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This is interesting: Split brain with one half atheist and one half theist

shawn001

shawn001

Well-Known Member
I should mention

Vilayanur Ramachandran has been called a Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience. Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, Ramachandran has brilliantly sleuthed his way through some of the strangest maladies of the human mind.

He is famous as a neuroscientists, especially with
"
In cases of phantom limbs, amputees and even those born without one or more limbs feel pain and other sensations in their missing body parts. Here, read neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran's vivid descriptions of his experiences with phantom-limb patients and how he has managed to understand their singular dilemmas and thereby help them."

NOVA Online | Secrets of the Mind
 
nnmartin

nnmartin

Well-Known Member
not sure if this is on the same topic or not but I have a kind of split mind in this sense.

ie: one half is quite spiritual, religious and the other complete atheist.

dualism I think they call it - in Hinduism at least it is supposed to be one of the key things you must overcome.

But I imagine most people have these sort of issues.
 
meogi

meogi

Well-Known Member
nnmartin said:
ie: one half is quite spiritual, religious and the other complete atheist.
Click to expand...
If you do have multiple personalities, the latter has never shown themselves here.
nnmartin said:
But I imagine most people have these sort of issues.
Click to expand...
This, like most other things you imagine, is lacking basis in reality.
 
meogi

meogi

Well-Known Member
As to the OP:

Very interesting. Since the right hemisphere is usually associated with creativity and feeling, and the left with logic and reality, it's understandable.

The big question is why does one tend to win out over the other in a connected brain? Could it be as simple as the amount it's utilized?
 
Draka

Draka

Wonder Woman
I liked the question posed that when the person dies does one half go to hell while the other goes to heaven. :p
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Draka said:
I liked the question posed that when the person dies does one half go to hell while the other goes to heaven. :p
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the Bibical quote, "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." :fork:
 
L

Leonardo

Active Member
Nowhere Man said:
Reminds me of the Bibical quote, "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." :fork:
Click to expand...


Are you saying he should cut out the atheist half of his brain?
 
painted wolf

painted wolf

Grey Muzzle
I find this very interesting... it kind of dovetails with my "religion is a phynotypic trait" hypothesis.

I also think it's interesting that the "atheist side" is the right hemisphere... I wonder if this finding can be tested with other people who have had their corpus callosum cut?

wa:do
 
meogi

meogi

Well-Known Member
painted_wolf said:
I also think it's interesting that the "atheist side" is the right hemisphere...
Click to expand...
I think he just got caught up in the speech.

"So I said do you believe in god, and the right hemisphere went straight to Yes. Asked the left hemisphere the same and it went straight to No. So we have a right hemisphere who is an atheist, and left hemisphere believes in God."
 
painted wolf

painted wolf

Grey Muzzle
meogi said:
I think he just got caught up in the speech.

"So I said do you believe in god, and the right hemisphere went straight to Yes. Asked the left hemisphere the same and it went straight to No. So we have a right hemisphere who is an atheist, and left hemisphere believes in God."
Click to expand...
Yeah, I re-watched it and I think you're right. I'm curious which side it actually was.

But still, it's still supportive of my hypothesis. As is the triggering of intense religious experience during temporal lobe seizures.

wa:do
 
shawn001

shawn001

Well-Known Member
painted wolf said:
Yeah, I re-watched it and I think you're right. I'm curious which side it actually was.

But still, it's still supportive of my hypothesis. As is the triggering of intense religious experience during temporal lobe seizures.

wa:do
Click to expand...


Ramachandran, the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 1

[youtube]qIiIsDIkDtg[/youtube]
Ramachandran, the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 1 - YouTube


Ramachandran, the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 2

[youtube]5z4B5BYbjf8[/youtube]
Ramachandran, the Temporal Lobes and God - Part 2 - YouTube


Dr. Persinger's God Helmet

The term God Helmet refers to a controversial experimental apparatus in neurotheology. The apparatus, placed on the head of an experimental subject, stimulates the brain with magnetic fields. Persinger reports that at least 80 percent of his participants experience a presence beside them in the room, which they variously say feels like God or someone they knew who had died.
The leading researcher in this area is Michael Persinger. Persinger uses a modified snowmobile helmet or a head-circlet device nicknamed the Octopus that contain solenoids which create a weak but complex magnetic field over the brain's right-hemisphere parietal and temporal lobes.

[youtube]8YPOTaUyvA0[/youtube]
Dr. Persinger's God Helmet - YouTube
 
S

Sgloom

Active Member
this poses an interesting question. does being left or right handed have any influence over a persons beliefs, not in specific religions, just the belief in atheism or theism. obviously theres many other factors that determine that, im just wondering if theres any influence at all
 
idav

idav

Being
Premium Member
Sgloom said:
this poses an interesting question. does being left or right handed have any influence over a persons beliefs, not in specific religions, just the belief in atheism or theism. obviously theres many other factors that determine that, im just wondering if theres any influence at all
Click to expand...
Typically there are many things we do where we tend to lean towards one side of the brain or the other. I was on another forum where got to see many of members take a brain test where the majority of religious people were right brained the part for imagination and emotion and such. I get the idea that artists tend to be more religious and scientists tend to be less. There is always some mixture but it holds true for most of what I've seen.

I'm more in the middle but more left brained and analyitical. I tested best in holistic and linear thinking where problems can be solved backwards or forwards either by starting with the overall picture or putting the pieces together. Linear thinking is typically left brained while holistic is typically right brained so there is always variance and depends on the the problem and how your brain goes about solving it.
 
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