Fwd: Bi-cameral brains in depth

Mon Feb 1 22:13:17 CST 2016

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *David Morris* <fqmorris at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 1, 2016
Subject: Bi-cameral brains in depth
To: john bove <malignd at gmx.com>

Your faith in Science above all other knowledge is illogical.

On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 10:47 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','fqmorris at gmail.com');>> wrote:

> Bove,
>
> You somehow think your measure of reality is superior because it is
> somehow "objective?"  But your objectivity discounts multitudes of eons of
> subjective observation.  Call it what you will, but it is deep in the
> genes. Your standard is modern, but not inherently superior.  It has its
> benefits, but its horrors are also rife.  A real scientist would look at
> the eons of other esoteric sciences and be less hostile. They don't
> threaten you.  They don't care about you.  Truth will prevail.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 5:39 PM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','malignd at gmx.com');>> wrote:
>
>> I'm not picking a fight. I'm in fact doing the opposite, trying to take
>> this seriously.  But  Chunlian Al Huang said or did this, and Spinoza
>> thought that in the 15th century and even Nietsche gave it a green light
>> ... The two houses of the brain ... (Why "houses"?), natural wisdom, a
>> helix curved ...  By any standard this is laughable non-science, and so you
>> have to fall back on the argument that science misses important keys of
>> knowledge or undiscovered pathways or the wisdom of the ancients or
>> whatever.  If you can't do better than that or, instead, offer up anecdotal
>> evidence ("my backache's gone!"), it's on the level of astrology.
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 01, 2016 at 2:20 PM
>> *From:* "Ian Livingston" <igrlivingston at gmail.com
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','igrlivingston at gmail.com');>>
>> *To:* "ish mailian" <ishmailian at gmail.com
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ishmailian at gmail.com');>>
>> *Cc:* "pynchon -l" <Pynchon-l at waste.org
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','Pynchon-l at waste.org');>>
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: Bi-cameral brains in depth
>> Keith, my teacher's teacher was Chunliang Al Huang. It is a less martial,
>> more simply chi-oriented style that resembles dance more than
>> combat-training--but, then, tai chi chuan resembles dance in individual
>> practice anyhow, doesn't it?
>>
>> Joseph, there is indeed support for the linear / holistic activities for
>> recognizing a division of labor between the two houses of the brain.
>> Language is associated with the left brain, so pretty much all we express
>> in linguistic terms (remembering that mathematics is a language, as may
>> movement be) is dominated by left-brain activity. That, of course, implies
>> that even the most finely-honed linguistic approaches to expression also
>> engage the broader, synthetic functions of the creative, visionary areas of
>> the right brain. I look forward to reading The M & Em.
>>
>> And pain, yes. Some of the neurons associated with pain messages extend
>> the entire distance from the mid-brain to the tip of the big toe. That can
>> be a 7' long neuron. Don't know where I'm going with that, but, hey--it's
>> just one of those remarkable factoids contained within the fact of the
>> non-duality of the body and mental activity. It still fascinates me that
>> Spinoza postulated that argument so effectively in the 15th c. That's quite
>> a stretch for a lens grinder! For all his eagerness to dismiss Spinoza for
>> his methods, even Nietzsche embraced the rightness of his thought.
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 3:47 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> In this brief and simple piece some of the ideas discussed here
>>> recently are addressed. One of the ideas is the Natural wisdom we
>>> have, of our bodies, bodies that are not separate from our heads or
>>> minds, not divided. .  We got here without much of modern medicine's
>>> miracles. The miracle of conception, of two sharing the energies of
>>> life, the double, is a black hole, is a helix curved.
>>>
>>> Does Lamaze “Work”?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3431777/
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.timeshighereducation.com/content/book-review-black-hole-by-marcia-bartusiak
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/12/lifes-greatest-secret-story-race-genetic-code-matthew-cobb-review
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 12:09 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>> > Just caught your reply tonight. Thanks for the feedback. Your
>>> experience with accupuncture, where the healing takes place overnight, is
>>> typical of several people I have talked with and my own experience. Makes
>>> me think pain works in the brain in a self-reinforcing cycle. I find that
>>> sending consciousness and , in my imagination, breath/chi to an aggravated
>>> or painful area while doing qigong exercises has reliably good results.
