Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The division of labor by the two cerebral hemispheres—once thought to be uniquely human—predates us by half a billion years. Speech, right-handedness, facial recognition and the processing of spatial relations can be traced to brain asymmetries in early vertebrates... Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain: Scientific American
Perhaps the most remarkable implication of these findings is that the voice area previously identified in the human brain is not uniquely human and that it has a counterpart in the brain of nonhuman primates. That discovery, in turn, implies that the voice area has a long evolutionary history and was probably already present in the common ancestor of macaques and humans some 20 million years ago. It is known that the cognitive talents underlying voice perception, such as speaker recognition, are shared with many other animal species, but the findings of Petkov and his colleagues provide a cerebral location for these abilities. Monkey Brains Hint at Evolutionary Root of Language Processing: Scientific American
The division of labor by the two cerebral hemispheres—once thought to be uniquely human—predates us by half a billion years. Speech, right-handedness, facial recognition and the processing of spatial relations can be traced to brain asymmetries in early vertebrates... Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain: Scientific American
Perhaps the most remarkable implication of these findings is that the voice area previously identified in the human brain is not uniquely human and that it has a counterpart in the brain of nonhuman primates. That discovery, in turn, implies that the voice area has a long evolutionary history and was probably already present in the common ancestor of macaques and humans some 20 million years ago. It is known that the cognitive talents underlying voice perception, such as speaker recognition, are shared with many other animal species, but the findings of Petkov and his colleagues provide a cerebral location for these abilities. Monkey Brains Hint at Evolutionary Root of Language Processing: Scientific American
Interesting studys.
I think anything as important in the history of our species as a complettely different kind of mentality existing only a hundred generations ago demands some statement of what went on physiologically. How was it possible? Given this profoundly subtle structure of nerve cells and fibers inside our skulls, how could that structure have been organized so that a speaking mentality been possible? If primordal man was able to speak, if he was mediated by speech of some type, then the speech areas of his brain must be considered in some important way.
I believe what we see in modern apes today, concerning speech, was not far from primordal mans unconscious ability to not speak language. I believe the speech areas were all there in him, just not the conscious ability to do so, that never evolved in him in my view.
The speech areas in man are basically three; all on the left hemisphere in the great majority of humanity. They are; (1.)the supplementary motor cortex, on the very top of the left frontal lobe, removal of which by surgery produces a loss of speech which clears up in several weeks; (2) the lower down at the back of the left frontal lobe, the removal of which produces a loss of speech which is sometimes permanent and sometimes not;(3) the posterior part of the left temporal lobe with parts of the parietal area, any large destruction of after a certain age produces a permanent loss of meaningful speech. It is my contention that without the addition of consciousness, these are just physical tissue. And evolution cannot deposit consciousness which leads to language; language is a conscious social action, and evolution wouldnot have the sense to place all its physical functions on the left side of the brain. Thats explicit design!
The language of men involved only one hemisphere in order to leave the other free for the language of gods.
I agree that farming and pottery were an ignition for civilization; we can agree there. In my view, consciousness both keys the ignition and reveals a conscious God giver of it. The answer is more and more clear to me if tentative. The selective pressures of evolution which could have brought about so mighty a result as civilization, it just was not powerful enough to produce the neurological structure necessary for language, the emotional construction for religion, and the intellect for science. Evolution is too weak and vague by the start of mesolithic ; in either view one takes, the mesolithic men are now hearing from the voices of gods. Whichever gods, and I say this with presumption, they heard from were amalgams of admonitory experience, made up of meldings of whatever commands had been given. While the divine areas wouldnot have to be involved in speech, they would have to be involved in hearing and in understanding language. And I think this proves God.
If the preceding model is correct, there might be some residual indication, no matter how small, of the ancient divine function of the right hemisphere. Since the voices of the gods had to entail articulate speech , man had to had been given ability in the motor area in order to respond.
If evolution has shaped all animal and plant life up to and including the artists of the palaeolithic and produced the ingenious survivalists of the ice ages when the equally smart Neanderthalers failed to survive, then it is a pretty powerful force for everything including consciousness. I see the discovery of farming as just a way of introducing larger scale community (which we call civilization) to the smaller tribal units who evidently has the mental wherewithal already.
