I recently had a transient mental flash. One part, lasting 15 seconds was a large empty spot in the center of my vision. Like seeing the blog in front of you with the center of the screen a completely white blank circle. About 15 seconds, later while trying to read an article, I found that I could see everything clearly and the words were distinct; but the words made absolutely no sense. It is just like the words ‘made...absolutely....no’ from the previous sentence, were each separate and had no connection.
I was promptly examined by several neurologists and went through a screening on high-tech equipment. It was determined to be a transient phenomenon that was not serious and may not ever recur.
What struck me was the intense focus the neurologists placed on the vision problem almost to the exclusion of the word problem. I can understand that the portion of the brain that assembles visual images and processes them is very important and has developed evolutionarily over a long period of time. It clearly plays an important survival role.
But I am a human being and the ability to connect words and give meaning to those words strikes me as the most complex phenomenon the brain can encounter. I call this phenomenon, and you do to, synthesis.
This is the human component of our brain, it allows us to connect words to the outside world in which we live. Our entire human experience allows us to synthesize the previous uses of those words and their multiple connections to the world we live in. All of these experiences together comprise our modern human understanding of the world.
There are certainly societies of humans that cannot read and do not need to use this particular brain facility.
It is my contention that this facility to synthesize everything about the world I see into words and to put those words into a meaningful context must require the entire part of our brain that makes us modern humans. It is that synthesis function that makes thinking possible.
I am particularly focused on the thinking function of modern humans. I think it stops working in most humans after age 23. So I want to know more about the synthesis area of the brain.
My experience with neurologists, who focused on the optics part of the brain that must indeed be the most measurable and identifiable, is surprising. They are ignoring the part of the human brain that makes us modern humans. Which in turn must be the most interesting part of the brain.