In this post I have tried to find out more about the right-brain and left-brain subject, with a hope to progress with possible solutions in the discussion with Saman. Familiarity with some of the previous post is an advantage.
1. Some ideas and research
One could begin with a fresh look at ‘wishful thinking’:
Mark McGuinness in Wishful Thinking and Creativity
Just came across this in Michael Michalko’s excellent Cracking Creativity:
There is a clear relationship between wishful thinking and creativity. You are more likely to have a creative idea when you are wishing than when your thinking is extremely intellectual. Wishes help us deliberately oversimplify. This tactic has a long and distinguished history in science and in the arts.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
One of my reasons for calling my business Wishful Thinking is to combine the heart (emotions, wishes) and the head (thinking). To me, the pejorative status of the phrase ‘wishful thinking’ is symptomatic of a deep prejudice in Western culture against emotions. “You’re being emotional” is not usually a compliment - instead we are urged to “be reasonable”. My friend John has plenty to say on this subject - I’ll confine myself to saying that passion and open-mindedness are both essential for creativity, and it takes a certain amount of both to have a second glance at the phrase ‘wishful thinking’.
The above preceded his comment and critique in
Are You a Right-Brain or a Left-Brain Person? of the
rotating dancer test mentioned in an earlier post. The above author associates wishful with the right brain and not with the left. Maybe he is correct, or is it that one can wishfully think with both the right and the left brain?
There are other sites that are interesting and which explain more about the two halves of the brain: http://www.viewzone.com/bicam.html presents the history of the left-right concept and has some interesting photographic montages of well known people. They are made by taking a picture of a person, then cutting it in half and mirror both halves so that two new pictures occur that are completely internally symmetrical but different from each other. It turns out that some people have marked differences between their two sides and that each of them radiate a different message to the beholder. An article with a related idea is found on: http://www.viewzone.com/finalone.html
About emotions and the role of the two halves of the brain there is:
Our Emotional Brains: Both Sides Process The Language Of Feelings, With The Left Side Labeling The 'What' And The Right Side Processing The 'How'
Both sides of the brain play a role in processing emotional communication, with the right side stepping in when we focus not on the "what" of an emotional message but rather on how it feels. By studying blood flow velocity to each side of the brain, Belgian psychologists have opened a window onto the richness and complexity of human emotional communication. Their research appears in the January 2003 issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). A
At Ghent University, Guy Vingerhoets, Ph.D., Celine Berckmoes, M.S., and Nathalie Stroobant, M.S., knew that the left brain is dominant for language, and the right brain is dominant for emotion. But what happens when the brain is faced with emotional language? To find out, the researchers used Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography (ultrasound), an inexpensive, non-invasive and patient-friendly way to measure blood-flow velocity in the brain's left and right middle cerebral arteries -- an indicator of activity level because neurons, to work, need blood-borne glucose and oxygen.
The researchers asked 36 participants, hooked up to ultrasound monitors, to identify the emotion conveyed in dozens of pre-recorded sentences. Vingerhoets et al. asked participants either to focus on the actual words (semantics) of the sentences, or to focus on the emotion conveyed by how they were spoken, in tone and intensity (prosody).
Each sentences had just one of four basic emotional meanings (happy, sad, angry or afraid) or a neutral semantic meaning. For example, "He really enjoys that funny cartoon" (happy), "The little girl lost both her parents" (sad), "Panic broke out in that dark tunnel" (fear), or "Always store disc in its protective case" (neutral). Actors spoke the sentences with either emotional or neutral prosody.
As they listened to the sentences, participants pointed to the appropriate emotion on a card listing them, using both fingers to minimize setting off one side of the brain only (because body movement on one side is controlled by the brain's opposite side). Vingerhoets et al. found that when participants were asked to focus on what was said -- semantics -- blood flow velocity went up significantly on the left side of the brain. When participants shifted attention to how it was said -- tone of voice, whether happy, sad, anxious, angry or neutral -- velocity also went up markedly on the right side of the brain. However, it did not go down on the left -- probably, say the researchers, because the left brain processes meaningful semantic content automatically and is also helps to label the emotions.
Thus, physical evidence has revealed that the right hemisphere, while indeed the brain's more "emotional" side, is not solely responsible for processing the expression of emotions. "Understanding emotional prosody," says Vingerhoets, "appears to activate right hemispheric brain regions." However, the left brain stays active to categorize or label the emotion -- as befits its dominance in language processing. "Even if you pay attention to the 'how' information," says Vingerhoets, "you can't help hearing the semantic content, the 'what' of the message. We do this all the time; we are trained in it."
