Question: Does your heart have memories or feelings?

Robert Woolfson answered on 25 Jun 2013:

Scientifically speaking, yes. The heart is a muscle that beats to send blood around your body at a certain speed. The heart has memory in the sense it has DNA which is a form of memory that stores information about a person.

On a more personal note, I believe that the memories and feelings that make us human reside in the brain. Other people feel differently. There’s a poem on the GCSE English course I remember studying called Homecoming. I remember it because it sparked a very strong debate about exactly this topic in my class. I’ve attached the words below (courtesy of http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetarmitage/ivemadeoutawillrev1.shtml)

I’ve made out a will; I’m leaving myself
to the National Health. I’m sure they can use
the jellies and tubes and syrups and glues,
the web of nerves and veins, the loaf of brains,
and assortment of fillings and stitches and wounds,
blood – a gallon exactly of bilberry soup –
the chassis or cage or cathedral of bone;
but not the heart, they can leave that alone.
They can have the lot, the whole stock:
the loops and coils and sprockets and springs and rods,
the twines and cords and strands,
the face, the case, the cogs and the hands,
but not the pendulum, the ticker;
leave that where it stops or hangs.