"A
Learning organisation is a place where people are continually exploring
how they can create their reality. And how they can change it."
Peter
Senge
We knew our model
for the brain was flawed when we discovered that:
1.
Einstein
has one of the lowest ratio of neurons:glia cells when compared to other
humans
"Three
published scientific studies examined the brain. 'On the brain of a
scientist: Albert Einstein' appeared in 1985 and analysed the ratio
of neurons to glial cells, specific cells that provide nourishment.
In one area of the left side of Einstein's brain there were 73% more
glial cells per neuron than average . . ." Carolyn
Abraham
2.
111
young people have had a complete hemisphere removed with surprisingly
little cognitive effect
"Astonishingly,
memory and personality develop normally. A recent study found that 86
percent of the 111 children who underwent hemispherectomy at Hopkins
between 1975 and 2001 are either seizure-free or have nondisabling seizures
that do not require medication . . . . Of course, the operation has
its downside: "You can walk, run-some dance or skip-but you lose
use of the hand opposite of the hemisphere that was removed. You have
little function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," Freeman
says. . . . One was champion bowler of her class, one was chess champion
of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely,"
3.
There
is a large reservoir of stem cells in the brain which can be instructed
to develop into Glia or neurons
"It
was not until the 1990s that scientists agreed that the adult brain
does contain stem cells that are able to generate the brain's three
major cell types-astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, which are non-neuronal
cells, and neurons, or nerve cells."
4.
It
is possible to see with your tongue
"It's
a concept in which you replace a sense that was lost by another one
that is there," said Maurice Ptito, the neuropsychologist supervising
the study. "They sense the world through their tongue, and that
gives them the feeling of seeing. You don't see with your eyes. You
see with your brain."
5.
Daniel
Tammet holds the world record for remembering mathematical Pi to 22,514
decimal places; very cool, but Daniel struggles with formulating and
applying even the most simple of concepts in daily life.
6.
You
cannot see pictures in your head.
"One
common fallacy is to assume there is an image inside your eyeball, the
optical image, exciting photoreceptors on your retina and then that
image is transmitted faithfully along a cable called the optic nerve
and displayed on a screen called the visual cortex. Now this is obviously
a logical fallacy because if you have a screen and an image displayed
on a screen in the brain, then you need another little chap in there
watching that image, and there is no little chap in your head. And if
you think about it, that wouldn't solve the problem either because then
you'd need another little guy in his head looking at the image in his
brain and so on and so forth, and you get an endless regress of eyes
and images and little people without really solving the problem of perception."
VJ Ramachandran
1
Million: Number of new neuronal connections formed every
second
Huang
Gregory; New Scientist;
3 May 2008
So
what is thinking?
So
what do we know? . . . . . Not a lot as it turns out!
Visualise
the flowers!
So
. . . . there are no pictures in your head!
What
about voices? No; sorry no voices either. How would you see the pictures
and where would the eye be that sees the picture let alone asking where
the ear inside you head would be!
In a wonderful radio
series on BBC Radio in 2003, VJ Ramachandran gave the annual Reith
lecture series entitled "The Emerging Mind" . In the second
of these lectures Ramachandran took us back to some basic science:
Three
steps to . . .Effective Thinking
1.
The default state for humans is that we are passionate and irrational;
we have to consciously choose to be rational and logical.
2.
The key to good thinking is metacognition; the ability to think about
your own thinking.
3.
The next step is to try and think about how other people think.
Step
3 is impossible without step 2 and both are impossible without realising
step 1.
You
can make some great decisions that are done with passionate non-rational
thinking processes and some not so clever decisions while being logical
and rational. The beginning of wisdom is knowing which of these thinking
states is the most appropriate state to deal with the suituation you
are in.
