Originally Posted by
Adam Strange
I was serious when I said that the brain circuits can either be used for language or for spacial ability. It is a complete trade.* You are probably not as left-handed as I am, and you therefore have good foreign language abilities. I don't. I can't even program, because programming is a language.
My own theory is that this accounts for the preference of humans to be right-handed. Humans all can speak a language. Animals happen to be evenly divided between left- and right-manipulator (paw, hoof, fin, etc.) preferences, and they don't speak, at least not as well as we do. That language ability we have took over brain space, and it had to come from somewhere, since the human brain, regardless of myths to the contrary, uses every bit of processing power it has without over heating. Brain material is metabolically very expensive, and the body doesn't build it just for the fun of it, to keep it alive and let it sit around unused.
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While I'm on the topic of brains, let me add that the brain is a seven-layer flexible circuit board with massively paralleled identical circuitry, about the size of a dinner napkin, folded up (yep, that's what the folds are) to fit into our skulls. Each layer represents a level of increasing sensory abstraction. For example, in the part of the board that is used for visual processing, the first layer processes edges, then the next layer integrates those edges into a square, the next layer integrates the square into a table, the next layer processes the table into an object in a room, the next layer turns the object in the room into your table in your house, the next turns your table into the work space or dining space for your evening's activities but it could be used for other things, and the seventh level abstracts it further into the philosophy of work or social events in one's life. Most animals do not have seven layer boards. I think dogs have five, dolphins six. I could be wrong about dolphins, but my point is that philosophy and spatial ability and Socionics cognitive functions have real assigned places in brain circuitry. The hard part is to map the circuits, but that is just a matter of time and money.
*The circuitry in the seven layers is all identical. That is, the same circuit stack that accepts visual input from the bottom up, can be re-purposed to drive muscles from the top down. Intention to go to the store, motivation to move across the room, decide to walk, select muscle groups, set up firing pattern to coordinate muscle contractions, output nerve impulses to muscle fibers. The brain areas are completely general and, initially, probably non-specific so they can be used for other things, but the brain is just about at the limit of our bodies to cool it, and so it can't make more circuit board without burning up. So, choose one: spatial ability or language, and let Darwin sort it out.
So far, he's been on the side of the language-processors and right-handers.
But, our Day Will Come!!! The Left Hand of Darkness will Rise Again! BWAHHH HAAH HAAAA HAAAAAAAAA