Turning to clinical implications, Vingerhoets says, "People with right hemispheric lesions would have more difficulty paying attention to and discriminating emotional prosody."
2. A critique of the excerpt from the Wave
Now I wish to go back to what Laura wrote in the Wave and compare it with what the other sources say are the functions of the left and right sides of the brain respectively. To make it more easy to comment on I have separated the qualities to avoid formatting troubles. I have put it in a box for the sake of convenience.
Left Hemisphere Consciousness
L: Conceptualization/
imagination/dogma/
TIME future/TIME past
t: The other sources say ‘imagination’ and ‘future’ are right brain functions, (although the Wiki is asking for a citation for the assertion that the present and future is related to right side of the brain.) The sources agree that the 'present' is a also a concern of the left brain, but this is not evident from presentation in the Wave.
L: Theoretical
imagination
t: Imagination is said to be more right brain related.
L: Linear logic
L: Ritual/habit/fixed roles/repetition/fixation
L Morality/judgment
L: Superstition derived from
imagination; often misuses limited direct observation and experience.
L: Asceticism/sense deprivation
L: Theology: Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Greco-Roman Religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam
t: The Australian source says the right brain is more connected with religion and philosophy. If one takes philosophy could it be that not all types are equally related to the sides of the brain. A logician, an existentialist, an empirist, a scholastic, a Platonist, a naturalist, a practitioner of metaphysics, probably do not use the same sections. Same could be the case with religion. A buddhist may be more generally more right brained than the average Judaist or Christian. And then within each there may also be differences depending on WHO the believer is and WHAT he or she SEES.
Notes to left brain:
Wikipedia:
Linear reasoning functions of language such as grammar and word production are often lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain.
[...]
In spite of the Wikipedia maintaining that language is associated more with the left brain:
Language 'Center' Of Brain Shifts With Age
From: _http://www.aan.com/professionals/
May 11,2004. SAN FRANCISCO – Along with left- or right-handedness, the hemisphere of the brain where language capacity resides is likely predetermined. Researchers have now shown that with age, language capacity in the brain becomes more evenly distributed between hemispheres. These study outcomes may offer promising therapeutic implications for adults who have experienced an injury, illness or other trauma to the brain. Details of this study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 56th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., April 24 – May 1, 2004.
From childhood until about age 25, language capacity in right-handers grows stronger in the left hemisphere of the brain. This phenomenon is usually converse to a person's "handedness", where a right-handed person holds language in the left hemisphere, and vice versa. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) researchers have now shown that
after about age 25, language capacity "evens out" somewhat, with older adults using more of both hemispheres relative to language skills. [...]
Wikipedia on bilateral skills:
Other integrative functions such as intuitive or heuristic arithmetic, binaural sound localization, emotions, etc. seem to be more bilaterally controlled.][5]
Right Hemisphere Consciousness
L: Sensing/Perceiving Directly via observation Empiricism/NOW (no time)
Note 1 to 'Sensing/Perceiving'
If one goes to http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/interactives/organs/brainmap/ then selects 'functions', then selects the various senses like touch, smell, vision, hearing and taste, different parts of the brain will light up in yellow in the lower right corner. The brain is seen from only one side. I get the impression that the areas are more or less symmetrical on both sides, although this does not mean that they are equally dominant in every individual and between different individuals.
For another interactive with more explanations:
Brain Functions and Map
Note 2 to 'Sensing/Perceiving'
Wikipedia has:
[...] holistic reasoning functions of language such as intonation and emphasis are often lateralized to the right hemisphere of the brain. Functions such as the transduction of visual and musical stimuli such as spatial manipulation, facial perception, and artistic ability also seem to be lateralized to the right hemisphere.[5]
Note to NOW: t: As mentioned earlier the right side of the brain may also involve not only the present but also the future. If so one can not say that TIME is only a construct of the left hemisphere.
L: Physical connection
L: Nonlinear logic
L: Creativity/spontaneity
L: Compassion/acceptance
L:
Science based on collecting of data, direct observation; can create theories with proper use of
theoretical imagination
t: The Australian site says that facts rule the left side, just as it is reality based, and that the imagination rules the right side which is also fantasy based. For comparison the Wikipedia has in its list that linear algorithmic processing is predominantly left brain and that holistic algorithmic processing is right brain. Can one say that 'theoretical imagination' is the same as 'holistic algorithmic processing'
L: Celebration
L: Mysticism: Taoism, Tantrism, Yoga, the "Mystery Traditions," Gnosticism, Alchemy
More about left and right brain concepts:
Wikipedia:”
Pseudoscientific exaggeration of the research
Hines (1987) states that the research on brain lateralization is valid as a research program, though commercial promoters have applied it to promote subjects and products far out of the implications of the research. For example, the implications of the research have no bearing on psychological interventions such as EMDR, brain training equipment, or management training. One explanation for being so prone to exaggeration and false application is that the left-right brain dichotomy is an easy-to-understand notion, yet is often grossly oversimplified and misused for promotion in the guise of science (Sala et al 1999). The research on lateralization of brain functioning is ongoing, and its implications are always tightly delineated, whereas the pseudoscientific applications are exaggerated, and applied to an extremely wide range of situations.