>>> >
>>> > As far as the hemisphere differences, McGilchrist often repeats what
>>> your studies are saying that complex processes engage  more than one
>>> hemisphere. But it does seem irrefutable that when there is for instance a
>>> stroke that severely impairs one hemisphere or the other the disabilities
>>> are dramatically different for each and fall into distinct patterns of
>>> effect that point both to the kinds of things that each hemispere is likely
>>> to handle and to the way each side processes personal experiences and
>>> mental tasks.  Of course what is hard to tell by that means would be
>>> something that initiates in one hemispere and is sent to the other  for the
>>> bulk of processing. But his extensive citations show he is not alone in his
>>> leanings about some general and specific  differences between the
>>> hemisperes. McGilchrists mastery of the current reasearch is not of a
>>> pop-science quality, but the expression of a life devoted to brain research
>>> and its interpretation in a larger context.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> On Jan 27, 2016, at 4:00 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> A single accupuncture treatment cured my sciatica a decade ago after
>>> I had thrown useless hundreds away on massage therapy and chiropractic
>>> treatment. The next step was to be weeks of bed rest I could not afford
>>> combined with pain meds. Would've cost thousands in lost work and expenses.
>>> On a whim, because I figured I had nothing to lose, I stopped at an
>>> accupuncture school in Santa Cruz, Ca, where I lived at the time, and got a
>>> low-cost treatment from an advanced student. That night the pain was
>>> incredible, but I eventually fell asleep and woke in the morning pain-free,
>>> with full range of motion. True story. I took up tai chi chuan as a
>>> maintenance plan, and have had no flare-ups of the pain I experienced while
>>> trying to climb trees (I was a full-time arborist then) and carry heavy
>>> logs and limbs, and generally bend, lift and twist 8 hours a day.
>>> >>
>>> >> I do not understand all the energy theories. I've been at the fringes
>>> of all that stuff for decades, on and off, of course, but I've mostly
>>> worked in heavy labor and played in book-learning. It was shortly after the
>>> incident with the sciatica that I took up a serious Zen meditation
>>> practice, which did wonders for helping me to stop smoking and quit
>>> caffeine without anxiety or cravings. I went on to study Chinese alchemy as
>>> a result of reading Jung on the subject, and found myself in agreement with
>>> him that alchemy is indeed a psychological pursuit of integrity on a
>>> relatively subtle level. There's a terrific little intro book used in
>>> Traditional Chinese Medicine schools here in CA, The Web That Has No
>>> Weaver. Worth a look.
>>> >>
>>> >> In direct response to your query, Joseph, my profs were cautious
>>> about the left-brain / right-brain differentiation primarily because recent
>>> work with fMRI studies shows that, when complex problems are presented, the
>>> whole brain lights up, with higher activity levels in some areas than in
>>> others. Also, the role of the corpus collosum appears to be that of making
>>> sure that action potentials carry effectively between the two cerebral
>>> lobes. Furthermore, it would be false to say that the entire brain is
>>> divided by the corpus collosum. Only the cerebral cortex is thus divided
>>> and united, as it were. The why of that is the study of a great many
>>> lifetimes. Maybe humans will someday know. One of the darkest areas of
>>> brain research is still to do with neurotransmitters. Research reveals how
>>> they work in synapses, but how many operate within the brain is still
>>> anybody's guess, and the functions of only a very few are known. Folks are
>>> discovering new ones all the time.
>>> >>
>>> >> I'll leave off with a wonderful quote from one of my neuropsych
>>> texts: "The number of possible synaptic connections in a normal human brain
>>> exceeds the number molecules in the known universe." I suspect it'll be a
>>> while before we fully understand an organ with that level of potential
>>> complexity.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 6:44 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> The Chinese have been working with energy flow  for thousands of
>>> years and have developed a medical system based on it that is very
>>> effective. The west too is beginning to study the flow of low level
>>> electric charge in the body.   Many would have mocked  mindfulness
>>> meditation as having any value a decade ago. Now, based on clinical trials,
>>> it is being incorporated into western medical practice. Tibetan herbs are
>>> being used in medical operations in Israel to minimize drug side effects
>>> and improve the speed and comfort of healing.  Such herbs are being studied
>>> in Switzerland and Germany for the treatment of high cholesterol.