I'd better leave the knowledgeable Sans. to deal with this claim that one third of the brain handles human speech leaving the other free for the 'language of the gods'.
I'd better leave the knowledgeable Sans. to deal with this claim that one third of the brain handles human speech leaving the other free for the 'language of the gods'.
Well I respect Sans views as well. There are two forms in which this hypothesis can be specified, the stronger form I favor; because it is simpler and more specific,( and thus more easily verified or disconfirmed by empirical investigation), is that the speech of the gods was directly organized on the right hemisphere and spoken or heard over the anterior commissures to or by the auditory areas of the left temporal lobe. And I don't see evolution capable of doing this; consider the evolutionary problem; billions of nerve cells processing complex experience on one side and needing to send the results over to the other through the much smaller commissures. Some code would have to be used , some way of reducing very complicated processing into a form that could be transmitted through the fewer neurons particularly of the anterior commissures.
And what better code has ever appeared in the evolution of nervous systems than human language? That code was consciousness and it had to have been implanted from outside of this system; it is the most efficent method of getting complicated cortical processing from one side of the brain to the other. God actually preparing the human brain to communicate with him and others.
Well I respect Sans views as well. There are two forms in which this hypothesis can be specified, the stronger form I favor; because it is simpler and more specific,( and thus more easily verified or disconfirmed by empirical investigation), is that the speech of the gods was directly organized on the right hemisphere and spoken or heard over the anterior commissures to or by the auditory areas of the left temporal lobe. And I don't see evolution capable of doing this; consider the evolutionary problem; billions of nerve cells processing complex experience on one side and needing to send the results over to the other through the much smaller commissures. Some code would have to be used , some way of reducing very complicated processing into a form that could be transmitted through the fewer neurons particularly of the anterior commissures.
And what better code has ever appeared in the evolution of nervous systems than human language? That code was consciousness and it had to have been implanted from outside of this system; it is the most efficient method of getting complicated cortical processing from one side of the brain to the other. God actually preparing the human brain to communicate with him and others.
Hang on - doesn't that mean that you accept that evolution could account for human language (speech and understanding - very complex, I agree) but it doesn't account for 'the language of the gods' whatever that is, but it sounds more akin to hearing voices in the head. And animals have often a better capacity to hear voices than humans do. Understanding the voice is just the same as in human speech - understanding - which you ascribe to the evolved part of the brain.
You want to go over that again and tell us just what this 'language of the gods' is that isn't hearing and understanding function within the brain?
Oh I already know what I am talking about; you just don't know what I am saying. And you have not addressed everything I have said either.
As a published geologist with many years of field and lab experience, I can say with no hesitation whatsoever that you do not, in fact, know what you are talking about.
Physical evolution is no longer important in humans, consciousness is whats important. Physical evolutions roots rummage far back into the musty history of primordal man, internal evolution was important then; now it simply has reduced and is reserved at best. And I maintain this, inspite of the proud feathers it has ruffled in some die hard evolutionist. The human body grew weary of evolution, 7 million years of it; and yet the diehardist still want more. In one laboratory after another biology will deny them their thirst, the excitement they get from simple darkness being made light.
Anatomical evolution is subtracting itself from reality, the time has come for " The Waking Brain." The excitement many die hard evolutionist seek gives over reason to delusion, they have a tendency to always try to translate psychological phenomena into neuro-anatomy and chemistry. They don't understand the true orgin of consciousness, which was the cancelation of evolution, so they continue to see a reason for evolution and they are abusing evolution , streching it far beyong its true purpose. They are addicted to evolution now, cannot let it go, and will substain their abuse of it like an addict. And continue to stay in denial until they rehab.
Hang on - doesn't that mean that you accept that evolution could account for human language (speech and understanding - very complex, I agree) but it doesn't account for 'the language of the gods' whatever that is, but it sounds more akin to hearing voices in the head. And animals have often a better capacity to hear voices than humans do. Understanding the voice is just the same as in human speech - understanding - which you ascribe to the evolved part of the brain.
You want to go over that again and tell us just what this 'language of the gods' is that isn't hearing and understanding function within the brain?
The language of the gods are voices comming from one side of the brain to the other; in early man the voices and the music, whether garbled or reconized, were experienced as actually heard, and the visual hallucinations were experienced as actually seen; just as Achilles experienced Thetis, or Moses heard Yahweh out of the burning bush. Often the exploratory stimulation produced an hallucination, but the stimulation was always on the posterior part of the middle gyrus of the right temporal lobe, if you look at the science of the biology.
I shouldnot give the impression that it is all simple; but the important thing about almost all those stimulation - caused experiences is "Their Otherness", their oppisition from self, rather than the selfs own actions or words. If you study the history and read behind the lines, something other than evolution prodded man at various sundry times. The area of the temporal lobe are not the brains record of auditory and visual experience , nor are they its retrieval, but combinations and amalgamations of certain aspects of that experience which consciousness sorts out. It is a spirit in man, but we do not see that and we give the orgin of language and consciousness over to evolution rather than that conscious spirit. That conscious spirit is the sounding board for the language of the gods.
The function of the gods was chiefly the guiding and planning of action in novel situations in our history. The gods size up the problems and organize action according to an ongoing pattern or purpose, resulting in our intricate history. Planting times, harvest times, our calender, the sorting out of commodities, all the vast putting together of things in a grand design that evolution couldnot fulfill on its own. Particulary the giving of directions to the neurological man in his verbal analytical sanctuary in the left hemisphere. This is how civilization was sorted out in our ancient minds. And God had a hand in all of it. Many changes humans made back then came from these vocies of the gods ; this tampering with their right hemisphere.
As I believe evolution simply was God tampering with the physical bodies of primordal man, the dawn of civilization was him tampering with their consciousness.
You are still playing make believe Mickiel, even though you are now claiming to accept evolution...If you actually do accept it, that does not mean you can invent all kinds of nonsense about it...You either accept all of the facts of the science or just go entirely back to your make believe world where you are more comfortable.
The language of the gods are voices comming from one side of the brain to the other; in early man the voices and the music, whether garbled or reconized, were experienced as actually heard, and the visual hallucinations were experienced as actually seen; just as Achilles experienced Thetis, or Moses heard Yahweh out of the burning bush. Often the exploratory stimulation produced an hallucination, but the stimulation was always on the posterior part of the middle gyrus of the right temporal lobe, if you look at the science of the biology.
I shouldnot give the impression that it is all simple; but the important thing about almost all those stimulation - caused experiences is "Their Otherness", their oppisition from self, rather than the selfs own actions or words. If you study the history and read behind the lines, something other than evolution prodded man at various sundry times. The area of the temporal lobe are not the brains record of auditory and visual experience , nor are they its retrieval, but combinations and amalgamations of certain aspects of that experience which consciousness sorts out. It is a spirit in man, but we do not see that and we give the orgin of language and consciousness over to evolution rather than that conscious spirit. That conscious spirit is the sounding board for the language of the gods.
The function of the gods was chiefly the guiding and planning of action in novel situations in our history. The gods size up the problems and organize action according to an ongoing pattern or purpose, resulting in our intricate history. Planting times, harvest times, our calender, the sorting out of commodities, all the vast putting together of things in a grand design that evolution couldnot fulfill on its own. Particulary the giving of directions to the neurological man in his verbal analytical sanctuary in the left hemisphere. This is how civilization was sorted out in our ancient minds. And God had a hand in all of it. Many changes humans made back then came from these vocies of the gods ; this tampering with their right hemisphere.
As I believe evolution simply was God tampering with the physical bodies of primordal man, the dawn of civilization was him tampering with their consciousness.
It does sound very speculative and the brain - halves argument depends upon whether what it is getting is real or imaginary. Now, many effects previously thought to be religious/spiritual/mystical - voices in the head (I mean disembodied voices, not just mentally talking to yourself) the effects of prayer/meditation, the feeling of a 'presence', NED's are, after some experimentation looking, more or less, like tricks played by the brain.
While there is always the 'possible' I would say that your theory is both historically, biologically as well as physiologically, looking very speculative indeed.
P.s I cannot resist reposting my suspicions that Paul's visions of Jesus were not to be trusted
Acts 9.3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied
and Paul's comment Gal. 4. 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, 14 and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-18-2012 at 04:26 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
