it is simply a kind of rigidity, a decisionnot to challenge their own way of thinking.”