Three Books on the Human Brain: The Brain Looks into the Mirror

Leonardo, Vol. 8, pp. 45-48. Pergamon Press 1975. Printed in Great Britain THREE BOOKS ON THE HUMAN BRAIN: THE BRAIN LOOKS INTO THE MIRROR Roland Fischer* Three recent books [l-31 truly draw attention to a preoccupation of this age of ours. While the 19th century turned to the world ‘out there’, the 20th century turned inward to the universe ‘inside’ the human brain. The present view of our brain rests on a general belief in an evolutionaryexpansion of the primate forebrain along the lines of three basic patterns characterized as reptilian (the ‘crocodyle’ in us), paleomammalian (the ‘horse’ in us), and neomammalian (the ‘human’in us). Thus, brain stem, limbic system and neocortex, which radically differ in structure and chemistry [4], replaced Father, Son and the Holy Ghost (in the Christian concept of the trinity) with that of the ‘triune brain’. Note that the 19th century dilemma (Darwin versus the Church) has been revived but in a new variation. This sizablebrain structure with its three evolutionarygenerationgaps [4](whichis believedto have grown from the 600 cm3of Australopithecus about 1.7 million years ago to the full human size of 1500cm3 some 100,000years ago) is divided on its top into ‘right’ and ‘left’ cerebral hemispheres. In true Cartesian fashion most students of the brain believe now that the left (the ‘major’, dominant ‘Aristotelian’ or Apollonian) hemisphere is * Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Box 3235, Baltimore, MD 21228, U.S.A. (Received 28 June 1974.) involved in analytical, field-articulating sequenceperceiving processes such as speech, language, writing, logical reasoning and related functions, all of which subserve rational decision-making for survival. Note that the processes of the Aristotelian hemisphere are replacing Freud’s ‘secondary process thinking’. The cognitive mode of the right (the ‘minor’, nondominant ‘Platonic’or Dionysian) hemisphere, on the other hand, is analogical, synthesis -oriented and non-verbal. It is a scanning mode of visuo-spatial gestalts and fields involved in symbolic and metaphoric signification; a nonanalytic or intuitive, image-making and musical mode, basically identical with Freud’s ‘primary process’. In a more specificway, the followingpropositions and assumptions are implicit in the above Cartesian description: (I) a genetically given structural and functional difference between the right and left cerebral hemispheres allows man to interpret the same stimulus configurations in at least two distinct ways; (2) the two cerebral hemispheres mature at differentrates during the development of the normal individual; (3) the functional development of each hemisphere is contingent upon optimal hemisphere-specific stimulation and training during relatively fixed developmental periods and (4) the present scientificconceptionof the world contains a strong bias towards the rational thought processes characteristic of the left Aristotelian hemisphere. The successful rational scientific-technical approach has resulted in an over-emphasis of the logical-analytical cognitive mode of the left hemisphere and this now has precipitated a rebound effect, characterized by a dramatic over-compensatory swing toward the nonrational cognitive mode of the right hemisphere. The symptoms of this rebound among some of the youth, especially in the U.S.A., include a declining interest and participation in organized science and religion and an upsurge in experiential religious pursuits such as those offered by Eastern meditation, hallucinogenic drug use and revivalistic, emotional-ecstatic, participatory rites (e.g., Sufi dancing). Other 45 46 R O ~ U I I ~ Fisclier. symptoms include increasing interest and involvement in the ‘esoteric’ pseudo-sciences and more generally all things magic and miraculous, such as astrology, numerology, palmistry, parapsychology, Tarot card and I-Ching readings, witchcraft, alchemy and astral projection ‘out-of-the-body’. The swing of interest from the left to the right hemispheric mode is not a new phenomenon in the West. in the past 2,000 years the pendulum has swung twice from right-hemispheric cognitive style to left hemispheric style and back; it is now swinging toward the right for the third time. Perhaps the halfway point has just about been passed. The great outburst of creative activity that marked the first few decades of this century may be viewed as a result of an interhemispheric integration of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ modes. Apparently, artistic and scientific creativity reaches a maximum at a point midway between...