The Split Brain

In the mid-20th century, a radical treatment for severe, uncontrollable epilepsy involved cutting the corpus callosum — the thick bundle of over 200 million nerve fibers that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The surgery successfully stopped the electrical storms of seizures from spreading, but researchers Roger Sperry (who won a Nobel Prize for this) and Michael Gazzaniga noticed something extraordinary: severing that connection essentially created two independent minds within a single body.

Contralateral Wiring

The brain is cross-wired. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and processes information from the right visual field. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and processes the left visual field. In a normal brain, this information is instantly shared across the corpus callosum. In a split-brain patient, it is completely trapped in whatever hemisphere received it.

The Classic Experiment: Speech vs. Action

Researchers would have a split-brain patient stare at a dot in the center of a screen and flash words or pictures to either the left or right side.

• If a picture of a spoon was flashed to the right (Left Brain): The patient could easily say, "I see a spoon."

• If a picture of a spoon was flashed to the left (Right Brain): The patient would say, "I didn't see anything." Why? Because the right hemisphere saw the spoon, but it doesn't have the ability to speak. The left hemisphere (which handles speech) genuinely didn't see it.

• The twist: If researchers asked the patient to reach under a table with their left hand (controlled by the right brain) and find the object they just saw, they would feel around and successfully pull out the spoon — even while their speaking left brain continued to insist they saw nothing.

Hemispheric Specialization

The experiments proved that the two halves of the brain have distinct specialties, though they usually work as a seamless team.

Left Hemisphere Specialty	Right Hemisphere Specialty
Language and speech production	Visual-spatial processing
Logic, math, and analytical thinking	Facial recognition
Processing sequential information	Understanding context and tone of voice
Making literal interpretations	Processing music and visual imagery

The "Interpreter" Phenomenon

Perhaps the most profound discovery was the left brain's role as "The Interpreter."

When the right hemisphere was given a command (like "Walk") via the left visual field, the patient would stand up and start walking. When the researchers asked the patient why they stood up, the left hemisphere (which didn't see the command) didn't say, "I don't know." Instead, it instantly fabricated a plausible excuse, like, "I'm going to get a drink of water."

This revealed that the left hemisphere constantly creates a narrative to make sense of our actions, even when it has no idea what the true underlying motivation was.

File Management Systems

Johnny Decimal 

Zettelkasten (Focus: Knowledge Synthesis)

https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/comments/16qz77p/is_johnny_decimal_a_good_way_to_go/

Verbal Warms/Tongue Twisters

 

Big black bug bit a big brown bear. 

Some shun sunshine. Do you shun sunshine?

Red leather, yellow leather

https://speechanddramateachersofireland.ie/tongue-twisters/

Jack Black's INSANE Tongue Twisters

Massive Increase in Thefts from major retailers

 

https://johnjayrec.nyc/2023/04/13/databit202302/

Pesticides and Parkinson's Disease

Startling evidence of the link between pesticides and Parkinson's disease.

A 2022 Meta-Analysis: Published in various forms (including systematic reviews such as those in Molecular Neurodegeneration and Environmental Health), this research aggregated data from dozens of cohort and case-control studies. It established the baseline general risk increase of 1.34- to 1.56-fold for individuals with regular pesticide exposure compared to the general population.

The Agricultural Health Study (AHS): A major, long-term study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the EPA, following over 80,000 farmers and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina. This is the source of the data linking Paraquat and Rotenone to a 2.5 times higher risk of PD.

Duration of agricultural pesticide exposure application and Parkinson’s disease in California’s central valley

Two pesticides -- rotenone and paraquat -- linked to Parkinson's disease, study suggests

Investigating Parkinson’s disease risk across farming activities using data mining and large-scale administrative health data

Fraser Spiral Illusion

 

The Fraser spiral illusion is an optical illusion that was first described by the British psychologist Sir James Fraser (1863–1936) in 1908

The illusion is also known as the false spiral, or by its original name, the twisted cord illusion. The overlapping black arc segments appear to form a spiral; however, the arcs are a series of concentric circles.

The visual distortion is produced by combining a regular line pattern (the circles) with misaligned parts (the differently colored strands). The Zöllner illusion and the café wall illusion are based on a similar principle, like many other visual effects, in which a sequence of tilted elements causes the eye to perceive phantom twists and deviations.

A variation I found here

Chromostereopsis Illusions

 

Source: Bigjobby

Chromostereopsis is a visual illusion whereby the impression of depth is conveyed in two-dimensional color images, usually of red–blue or red–green colors, but can also be perceived with red–grey or blue–grey images. Such illusions have been reported for over a century and have generally been attributed to some form of chromatic aberration.

Source

Argument from Incredulity

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity, appeal to common sense, or the divine fallacy,[1] is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

Arguments from incredulity can take the form:I cannot imagine how P could be true; therefore P must be false.
I cannot imagine how P could be false; therefore P must be true.

Arguments from incredulity can sometimes arise from inappropriate emotional involvement, the conflation of fantasy and reality, a lack of understanding, or an instinctive 'gut' reaction, especially where time is scarce.[2] They are also frequently used to argue that something must be supernatural in origin.[3] This form of reasoning is fallacious because one's inability to imagine how a statement can be true or false gives no information about whether the statement is true or false in reality.[

Wikipedia: Argument from incredulity