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Some experiments with people that had an injury to certain parts of their brains and testing them at different tasks come to mind. Ive also heard of certain experiments where numbing agents were administered to certain parts of their brain so they couldnt be used, to see how the person acted.

If you're interested in right/left brain lateralization, look up information on people who've had some damage to or completely lack the corpus collosum. Truth is, we've got two brains (or three, if you count the gastro-intestinal one) which are barely connected to each other. People can live without the cc, it's not ideal, but it's not absolutely necessary either.

Yes indeed.

Kai, by any chance could you comment on if that article talking about primates saying they dont have right handed and left handed preferences in general? My perception is that Scientific American is reliable, but thats not my field of expertise.

I dont have at hand detailed material on the experiments that led to the description of brain lateralization. Some experiments with people that had an injury to certain parts of their brains and testing them at different tasks come to mind. Ive also heard of certain experiments where numbing agents were administered to certain parts of their brain so they couldnt be used, to see how the person acted.

On Leary: nevermind, i shouldnt even had mentioned him if i dont know about him. Im not sure it has much to do with what i speak of and i dont know how fringe and crazy he is.

On the cultural significance of "right" and "left" i think we are on the same page. However i do not think that humans have always been right handed, and that the cultural significance had to emerge from somewhere.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-more-people-right

Basicly, we evolved from primates... primates which dont have a preference for left or right hand... my argument is that, in our evolution, we developed more the "rational"(left) side of our brains which thus gives our population today, predomenantly right handedness.

[Mexico City]

The spread of the disease could be greatest in so-called mega-cities such as Mumbai and Mexico City

NOT ME AGAIN!

As far as i know, pre-hispanic culture was involved with some kinds of hallucinogens, more so by the northern arid nomads...

And by the more centric and southern Aztecs it was more of a ritualistic thing that went on among higher ranks such as priests, im not sure what kind of substance do.

Then the catholic spaniards came along to colonize... Catholicism i think is way more ambiguos towards substances than Puritanism, not speaking of stance in books and officially speaking, i mean in practice with the average joe believers, and i would argue for hypocrisy and double standards - they are more worried on sexuality issues id say.

Unfortunately leaving a big gap on history due to my ignorance, ill speak of this century - there havent been any prohibitions on tobacco nor alcohol, but all the stuff such as opium, cannabis, cocaine, heroince, lsd, etc. have been illegal all along... until recently.

But illegal is a term that can just be written in paper and not enforced...

Ive met quite a few of druggies and sort of been one myself, and i tell you, its pretty easy to get your hands on cocaine and pot, and i think heroine isnt that hard either... Peyote and mushrooms is harder in the sense that you have to travel to where the stuff grows naturally, because the highways that lead there and back are patrolled by the military.

Here the legal entrance to bars is 18... even do theres endless crowds of 15 year olds that get in and are blooming alcoholics.

Tobacco? Tons of 15 year olds are into it too. Theres nomad salesmen all over the street that sell candy, gums and cigarrettes by the dose (sell individual cigarretes) to any willing person.

Inside universities even before the law passed, you could use drugs without punishment because they are autonomous and police or military are not allowed entrance.

The recent law that allows anyone to carry small ammounts isnt about being "progressive" such as the Netherlands (which perhaps they actually just did it for the tourism? IDK)... its because this president we have, issued his own personal version of the "War on Drugs" (Tm)... im not sure if i mentioned it in another thread, but theres 5,200 people dead this year because of this "war" (civilians, police, military, small-medium-big traffickers)... and im not sure if its overstating, but this isnt the first year of the "war"... its a war that the government is losing because our drug cartels are so strong, so its a way of separating the kittens from the wolves... It would just be hypothetics if we start to think up scenarios after the war or if there werent strong cartels...

I think my argument still stands that certain drugs are illegal because of their effects on economic productivity. Most of Europe is quite ""progressive"" and i dont see anyone besides the Netherlands making drugs legal.

[only]

Sambrano, Jazmín "Programación neurolinguistica para todos", 2000, Alfaomega, México, pp.20-23.
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/545/Right-Brain-Hemisphere.html
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~studskl/hd/LRBrain.html

These are some sources that might be of interest. Neurolinguistprogramming and neurology speaking.

Have you heard about left handed persons being more creative? Maybe theres something to it?

