...but Neurotheology is fascinating. This Slate article talks about the intersection of the brain and "religious" experience.
It asks:
"Two years ago, Sara Lazar, at Massachusetts General Hospital, used magnetic resonance imaging to show that the brains of longtime meditators were different from those of a control group: They had slightly bigger regions devoted to attentiveness and the processing of sensory information. What the study couldn't say was which way the causal arrow points. Does meditation fatten brain tissue, or are people with beefier cortexes more likely to meditate?"
And concludes:
"London cabbies have been found to have unusually large hippocampuses, a piece of the brain important for making mental maps. So do mice trained to run mazes. If the mind is what the brain does, any kind of exercise is bound to leave a physical trace."
While we're at it, is it true that humans only utilize 10% of their brains/brain-power? I feel like I don't believe that.
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3 comments:
The 10-percent of the brain thing has no basis in research. It's one of those things we all decided to know but were wrong about.
I guess we weren't using our whole brain then.
First off, can you trust reports coming from General Hospital? You may not be aware of this but General Hospital is not a real hospital, it just plays one on TV. But in all fairness it seems reasonable to believe that parts of the brain that are used more should be more developed.
I would totally agree with the whole only using 10% of brain as being rubbish. However I was reading an article from Scientific American that claims we may only use 20% of our memory capacity. That would be a shame, there is plenty more I would love to remember.
Good one, P.L.! I laughed.
J,
But I love General Hospital. I guess I can believe the bit about memory. It's probably easier to gage than overall brain-power.
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