Personally I do not think one should wait until the last bit of paper to come our before applying. It is ridiculous. I also have nothing to say about those who write books and make a bit of money. Knowledge grows also by being applied in practice, and as the demand grows more money may go into finding out more.
On the same site one also finds:
Handedness and language
Broca's area and Wernicke’s area are linked by a white matter fiber tract called the arcuate fasciculus. This axonal tract allows the neurons in these two areas to work together to create vocal language. In more than 95% of right-handed males and more than 90% of right-handed females, language and speech are subserved by the left hemisphere of the brain. In left-handed people, the incidence of left-hemisphere language dominance is 73% [7] or 61%[2], depending on the studies.
Having gone through some literature I think that the page Saman quoted from in the Wave about left brain - right brain could benefit from an update. The situation is more complex than described.
Additional note to 'Sensing/Perceiving'
Practical about eyes and the brain:
Are You Right Eyed Or Left Eyed? http://www.mondovista.com/lefteye.html
(while we are there, knowledge protects: How to spot a liar. http://www.mondovista.com/liar.html)
3. The brain and faith
Next I shall address what Saman wrote:
Saman said:
I currently think, as stated above, there are generally two types of faith. There is True Faith based on a harmonious marriage of the left and right side of the brain, and then there is pseudo-faiths based on beliefs and conceptualizations rooted in the imagination of the left side of the brain that usurp and block the direct observation of the right side of the brain, which hampers one's Awareness of what IS.
If imagination is also linked to the right brain, since that is what quite a number of sites claim, then what? In addition as seen from the Wikipedia, not all people use the same part of the brain for the same skill even though there may be a statistical predominance of one side.
You suggests two types of faith. Could one conceive of other faith profiles and then see if they match reality?
1. First the one Saman suggests which is characterised by integrated brain functioning.
2. Pseudo faith rooted in left-brain functioning. And here one could insert a note:
It was said in the Wikipedia and the Australian lists that the 'present future' was associated with the right brain. Does that not fit with anticipation? And is a lot of what is passed off as faith not really anticipation of a particular outcome, of going to heaven, or being saved by Jesus at the day of resurrection etc. etc. On the other hand if it is true as Laura writes that the right hemisphere is concerned with NOW. And if ladies are more right brained than men, why is it that so many true beliers are women. If it was not for the ladies would not many world religions would have collapsed more due to lack of support.
3. Now if we have the courage to dispute that all pseudo faith is rooted in the left brain and on the contrary suggest that for some or even for many it is rooted in the right brain then one has a new category of pseudo faith.
4. Then one can suggest that faith is not because of the brain but due the heart or other part of the body. Why mention this idea? Because there is a report of a person with an IQ of 126 but almost no brain:
Ostrander and Schroeder in Superlearning 2000 said:
You might also look into a most curious fact that Dr. John Lorber, a British neurologist, uncovered. It looks like you can do pretty well if you don’t have any brain at all. You might even get good grades, Lorber found, when he made a discovery that tumbled a few centuries of brain theory. For a long time scientists believed that thinking “that all that was dear to them,” as Lorber says, resided in the cortex of the brain. Lorber chanced to examine a young man with a slightly enlarged heard. He turned out to be a hydrocephalic with fluid filling much of his cranium. This Sheffield student had “virtually no brain,’ yet with an IQ of 126 he won honors in math and had a good social life. Lorber scanned six hundred “hidden” hydrocephalics to see how much cortex they possessed. A number had lost 95 % to fluid. Yet half scored above the average IQ of 100. Lorber’s work surely shows the brain is more redundant and adaptable than has been thought.
That a man can think without a brain does not proove that the heart is involved, but there is
thisalso:
Five Seconds In The Future
Marilyn Schlitz connected volunteers to a series of monitors, similar to a lie detector, to measure their heartbeat, perspiration and other nervous activity. She then had them sit in front of a computer screen and began showing them a series of images which were selected at random by the computer from a large collection. These images were described as either "neutral" (boring) or "emotional" (erotic or morbid). As expected, the subjects showed physical and mental excitement when the "emotional" images were shown and showed less reaction to the "neutral" images. But as the experiment continued, something weird happened.