>>> >>
>>> >> At 64 i have personally only found increased flexibility, better
>>> posture,  improved non drug -dependent energy levels, and other sometimes
>>> dramatically  positive effects from yoga, acupuncture, tai chi and qigong.
>>> I teach a small class on qi-gong and tai chi and others report similar
>>> positive results.
>>> >>
>>> >> I understand  and practice skepticism. I see from a friends post that
>>> the Dalai Lama is going in for prostate surgery. No Kundalini bolt up the
>>> spine for me so far.  I don’t so much believe in energy meridians as hold
>>> them in my mind as a map, and pay attention to my actual experience with
>>> qigong practices. Accupuncture can be simply amazing for things that
>>> doctors can’t seem to treat. Myself and several very rational friends have
>>> seen severe chronic pain from an injury disappear overnight through
>>> accupuncture.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> > On Jan 26, 2016, at 4:38 PM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com> wrote:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > And you too?  The Kundalini awakening???  Good luck.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 at 4:33 PM
>>> >> > From: "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net>
>>> >> > To: "P-list List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> >> > Subject: Re: Bi-cameral brains in depth
>>> >> > Very interesting response in that I am myself very engaged
>>> currently with trying to learn to meditate with particular interest in the
>>> Kundalini awakening. For years I have done yoga and for the last 3 years
>>> have shifted my interest to qigong and tai chi. But for a couple months now
>>> I have been trying to meditate and doing some breath practices. If you have
>>> any personal thoughts or advice or suggestions for reading or online info,
>>> I would be interested. With qigong I am experiencing very discernible
>>> warmth and tingling in my arms and hands and have been able to profoundly
>>> and at least for 2 months now, completely relieve some muscle knots in my
>>> left shoulder and neck - knots that had been with me for probably cloose to
>>> a decade.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > In general it seems that asian philosophies and practices have much
>>> greater emphasis on balance. The idea/knowledge base that the central
>>> channel has no power of its own is something I had missed but really fits
>>> with role of emptiness in Taoism and Tibetan Buddhism. Anyway thanks,
>>> David. This one went right past the conversation at hand to hit dead center
>>> of my own interests and pursuits.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > > On Jan 25, 2016, at 4:00 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > In Eastern meditation/spiritual schools there is a concept of
>>> Kundalini energy that is the life-source of all animated flesh. This model
>>> is part of the ages-old Chakra system that illustrates the pathways of
>>> something called the "subtle body." In that model chakras are nodes of
>>> energy passage, crossings along the vertical main highways of the three
>>> main energy channels: the Right side (Bingala Nadi), the Left side (Ida
>>> Nali), and the Central channel (Sushumna Nadi). In some ways it might be
>>> said that the goal of meditation when it come to the workings of the Chakra
>>> system, is to achieve a balanced blending of the right and left energy
>>> channels into the central channel, achieving a synthesis greater then the
>>> sum of the two sides, because the central channel has no power of its own,
>>> only that supplied from the two sides. But when the two sides unify into
>>> the center, that is when transcendence happens.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > I expect the bicameral structure of the brain might be also
>>> mapped to this ancient system.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > http://www.freemeditationnz.com/our-three-energy-channels.html
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > David Morris
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > On Monday, January 25, 2016, Ian Livingston <
>>> igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> > > My neuropsych profs were eager to caution that we have now
>>> reached such a deep understanding of the brain and its functions that we
>>> can at last say with confidence that we know almost nothing about it.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 8:47 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>> wrote:
>>> >> > > Yes I read those reviews. What I am finding so far is that the
>>> book is very careful to build its picture of how the hemispheres work from
>>> data. Every step of the way, he draws on research and is very careful so
>>> far not to overreach and to include differing takes on that data. One of
>>> the things he points out is that brain science is with current technology
>>> and perhaps will always be a matter of intelligent interpretation since it
>>> deals with qualities and actions for which quantification makes little
>>> sense, like empathy, unjustified self confidence, manual grasping behaviors
>>> etc. Also it is almost impossible to really track the mechanisms involved(
>>> if they really are of a mechanistic nature) because they take place in a
>>> living organism. So brain scans give correspondences between activities and
>>> brain metabolism but not clearly detailed causal relationships. Also many
>>> mental processes draw on both sides of the brain which he frequently
>>> reminds the reader.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > Stlll, I think any reader will be surprised and amazed at the
>>> wealth and specificity of the data and how much can be meaningfully and
>>> confidently understood about the hemispheric differences. I know I am.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > It is true that he is trying to say something philosophically
>>> profound and that is always dangerous terrain, though I have not gotten to
>>> the heart of that part of the text. The question is whether there is enough
>>> data to support it. So far the data base is so rich that the book cannot
>>> fail to leave a powerful imprint and sense of enriched understanding for me.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > > On Jan 25, 2016, at 10:22 AM, Paul Mackin <
>>> mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > One of a number of favorable reviews, this one glowing. However
>>> a couple of reviewers according to Wikipedia cautioned against culture and
>>> psychology conclusions getting too far ahead of hard brain science.
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/02/1
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 6:39 AM, Mark Kohut <
>>> mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> > > > "You're gonna want your cause and effect, eh?"
>>> >> > > > Since his first book is entitled Against Criticism, I hope he
>>> isn't IN GR--
>>> >> > > > but I'll mic drop in advance. ......
>>> >> > > > Just a little metajoke there, heh, heh.
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 8:10 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>> wrote:
>>> >> > > > I am currently reading Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and his
>>> Emissary
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > One of the most scientifically, psychologically and
>>> philosophically profound books I have ever read. It really has me reeling
>>> with information and insight and makes sense of so much that seems
>>> inscrutable in human history and personal behavior. I came across the title
>>> and a description with a brief quote while doing research on another book.
>>> It seemed the more intriguing book so I got it from the library. Will be
>>> looking for a used copy.
>>> >> > > > The topic is the roles of the 2 hemispheres of the brain and he
>>> brings together an unexpected wealth of medical/scientific research, both
>>> contemprary and historic to build a very powerful picture of the nature of
>>> each hemisphere, as well as the evolutionary logic of their
>>> differentiation. Both from the introduction and from some peeks ahead I
>>> know he has a philosophic intention that argues for a greater balance in
>>> our cultural biases, and greater awareness of the brain-structure origins
>>> of those biases.
>>> >> > > > From a Pynchon reader POV McGilchrist takes on the brain
>>> structure basis of major themes and historic tendencies that appear
>>> throughout the body of P’s work. Essentially it is about the division in
>>> the brain between left hemisphere’s tendency to seek and produce control
>>> achieved through manipulable units of thought, communication, structure,
>>> manufacture and the right brain’s holistic, individualistic and socially
>>> empathic style. ( there is no way to adequadetly summarize this or the
>>> pages of precise information derived from scientific research). This
>>> struggle appers in all P books and with profound starkness in Pynchon’s
>>> essay on CP Snow, and the GR theme of mechanistic control vs nature/pursuit
>>> of bliss/personal freedom, humane solidarity.
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > The writer’s background for this book is about as good as
>>> possible. Professional Psychiatrist specializing in physiological brain
>>> issues, a researcher in neuro-imaging and an Oxford English teacher 3 times
>>> elected Fellow at All Souls College. Of equal or greater importance is the
>>> originality of his brilliance and the humane depth of his quest to
>>> understand how our brain structure fits into our historic development, and
>>> his sense that understanding these things might free us to find a better
>>> way forward.
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > Has anyone else read it?
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > 462 pgs of text and over 100 of end notes etc.-
>>> >> > > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > -
>>> >> > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> >> > >
>>> >> >
>>> >> > -
>>> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>> >> > - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>> >>
>>> >> -
>>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > -
>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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