Culturally speaking, the symbolism of right and left being equated as "correct" and "wrong"... Do you think it was randomly decided at some point, and at that random point it could might as well have been the other way around?

http://www.elementsofhome.com/Ebay/images/SOCRATES.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Eris_(Discordia).jpg

Do you find it something merely of randomness that Socrates is holding his head up with his right fist instead of his left one?

Is it random also that "she" is holding up her left palm making the gesture instead of her right one?

There are plenty and widespread examples if you look for them.

Did you know the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of your body? And that the right hemisphere the left side of your body?


And speaking of the drugs: just because i am writing in english, doesnt mean im talking only about the USA.

I havent read Thomas Leary, but im sure his theories on the 8 circuit model of consciousness arent far off from what im speaking of.

I have lived in the past at usa's california for 3 and a half years... Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Van Nuys... Ive been to Las Vegas...

And i was born in Tijuana... also have lived in a 1,000,000 population city called Queretaro, 3 hours from D.F....

The food and water for foreigners is quite unhealthy... E. coli anyone?

Shouldnt trust the police, but if you get in trouble, be sure to have some $5s $20s or $50s if you do... You can get off the hook from drunk driving with about $20...

In the year and a half ive lived in DF: i was almost mugged twice... there was an earthquake that made lightposts swerve about 20º... 4 blocks from where i live there was a shoot out between drug traffickers and federal police... the swine flu crap...

And even do the "war on drugs" is in different places that are at least 4 hours away, theres a 5,000 body count just this year...

We have an anti-pollution car program, where you have to pass exhaust test 2 times a year... and everyone cannot circulate once a week...

This obviously isnt even close to describing anything i guess.

Maybe they just seem relatively big in comparison to your weiner.

 

"Reality exists in the human mind and in no other place. Not in the individual mind, that can make mistakes and, in all cases, perishes soon. Just the mind of the Party, that is collective and inmortal, can sense reality. What the Party says its true is effectively true."
-O'Brien

Equiparating subjectivity as the manifestation of desire itself and making an abstract polarization to possibly exemplify better:

Objectivity      Subjectivity
Order            Chaos
Rationality      Irrationality

One example of how rational our society is, can be approached thru a neurological example of brain function:

Left Hemisphere                Right Hemisphere

Analytic                             Holistic
Verbal                               Prosodic
Logic                                Intuitive
Exact Calculation                Aproximate calculation
Language:                         Language:
   -Grammar                          -Intonation /accentuation
   -Literality                          -Prosody
   -Vocabulary                       -pragmatic
                                          -Conceptual

Most people in the world (70%-95%) are right handed. It hasnt been determined why of this tendency in humans. There have been geneticistic and cultural attempts at an explanation but unsuccessfully; aswell different species of primates there isn't such polarization.

So, if there cant be a cultural or genetical explanation, maybe its possible for a neurological and ideological explanation. Maybe its not coincidence that so many people are right handed, maybe it's a symptom to how over-idealized are the qualities and ways of thinking due that they were the basic and necessary for survival in our origins. Maybe its putting to much of a fine point on it, but note that the qualities of the left hemisphere correspond to the characteristics of typical rational thought.

But this rationality, this over-idealization of the qualities of the left hemisphere of our brain are a limitation of the human spectre to satisfy all of its needs and desires. Capitalism and the fetichism of money seem to be nowadays the measure of "objectivity" and "truth", and its ok'ed by the groups in power due to, that the search of happiness thru materialism and consumism doesn't question the functionality of society. If a person feels sad, and accepts consumist doctrine thru the mass media, that he can be happy by purchasing a new cell phone that is in fashion and trendy, then he shall buy the cell phone; or maybe when hes sad he can take it as something random, without deep reasons and can take prescription drugs, such as Prozac, Valium or Tylenol. This person could do thousands of solutions that are rational and "objective" (and reductionist in nature) for his sadness, but ¿are they solutions or distractions to the problem?

Another example of our current reality: psycho-tropic substances. Tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and prescription drugs are within the legal limits in an almost global perspective, while cannabis, LSD, cocaine, heroine and opium are outside of that legal limits. Based on what is this difference? Quickly any agent or representative of the law could answer "Because some are addictive and harmful, while the rest aren't", but the reality is that all of them have adverse effects, with addictive potential. Then, if all have adverse effects to health and all have the potential for addiction ¿What criterion in reality is used to assess if they are legal or illegal? Possibly because one can be an addict to nicotine, caffeine, be an alcoholic and being sedated by prescription drugs and continue to be "productive" economically speaking, while on the other drugs one cannot. Hallucinogens can bring persons to altered states of consciousness where holistic and "irrational" thoughts can emerge.