Researchers began to see that most people, unconsciously, began to react to the "emotional" images a full 5 seconds before they were selected by the computer program! What's more, they did not react to the "neutral" images. This result was statstically significant (p=0.00003) and has been repeated many times. It strongly suggests hat subjects can perceive the future.
Another study, described in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, was reported by psychophysiologist Rollin McCraty and his colleagues from the Institute of Heartmath in Boulder Creek, California. McCraty's group simultaneously measured skin conductance, heart rate, and brainwave activity before, during, and after 26 participants viewed emotional and calm pictures. They found that both the heart (p < 0. 001) and the brain (p < 0. 05) responded about 5 seconds before the future emotional stimuli, and to their amazement, that the heart responded before the brain. They also observed significant gender differences in the processing of this future information (women performed better, on average, than men). They concluded: "Our findings suggest that intuitive perception is not a discrete function produced by a single part or system of the body alone. Rather, it appears that intuition may in fact be a system-wide process involving at least the heart and brain, together, in the processing and decoding of intuitive information." They highlighted that "the fact that the heart is involved in the perception of a future external event is a surprising, even astounding result, especially from the classical perspective that assigns the brain an exclusive role [for perception]."
5. Now if we accept that most of us have a bit of grey matter, and accept that in most people, the two halves do work together to some extent, then one can conceive of a true faith that is primarily rooted in either the left or the right half of the brain but supported by the other less dominant half. One man can have faith and be a scientist, another can be a believer but be an artist. And one can think of a man who is neither a scientist or an artist but is predominantly expressing himself though movement like a manual worker. So from focusing on which side of the brain they use we could move on to consider which part of the brain on both sides that is most expressed.
The attempt to brainstorm on the faith issue may not hold, but what do you think?
4. Time-out
http://www.pagetutor.com/ jokebreak/124.html brain of (some) ladies
http://www.pagetutor.com/jokebreak/123.html brain of (some) men
And others say:
The Male Brain vs The Female Brain Sunday, April 1, 2007
Some interesting differences between men's and women's brains, collected from sources listed below. Read with a grain of salt, and further investigate the ones that get you riled up.
1. Men's brains are larger, but as they age, they also shrink faster than women's brains.
2. Women's brains operate at a higher temperature, due to burning more glucose.
3. Women use more of their brains when they think.
4. In general, men are better at math and women are better at language skills. This is suggested by research on the brain that has found that the "gray matter" in men's brains is more active during thought while the "white matter" in women's brains is more active. Gray matter is the unscientific name for the part of the brain that handles information processing, and white matter is made up of the parts that network information together to understand relationships among pieces of data.
5. Perhaps due to the previous point, men tend to score an average of 5 points higher on intelligence tests. (Unexamined, however, is whether such tests are geared disproportionately toward mathematical and other straightforward problem-solving, or even whether most IQ tests are created by men.)
6. The average man will think about sex approximately once a minute, while the average woman will think of sex around once every few days.
7. Why do women always want to talk? Researchers have found that connecting with another through talking will trigger the pleasure centers in a woman's brain, a high second only to an orgasm.
8. Baby girls have been observed to typically have stronger reactions than boys to disturbing or distressful sounds.
9. A 20-second hug will trigger the release of oxytocin in a woman's brain. The effect of this chemical will often give the woman a feeling of trust in the person hugging her.
10. Men reportedly use less words per day than women. Depending on which study you believe (if any), the "word gap" can be anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 words a day.
Sources: Sex on the Brain, Deborah Blum; The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine; University of California, Brown University and University of New Mexico research; www.tmcnet.com; www.quazen.com
I tried to look at the sites just mentioned, but it would be difficult to trace anything easily.
5. A new problem
While wondering if the above jokes and follow up on the psychology of men and women was off topic, it might be ;), a new problem surfaced. Instead of considering what faith is in relation to what side of the brain, one could ask how faith would be different depending on whether an individual is dominated by the instinctive-moving center, the lower emotional center, the lower intellectual center, the higher emotional center, and the higher intellectual center respectively. And how do the activity of these centers relate to different areas of the brain? It appears to me that much of what is passed off as psychology is really concerned with the functioning of people dominated by the lower centers. Whereas this is not so glorious, a balanced functioning of the lower centers appears to be a good foundation for developing the higher centers if one has them in potential.
thorbiorn
