Greetings, Friendlies. :)
Following on from our description of Simple Knowing…
In The Social Brain (and in Who’s In Charge?) Gazzaniga recounts an experience illustrating the interpreter module doing its thing on top of basic sensory input. We might say Saṅkhāra-ing/Fabrication in action.
Remember how, for Split-Brain Patients, you can present information to one hemisphere which the other hemisphere does not have access to? (Refresher here) And remember how the Interpreter Module constructs narrative based solely on the information it has access to? (Here and here.) Well, the Interpreter Module (as well as language for most people) is understood to reside in the Left Hemisphere. For Split-Brain Patients, If you present information to the Right Hemisphere only, the Interpreter Module does not have access to that information.
For patient V.P. (who generously volunteered her time), the researchers induced a mood shift to the right hemisphere by showing her a disturbing video about fire safety, in which someone is pushed into a fire. (Yikes. I’m experiencing a mood shift just writing that sentence.)
[Gazzaniga]: What did you see?
V.P.: I don’t really know what I saw. I think just a white flash.
The interpreter module is not aware that her right hemisphere was exposed to the scary video.
[Gazzaniga]: Did it make you feel any emotion?
V.P. I don’t really know why, but I’m kind of scared. I feel jumpy…
The patient is noting the more basic sensory stimuli and interpreting fear. She continues:
[V.P.:] …I think maybe I don’t like this room, or maybe it’s you, you’re getting me nervous.
The interpreter module received information about the autonomic response and interpreted fear. It did not, however, receive information about an obvious cause for this response/emotion. The information it had was that there was fear and that she was in a room and being questioned by Gazzaniga.
V.P. then turned to an assistant and said, “I know I like Dr. Gazzaniga, but right now I’m scared of him…”
The patient did not say, “I feel a rapid heart rate and a nervous excitement. I’m feeling fear. But I don’t know why.” She/her interpreter module constructed a story. She doesn’t get into full-blown [[Papañca]], but we can imagine a scenario in which she allowed the explanation to construct into a story about Gazzaniga or the research lab. A story built on lack of complete information.
Gazzaniga in Who’s In Charge?:
[The interpreter module’s] drive to generate hypotheses is the trigger for human beliefs, which, in turn, constrain our brain.
Hello Paṭiccasamuppāda. (Dependent Arising.)
Your thoughts?
Dharma PhD 