The aspiration to objectivize the collective subjectivity towards money, "productivity", "efficiency", "utility", all being economical concepts to respond to human needs, human needs that don't respond to such criterions. All in the purpose to keep social order, maintenance of status quo as utopia, utopia with rational basis, logical towards an ideal, but absurd towards what is human. An ordered society its not the consecuence of the satisfaction of all the ideals and desires of all persons.

"... in a purely quantitative world everything would be dead, rigid, without movement... Its evident that any being different from us feels other qualities and, therefore, lives in a different world from ours. Qualities are our human idiosincrasyes properly said; to ask that these interpretations  and these human values to be general and perhaps productive is one of the most outstanding crazes of the human pride."


(This is a fragment from last trimesters final essay i did... was originally in spanish.)

Distrito Federal, México.

Biggest city here - with 20,000,000 people.

Thanks.

No, im from the neighbouring south, a.k.a. swine flu and legal drugs.

Humanity is almost 7 billion people. Now that the mortality rates have decreased, there is a never ending population bloom. Makes me think about Darwin; if natural selection kept the survival of the fittest, what is happening now?

From what ive heard, most governments promote the abstinence doctrine towards "reproductive health". Why so?:

a)   To win some good-buddy points with ultra-conservative groups.
b)   Because they know its not a true stance that holds up outside of paper:

Its not a true stance, because, the age for sexual relations nowadays is surely 14-15 years of age, and some propaganda here and there is not gonna stop them from getting it on.
So the government accomplishes its real goal, young people having sex. And if the government is talking about abstinence, they are not talking about sex with preservatives, and if they don't have sex with preservatives, they get pregnant - And if they get pregnant, then you have 2 persons that probably will not make it thru college and that will have to join the  work force – and if they join the work force, chances are, their child will join the uneducated work force someday too.

Nowadays, big business and government are synonyms. And about big business and uneducated work force: nowadays there is a disintegration of worker unions and a loss of their power, which used to be significant. Why is that? Maybe because there is so much "uneducated work force", that the supply and demand tables have turned. Now the patron has all the cards. The world is turning into one gigantic China.

Why is there cheap labor in China? Because there is so much people. If a group of people demand to be paid $10 wages, and the employer refuses to pay that amount, then they would normally be in a Mexican stand-off or would have to start negotiating. But if theres another group of people that would do the job for $9 wages, then theres no need to negotiate. And with this type of system, why stop at $9 wages?

And there aren't any nice things to say about the greedy top 20%... Im not sure what would be a good estimate for a good living... we perhaps live in different economic universes... id say id be content with an annual income of $27,000... and why would any person (that doesn't have offsprings) want any more than that? With it I can pay rent, pay for my cars crap, pay taxes, food, clothes, technology, bills, etc etc etc...
Id like to tell you who would want to: people that buy into all the materialistic crap we are fed daily and people with a bottomless pit of emptiness.

Dysgenic masses to my left, greedy sickos to my right; in front of me a wasteland.

Sorry, im out of interesting ones.

Then i looked deeper into the issue and realized its her character in the Breakfast Club Breakfast at Tiffany's.

On a totally unrelated note, Madonna used to play in a band called The Breakfast Club...

And just for kicks, id like to mention Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Breakfast Club films are 23 years apart.

i was scourging the internets looking for very detailed information on the different music albums i have, and i got to "Elephant" by the White Stripes (not on the top of my list, but some are allright).

On one song, some woman collaborates vocals - Holly Golightly.

I decided to look up pictures of her, and, Audrey Hepburn showed up, the picture you are using. I was confused by it saying Audrey Hepburn playing Holly Golightly, since chronologically and fame speaking Hepburn is more famous than some random garage rock girl.

Then i looked deeper into the issue and realized its her character in the Breakfast Club.

Anyways...

im not sure if anyone else posted this, but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs1CA5hFdd4&feature=PlayList&p=77C7D910D708D8D2&index=3

its like a mix between an asian game-show and anime...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v23LPrbS3Fk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujv_-p69wU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kqI_nHyeI

Pretty much every Mini Moni video was this weird.

God i think something snapped, im starting to like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v23LPrbS3Fk