The left and right brain functions are not as simple as what she described. Though the left and right hemispheres can operate independently if you cut the fibres connecting them as in some famous Split-Brain Experiments, the whole brain generally functions in a concerted way.
Language usually (not always) specialize in the left hemisphere for right handed persons, but for left-handed people it can be left, right, left-and-right distributed. Right brain also has some language functions, and visual perceptions are at the occipital lobes (both sided) - not on the right hemisphere alone.
Both left and right hemispheres process non-verbal (visual spatial) functions in a complementary manner. In her experience, her altered consciousness was presumably due to the affected left hemispheric functions, not the right (contrary to her claim - connected to the universe while her left hemispheric function was presumably suppressed). In fact, her experience of spirit leaving the body seeing herself is nothing exotic, it will well-known in literature! It was due to malfunctioning of parietal lobes (perhaps both sided if not the right sided predominantly). What I am trying to make it clear it that her experience is perfectly normal, due to temporarily affected temporoparietal lobes functions resulting in aphasia (unable to understand language), acalculia (unable to calculate), and altered sense of self (exotic ghost like, near death experience).
Also her AV-Malformation is likely to be close to the base of the brain, so affecting her thalamus etc.. and hence her consciousness and motor weakness (right sided).
This illustrate how a well educated person can turn all those experience into "scientific" terms. Well educated person who develop schizophrenia can present like this too. Note, I don't think she is schizophrenic, just that she tried to speak of her experience in "scientific terms" making her look like preaching a new "scientific" religion.
Anyway, there are many types of neuroscientists. Studying a neurone is a neuroscientist, so as a psychiatrist who like to use this fancy label.
Bravo: My focus is on Dr Bolte’s stroke experience, not her “near-death” experience. I found it extremely interesting to have no inner talk at all since we cannot spare this unless deep sleep, or, of course, death. It must be amazingly peaceful since we can finally shut down all the noise. And, did you notice the sequence of abilities loss: she started with headache, then lost the inner voice (language), then could not move her left arm, then even had problems in recalling if she had dialed a number (short term memory). She finally had problems in understanding other people, and could not speak properly herself… I am very impressed and encouraged that after such a serious stroke, Dr Bolte recovers so well now. It must be a very steep uphill road for her. And I hope her experience plus her knowledge can contribute to help stroke patients to recover.
Even a casual reader like me knows left and right brain are more complicated than just serial and parallel circuit. Women’s brain obviously wired differently from men’s. Both hemispheres can process language in her brain. I will still think this brief introduction on left vs right is ok, bear in mind that her whole talk is less than 20 minutes.
Human beings tend to interpret unknown findings using familiar terms. So I am not surprise that a scientist will interpret her own stroke experience using scientific terms plus her own religious belief. I suppose if Dr Bolte is a Christian, she will call this “oceanic”, “peaceful” experience as Heaven, not Nibbanna.
大師：佢如果日日望住觀音像來拜，就好有可能會見到觀音。
And lastly, neuroscience is a very young science and we know a lot less than what we don’t know. I hope the scientists can be a little bit more humble and open-minded in exploring this tiny universe inside our skull. We are just doing盲人摸象。
There can be many misleading messages to the audience in her case. Her description on left and right brain functions became stereotypic functions from an expert's testimony. The audience can learn from her to generalize single findings/belief to broad implications or applications that seems to make sense. Its implication can be far reaching for a layman, not as much for us (readers here who come from a segment with independent thinking).
From another perspective, she should have shown us her brain scan; otherwise, I would consider that she was deliberately using her case to preach her religion.
Basically, her stroke was due to arteriovenous malformation which is usually located in the base of the brain. Her development of symptoms was due to the gradual building up of the pressure on her brain (not only the left hemisphere). I guess that the bleeding was more in the central part of the brain instead, and the seeped predominantly to her left side. Her scan on her left side was an evidence of her brain being accessed from the left side.
Her case was not a typical stroke that people usually think of. In her case, after getting rid of the blood, her brain will be free from pressure, and her recovery can be nearly 100%, as there could be no death of neurones.
Judging from her behaviour, I would think she might have another disorder, I don't repeat here. Welcome to read the comment session of my passage on schizophrenia if you have time.
Bravo: I don’t really think she is preaching any religions, and “Nibhana” could be just a causal term she picked to describe this special tranquil feeling of muting inner voice. Every person with basic understandings (not necessarily a Buddhist) should know Nibhana can only be attained through a lot of hard work and purification of mind to finally reach this enlightenment, not through stroke or brain damage. But, her tranquil feelings could be comparable to the status of Samandi (禪定). Samandi is not restricted to Buddhist practice. Other religion like Yogi or even non-religious practice of meditation could attain this stage, by focusing the mind on one single subject (concentration / mindfulness). At this highly concentrated stage, a person is totally relaxed and all inner voice will be mute. An unimaginable bliss and peacefulness is reached. Ajahn Brahm’s famous “marketing slogan” of meditation is: "Meditation is better than．．．Sex. The Ecstasy of Meditation is better than．．．Orgasm" Well… Ajahn Brahm is really cool, isn’t he?
11 則留言:
唔明佢講乜？sawlee...
She is an anatomist only + some New Age thinking.
The left and right brain functions are not as simple as what she described. Though the left and right hemispheres can operate independently if you cut the fibres connecting them as in some famous Split-Brain Experiments, the whole brain generally functions in a concerted way.
Language usually (not always) specialize in the left hemisphere for right handed persons, but for left-handed people it can be left, right, left-and-right distributed. Right brain also has some language functions, and visual perceptions are at the occipital lobes (both sided) - not on the right hemisphere alone.
