Posts Tagged ‘left hemisphere of the brain’

About the Left and the Right Brain

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

The human brain is divided into two, distinct cerebral hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum.

The sides resemble each other, and, generally, each hemisphere’s structure is mirrored by the other side, yet, despite the strong similarities, the functions of each hemisphere are very different.

Linear reasoning and language functions such as grammar and vocabulary often are lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain.

In contrast, holistic reasoning language functions, the transduction of visual and musical stimuli, such as spatial manipulation, facial perception and artistic ability are functions of the right hemisphere.

People who were more active in the left frontal brain (right handed) deal with a stressful situation with continued optimism. Right brained (left handed) people are much faster at recalling memories of negative events. They’re more prone to depression.

Left frontal person are a little more extroverted, more willing to take social risks, because they’re driven by the opportunity for positive things. Where the person who’s right frontally activated are more driven by avoiding more negative things.

 The winner of The Nobel Prize in Medicine 1981, Roger W. Sperry made some of the most profound discoveries in neuroscience when he showed that the two sides of our brain can be independently conscious.

 In the 1960s, surgeons developed a procedure to cut the nerve bundle that normally connects the two hemispheres as a last resort to control difficult cases of epilepsy.

Before this, the classic view of the brain was that the left brain dominated thinking and was primarily the seat of language, analysis, and high-level learned motor skills. The right, or “minor,” hemisphere was considered less highly evolved and unable to understand reading or speech.

When Sperry started testing patients with split brains, he and other scientists were surprised. He found that not only could these patients continue to carry on most everyday functions after the two hemispheres were disconnected, but that the right brain wasn’t as word-deaf and word-blind as once thought.

It wasn’t as advanced in language skills as the left, but patients using only their right brains could recognize such sophisticated spoken phrases as “a measuring instrument,” and could spell three- and four-letter words.

Also, in split brain patients, both sides of the brain were clearly conscious, even when they weren’t aware of what the other side was seeing, hearing or thinking. While the two sides of the brain obviously worked in tandem when they were connected, they could operate independently if necessary.

When Children are born without a corpus callosum the hemisphere is able to divide itself in a right and left function.

Lesley J. Rogers and Gisela Kaplan (Comperative Vertebrate Cognition (2004, Kluwer)) show that the specialisation of the left hemisphere is highly conserved throughout evolution. On an evolutionary scale, this anatomy can be traced from primates to birds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians and fish and even insects.

Across the animal kingdom, the left brain processes complex tasks, like collecting food. It’s the side of the brain that gets animals out and doing things. The right brain deals with threats, like predators. It’s the defensive side.

When we zoom into one hemisphere we see a fractal pattern emerge. The hemispheres are divided into lobes that are focused on the right or the left.

Left Thread Right Thread
Particular General
Local (but to achieve the precision we need a single context, we move to the UNIVERSAL to recruit universal constants) Non-Local (BUT context sensitivity is local and so very diverse)
Objects Relationships
The ONE The MANY
Precise (quantitative precision) Approximate (qualitative precision)
What (Who,Which) Where (How, When)
Tonic Harmonic
Internal Linkage (within) External Linkage (Between)
Syntax/Semantics Semantics/Percepts
Single Context Multi Context
Exagerate, Distort, AS INTERPRETED AS-IS
Known Unknown
Ordered Disordered (or loosly ordered – the ‘everyday’)
Non-Change (need stability for high precision) Change
Ordinality (emphasis on directions – vectors) Cardinality (emphasis on magnitudes – scalars)
What IS What IS NOT
delusion illusion
repression supression
What WAS What COULD HAVE BEEN
What WILL BE What COULD BE
+1/-1 zero/infinity
Text Context
Foreground Background
Quantitative Qualitative
Expression Behind Expression
Self Others
The Dot The Field
Particle Interpretations Wave Interpretations
Metonymy (part-for-whole) Metaphor (whole-for-whole)
Axon-like (pulse, FM = SEQUENCE, Ordinality) Dendrite-like (wave amplitude, AM = SIZE, Cardinality)
neuron synaptic ‘soup’
dopamine biased (internal linkage emphasis, internal integrity) serotonin biased (external linkage emphasis, social integrity)
psychosis, schizophrenia neurosis, depression
identify re-identify
blend, bound (feeling terms for whole, parts) bond, bind (feeling terms for statics, dynamics)
Vectoring Waypointing

The divide between the Left and the Right can also be found in psychopathology. According to Interpersonal Theory all pyschological problems can be explained by two factors called Communion (Right) and Agency (Left).

Interpersonal Theory explains all the extremes in the human personality with ease.

I started my research for this blog because I wanted to learn more about MU.

Mu was according to legend the original home of mankind. All subsequent civilizations descended from it. The Pacific islands and their inhabitants are supposed to be the last survivors of this primordial motherland. Most of the time Mu is related to the Pacific Ring of Fire.

One of the most interesting books about Mu were written by James Churchward. Chuchward served with the British Army for thirty years. He claimed that, while posted in India, he befriended a priest (‘Rishi’), who revealed to him ancient tablets written in an otherwise unknown language.

The Rishi taught Churchward how to read this language, Naacal. The tablets described the land of Mu. He also claimed that he was able to discern writing from Mu on a mysterious set of tablets discovered in Mexico by an explorer named William Niven.

What is the relationship between Mu and the Left/Right-division in our brain?

Churchward has spend most of his life collecting symbols and comparing these symbols to find the root, Mu. He explains his research in The Sacred Symbols of Mu (1933).

 If you study the “symbolism of Mu” you will find the Left/Right-division and the Left/Right-fractal everywhere. It was called Male and Female in every culture he researched.

 The second level of the fractal (2×2. LR, LL, RR, RL) were called the Four Forces and they were combined with the Union (a small circle) in the middle. The second level generates the symbol of the cross and the swastika.

If we translate the Left and the Right into a zero and a one the fractal generates on the third level the patterns of the I Ching.

He ends his book with a citation of his Rishi Master: “My son, the brain of man is his storehouse for knowledge, but the holding capacity of this storehouse is limited.

Therefore, never put anything into it that is not valuable for your spiritual progress, or that which is not absolutely necessary for the development and continuance of your material body to the end of this incarnation, in order to prepare for your entrance into the world beyond.

Learn and store the wisdom of the teachings of nature, for nature is the great school house for attaining wisdom, nature is God’s voice speaking.

Materialism, generally, is not worth storing, only that which appertains to the elevation of your mind and soul, that which will raise you to a higher plane, thus preparing you for the continuance of your life in the world beyond, a step in your eternal life.

And remember, that when you enter the world beyond, you will leave all materialism behind. You can take nothing with you, nor will you remember anything about it, only Love you will remember, for Love, like your soul, is everlasting, it cannot die.

Approach the Heavenly Father with full confidence and love. His loving arms are always stretched out to welcome you. If you slip or fall by the way, yet approach Him in confidence and penitence, He will forgive and welcome you because He, Himself, is all Love“.

This is exactly what Roger W. Sperry tried to explain to the world when he reflected on his own discovery.

Do you want to know more about the Right Brain view this video:

LINKS

The Sperry Lecture