It is now well known that women are biologically somewhat less lateralized in brain function than men. This means simply that psyc...hological functions in women are not localized into one or the other hemisphere of the brain to the same degree as in men. Mental abilities in women are more spread over both hemispheres. Even by age six, for example, a boy can recognize objects in his left hand by feel alone better than in his right hand. In girls both hands are equal. This shows that haptic recognition (as it is called) has already been primarily localized in the right hemisphere in boys but not in girls. And it is common knowledge that elderly men with a stroke or hemorrhage in the left hemisphere are more speechless than elderly women with a similar diagnosis.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Unusual precocity in children, is usually the result of an unhealthy state of the brain; and, in such cases, medical men would now... direct, that the wonderful child should be deprived of all books and study, and turned to play or work in the fresh air.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the co...gnition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When Western people train the mind, the focus is generally on the left hemisphere of the cortex, which is the portion of the brain... that is concerned with words and numbers. We enhance the logical, bounded, linear functions of the mind. In the East, exercises of this sort are for the purpose of getting in tune with the unconscious--to get rid of boundaries, not to create them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycl...e.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People having speech defects sometimes learn part of the practice by laborious study, but good speech is always mainly unconscious... speech. Any tennis player, even if he could not explain this enigma, could provide an analogy for it. When he sees a rapidly flying tennis ball coming toward him, he knows what he must do. He must maneuver himself into the proper position, be poised with his weight properly distributed, meet the ball with the proper sweep of his arm and with his racket held at just the right pitch, and all this must be timed to stop the flying ball at a precise point. But if the tennis player pauses to think of all these actions and how he will perform them, he is lost. The ball will not skim back over the net, building air pressure as it goes until it buzzes down into the opponent's corner. If the tennis player thinks about anything except where he wants the ball to go and what he plans for the next stroke, he will probably become so awkward that he will be lucky to hit the ball at all. Rapid, precise muscular actions can be successfully carried out only by the unconscious part of the brain. And so with the speaker. He cannot speak well unless he speaks unconsciously, for his movements are as precise, as complicated, and as exactly timed as those of the tennis player.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,... Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune seventy times in succession,... because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most of the brain consists of "wires"; a single unit may have thousands of connections with other units and with itself. That is n...ot the case in a standard computer, where a chip usually has less than six connections. Moreover, neurons are much, much slower than the switching elements of the computer. It seems likely that the brain can accomplish its complex feats of perception and thought by means of millions of connections acting in parallel. The connections as a whole define the information content of the system. In this way a vast amount of knowledge can be brought to bear on a decision all at once. The brain seems to be able to perform as many as two hundred trillion operations in a second; not serially, but simultaneously.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Man is an organism with a wonderful and extraordinary past. He is distinguished from the other animals by virtue of the fact that ...he has elaborated what I have termed extensions of his organism. By developing his extensions, man has been able to improve or specialize various functions. The computer is an extension of part of the brain, the telephone extends the voice, the wheel extends the legs and feet. Language extends experience in time and space while writing extends language. Man has elaborated his extensions to such a degree that we are apt to forget that his humaneness is rooted in his animal nature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »