The Oil Drum

I couldn't manage to download the flashplayer so it wouldn't play. I read the text and it confirms esoteric religious concepts are bassed on right brain hemisphere.

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php#more

And I lost my balance and I'm propped up against the wall. And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me, what is going on?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and -- total silence.
And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.

he is more self confident and natural, can learn interact better. I think this is a problem with left handers who are forced into right handdness, they don't fit and so are suppressed and become more neurotic their whole lives without knowing why to a certain extent, not developing their natural capabilities.

I have found that any paricular task takes time to learn fluidly with left hand after being used to using right hand. The brain and musles problbly store it in memory onthe other brain side and that side of the brain needs practice like a muscle.

I suspect scientific studies would show some mental differences. I think I am better adjusted but i do lots of self development work so it is hard to say what is working bettter for me, to separate the various "therapies" out.

What that all could do for society if everyone got into it is a different matter.

Actually it's more complicated than that in that, from what little I understand, both the written representation and the kind of "deep language structure" -- in the Chomsky sense -- of the language, which apply even as spoken, differ. So you could argue the spoken forms might hugely affect brain processing,

Great point. Maybe we could put a European and then a Chinese under one of those magnetic resonance machines and see how their brains work wtih regards to language to figure this out with radioactive markers and such.

It would be interesting to try the same with right and left handed people and with people who change from right to left handed over the time period they switch to see how brain functions change.

People like Tibetan monks do similar tests and their brain scans are pretty interesting as well compared to normal peoples. They can control this stuff and that is the big difference to us. That is an art/science in their "religion", if you want to call it that, is actually more a higher form of scientific brain/consciousness control with nontechnical means.

he is more self confident and natural, can learn interact better. I think this is a problem with left handers who are forced into right handdness, they don't fit and so are suppressed and become more neurotic their whole lives without knowing why to a certain extent, not developing their natural capabilities.

That dog is a bit like my kid. He leads however.

We have been trying to get our son interested in keyboard lessons for a month or two and he would just play games mostly with the teacher except for maybe 5 minutes. My wife and the teacher were about to give up. Yesterday however he paid attention the whole half hour, a miracle! Discipline is neccessary to get throught he basics and then creativity takes over when you know what you are doing, in any "discipline". A master had to memorize routines first laboriously as a child or a student. After that the right brain integrates the information fluidly. For an artistic "little genius" getting him past this painful memorizing phase is the critical problem. Afterwards he will get the idea, have fun with it and learn easily, like with drawing, I hope.

His older brother is the absolute opposite, slow and methodical, disciplined and conscientious. He will obviously never be an artistic genius but loves science, despite his left handedness.

http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Versus-Goddess-Conflict-Between/dp/014019...

"Literacy has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West," writes Leonard Shlain. "Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word."

That's a pretty audacious claim, one that The Alphabet Versus the Goddess provides extensive historical and cultural correlations to support. Shlain's thesis takes readers from the evolutionary steps that distinguish the human brain from that of the primates to the development of the Internet. The very act of learning written language, he argues, exercises the human brain's left hemisphere--the half that handles linear, abstract thought--and enforces its dominance over the right hemisphere, which thinks holistically and visually. If you accept the idea that linear abstraction is a masculine trait, and that holistic visualization is feminine, the rest of the theory falls into place. The flip side is that as visual orientation returns to prominence within society through film, television, and cyberspace, the status of women increases, soon to return to the equilibrium of the earliest human cultures. Shlain wisely presents this view of history as plausible rather than definite, but whether you agree with his wide-ranging speculations or not, he provides readers eager to "understand it all" with much to consider. --Ron Hogan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
The advantages of a literate society are self-evident, but is there a dark side to language? In this extraordinary book, Shlain, a surgeon and the author of Art and Physics (LJ 9/1/91), argues that when cultures acquire literacy, the brain's left hemisphere dominates the right?with enormous consequences. Alphabetic writing, Shlain believes, "subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook" at the expense of feminine values. Focusing on Western cultures, Shlain surveys world history and religion to illustrate how alphabet literacy fosters extremes of intolerance. Indeed, a subtheme of the book is that overreliance on the left hemisphere "initially leads a society through a period of demonstrable madness." Such aberrations as group suicide, religious persecution, and witch-hunting are the result of a dominant linear, reductionist, and abstract method of perception. While admitting that "correlation does not prove causality," Shlain presents a forceful case based on a wealth of circumstantial evidence. An absorbing, provocative, and, ironically, highly literate work that should receive considerable review attention; recommended for most public and academic libraries.?Laurie Bartolini, MacMurray Coll. Lib., Springfield, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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I have also been doing waht they call "energy work". When you do yoga or Tai Chi correctly for many years and then maybe some breathing exercises your enrgy body(maybe electrical network of nerves across whole body) gets more stimulated over time. This can be felt as tingling on the skin, along spinal cord, etc. Now the corpus collosum connects the two brain halves and the better this connection is the bettter teh brain operates as a whole. As I had developed what they call "kundalini" or "chi" very heavily I was able to rapidly change my hand orientation over some months. I felt the energy between the brain halves flowing. At any rate when one is conscious of the "electrical/energetic impulses" then it is easier to control what were previously subconscious or autonomous impulses. I think as I said above that the Yogis have litersally a mind/body control science. Teh word religion or vauger "spirituality" is not adequate.

So as you and others here say it is a lot more complicated. We know very little and every one is different. This is probably why we have to grab ancient knowledge and people like the Dalai Lama under an MRI and ask him to teach us all his technique to be cool in times of turmoil or we are just subject to our own primal urges.