SDLC 105: Discussion Post #1

[Elspeth Collard]

These readings emphasize to me how little we know about the brain. While a lot of the claims in the first reading are based on scientific evidence, I also know that a lot of the studies of the brain are based on what results when parts of it malfunctions or what part is stimulated during certain situations. However, I am not a neuroscientist, so it is possible that this is too wide of a generalization. Reading about how language and meaning is processed and created in the brain, however, still highlights to me how immensely complex the processes in our brain are and how little we are able to physiologically visualize as of now. I thought that little anomalies like the left hemisphere being more dominant when it comes to language in right handed people, but that not being the case in left-handed people were fascinating and also just so confusing. It makes me think about evolution and how our bodies are not always operating in the most efficient fashion. They are using pre-existing processes and structures that have changed over time to better fit the needs of humans. Language processing and comprehension in the brain, even particularly in left-handed people, could have different processes, in a way that manifests in these varying dominances of the hemispheres. Dominance could be the wrong approach entirely. Who knows! Probably not me after reading two chapters. I also thought the exploration of meaning was particularly powerful, specifically that connections between words and phrases are arbitrary, even the meaning of meaning. One question that I began to wonder as I read was does language more affect how we see the world or does how see the world more affect our language?