Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Tuesday's science post- a day late

The Science Times article in yesterday's paper featured an article about a scientist, Michael Gazzaniga who studies how the different parts of our brain work. He discovered that the left side of our brains "fills in" information from the facts available to it. "It takes what it has and delivers a coherent tale to conscious awareness." We all have done this-- "overhearing a fragment of gossip for example and filling in the rest with assumptions."
He has found that we all have a storyteller part of our brains that works with the information available to it -- and fills in the rest. He calls that part of our brains "the interpreter."
All of our brains create the illusion of a meaningful script,as well as an illusion of a coherent self! "We furiously reconstruct what happened and why, inserting motives here, intentions there--based on limited, sometimes flawed information." This filling in of information is done subconsciously. In psychotherapy, we help people bring to conscious thought some of the myths they have created which interfere with their life functionning.
But my focus now is on what's happening with our loved ones brains that are limiting available information every day. They still try to construct a coherent narrative. No wonder it sometimes comes out paranoid. If the information is missing, someone must have taken it!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment