The Limbic System

The limbic system--the centre of our brain--comprises several subcomponents, including the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala.

The amygdala screens input from the senses and attaches significance to them. The main thing to remember about the amygdala, so that there arises no reductionist debate about "little men" inside our brain, is that it can only recognise very vague patterns in our sensory input, and it can only react in very simplistic, stereotyped ways. Its power is in colouring the sheer number of daily sensory experiences we have, not in completely understanding any one of them.

The hippocampus acts as our short-term memory bank, keeping many items in its store until the amygdala can assess them and determine if they are worth remembering, and thus transfer them to the higher brain's long-term memory.

The hypothalamus is the enactor of emotion. It can signal the pituitary gland to secrete hormones, or it can itself induce pleasure, fear and other strong emotions. How does it do this? By helping the amygdala, in certain situations, to shut down or incite various parts of our brain (often our rational brain) so that more primal reactions can take over. For example, if the amygdala detects a situation for which it wants to induce the fear response, it signals the hypothalamus, which in turn signals for the release of adrenaline. Perhaps it also helps to shut down parts of the frontal cortex responsible for planning and rational behaviour. We may not feel like ourselves in this state, but the brain is operating quite normally, though more through the inner eye than the "higher" cortex, over which we have more conscious control.

Notice that the inner eye "knows" where the higher brain's capacities are stored. It knows that the brain's centre for rational planning is in the frontal cortex. It knows that the facial recognition centre is in the bottom of the brain. It knows because it put them there.

The inner eye is not only responsible for some of the brain's responses, but its development as well. It uses this knowledge to support and exploit abilities we can only gain through experience. So the inner eye can induce us to plan to hunt and kill an enemy, or it can cause us to be shamed by a parent's scowling face. But not everyone has the same reaction to the same stimulus, because everyone's inner eye is different.

Comments

[Sivashanmugam]

There is a specific subject "invariantology" that discusses on the methods of identification of the invaarints and the application invariants in life