Both left and right hemispheres process non-verbal (visual spatial) functions in a complementary manner. In her experience, her altered consciousness was presumably due to the affected left hemispheric functions, not the right (contrary to her claim - connected to the universe while her left hemispheric function was presumably suppressed). In fact, her experience of spirit leaving the body seeing herself is nothing exotic, it will well-known in literature! It was due to malfunctioning of parietal lobes (perhaps both sided if not the right sided predominantly). What I am trying to make it clear it that her experience is perfectly normal, due to temporarily affected temporoparietal lobes functions resulting in aphasia (unable to understand language), acalculia (unable to calculate), and altered sense of self (exotic ghost like, near death experience).
Also her AV-Malformation is likely to be close to the base of the brain, so affecting her thalamus etc.. and hence her consciousness and motor weakness (right sided).
This illustrate how a well educated person can turn all those experience into "scientific" terms. Well educated person who develop schizophrenia can present like this too. Note, I don't think she is schizophrenic, just that she tried to speak of her experience in "scientific terms" making her look like preaching a new "scientific" religion.
Anyway, there are many types of neuroscientists. Studying a neurone is a neuroscientist, so as a psychiatrist who like to use this fancy label.
Bravo
俺淨系奇怪佢見到nirvana，而唔系heaven??????
拔又見唔到觀音或者天使？唔通真系無既？
oh ...... 我入到去，呆左 ......
大師：我係收到條link覺得幾得意姐，無話傳教講耶穌既意思。
Bravo: My focus is on Dr Bolte’s stroke experience, not her “near-death” experience. I found it extremely interesting to have no inner talk at all since we cannot spare this unless deep sleep, or, of course, death. It must be amazingly peaceful since we can finally shut down all the noise. And, did you notice the sequence of abilities loss: she started with headache, then lost the inner voice (language), then could not move her left arm, then even had problems in recalling if she had dialed a number (short term memory). She finally had problems in understanding other people, and could not speak properly herself… I am very impressed and encouraged that after such a serious stroke, Dr Bolte recovers so well now. It must be a very steep uphill road for her. And I hope her experience plus her knowledge can contribute to help stroke patients to recover.
Even a casual reader like me knows left and right brain are more complicated than just serial and parallel circuit. Women’s brain obviously wired differently from men’s. Both hemispheres can process language in her brain. I will still think this brief introduction on left vs right is ok, bear in mind that her whole talk is less than 20 minutes.
Human beings tend to interpret unknown findings using familiar terms. So I am not surprise that a scientist will interpret her own stroke experience using scientific terms plus her own religious belief. I suppose if Dr Bolte is a Christian, she will call this “oceanic”, “peaceful” experience as Heaven, not Nibbanna.
大師：佢如果日日望住觀音像來拜，就好有可能會見到觀音。
And lastly, neuroscience is a very young science and we know a lot less than what we don’t know. I hope the scientists can be a little bit more humble and open-minded in exploring this tiny universe inside our skull. We are just doing盲人摸象。
小女子妹妹：依個網有好多講座，有ｄ話題都幾有趣，仲有Steven Levitt!
Samsara:
There can be many misleading messages to the audience in her case. Her description on left and right brain functions became stereotypic functions from an expert's testimony. The audience can learn from her to generalize single findings/belief to broad implications or applications that seems to make sense. Its implication can be far reaching for a layman, not as much for us (readers here who come from a segment with independent thinking).
From another perspective, she should have shown us her brain scan; otherwise, I would consider that she was deliberately using her case to preach her religion.
Basically, her stroke was due to arteriovenous malformation which is usually located in the base of the brain. Her development of symptoms was due to the gradual building up of the pressure on her brain (not only the left hemisphere). I guess that the bleeding was more in the central part of the brain instead, and the seeped predominantly to her left side. Her scan on her left side was an evidence of her brain being accessed from the left side.
Her case was not a typical stroke that people usually think of. In her case, after getting rid of the blood, her brain will be free from pressure, and her recovery can be nearly 100%, as there could be no death of neurones.
Judging from her behaviour, I would think she might have another disorder, I don't repeat here. Welcome to read the comment session of my passage on schizophrenia if you have time.
Cheers.
幾年前俺已經可以 master 系夢里面飛，唔同hero or Superman，因為俺只可以好似氣球咁升降，速度都慢好多，好似個廣告咁飄出窗外邊。當然俺個飄移 skill 比個廣告早幾年。
小女子妹妹 ~ 近排俾 Poly 拆磨 ... 體無完膚 ~ 本應想好好完成我本《老子說》~ 但都無時間 ...
Bravo: I don’t really think she is preaching any religions, and “Nibhana” could be just a causal term she picked to describe this special tranquil feeling of muting inner voice. Every person with basic understandings (not necessarily a Buddhist) should know Nibhana can only be attained through a lot of hard work and purification of mind to finally reach this enlightenment, not through stroke or brain damage. But, her tranquil feelings could be comparable to the status of Samandi (禪定). Samandi is not restricted to Buddhist practice. Other religion like Yogi or even non-religious practice of meditation could attain this stage, by focusing the mind on one single subject (concentration / mindfulness). At this highly concentrated stage, a person is totally relaxed and all inner voice will be mute. An unimaginable bliss and peacefulness is reached. Ajahn Brahm’s famous “marketing slogan” of meditation is:
"Meditation is better than．．．Sex.
The Ecstasy of Meditation is better than．．．Orgasm"
Well… Ajahn Brahm is really cool, isn’t he?
大師你就好啦，我根本無發夢，或者講，發左既夢完全唔記得。
小女子妹妹：咁就休息要緊，書就遲ｄ睇都得啦。
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