few things are more interesting than conversations about the brain
the brain. i was listening to some random show on NPR last friday (ok, it was Talk of the Nation Science Friday, i'm a nerd) and they had a guest on who had written a book about the brain. i love the thinking about the brain but it's really a dangerous place. who are we as people? he talked about two parts of the brain one of which controls your response to social cues and the other which controls your emotions. they're on opposite side of the brain and they usually work in tandem to (in part) form your facial expressions and thus how you present yourself in a social setting. but sometimes they work in opposition and your face lets slip an emotion which is innappropriate in a given social situation. but who am i then? i am not one person, i am a brain made up of different parts, each one (to a certain extent) working indepedently of the other parts. another example. a man has his right and left brain separated by doctors in order to preserve his life. now, when he looks at a picture of a clock out of the corner of only his right eye, he can identify it as a clock. when he looks at a picture of a clock out of the corner of only his right eye, he can't tell you what it is. he begins to draw a picture of it and as he draws the picture, he suddenly realizes that it was a clock that he's seen. his right brain is seeing the clock for the first time. the implications are unfathomable. everyone's brain working differently not simply because they have received different information during each one's lifetime, but because one brain may simply be unable to "see" life like another one. cut my head open, look at my brain, see who i am!