Our Amazing Brains

[Anna Billings]

For anyone interested in the inner workings of the brain, here is a personal story of a brain researcher and her experience of a stroke that opened her awareness to realms of consciousness previously unexplained. Science, spirituality, and the fascinating experience of being human.

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[ddeubel]

Yes, I watched this several weeks ago and it was amazing. Watchable over and over again and she does what all good presentations must -- both exhibit emotion, the emotive persona AND not just engage but compel . I was compeled to really explore deeper her own notion of our own possibilities and especially the possibility we might refuse to kill each other and rather -- live with each other....

The last several months I've had wonderful conversations with masters students and teachers on another private Ning I've organized. Lots or most of it centered on the brain and its questions and so few answers. Here are a few excellent videos about the brain, from a great series -- also I'd suggest, the BBC Brain Story. A 6 part series. But these three will be more than enough amazement and will even pall Jill's own miraculous story.


David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com

[Skip Zilla]

Thanks, David, for pointing to this video series by the BBC. I'm more than amazed by what neurophysiologists and cognitive scientists are discovering about our human brains--my sense of what we know and do as persons and as "educators" is being transformed by what's being learned. It's interesting to me, however, to sense, too, at the very same time, that discoverers throughout human history are still in play, cognitively and humanly--that what's new under the sun is somehow very old. How can that be? The brains we're equiped with are the same as those human beings have been existing with for tens of thousands of years, if not longer. All of this new learning has the prospective for a new (second?) Enlightenment. The cognitive, cultural (-intellectual), and historical (-material/geographical) experience of our species has captured my imagination, and my personal/professional ambitions have been redirected by the active "movement" to find out and love who we are individually and collectively. Education is not a matter for me of technological systems of knowledge acquisition and application--as important as those processes may be--it's a way to becoming epigentically and culturally human--amazingly human in ways we have been too dim-witted to imagine. I'm fully engaged in identifying the themes and the narratives to contribute to a spiritual, social, and political "redemption" of a speciaes which has been determined to turn Eden into a wasteland of its artificial idols. (I apologize to the left-brained crowd for allowing my right-brained cognitive being to mystify a little beyond all the wondrous results of more self-consious scientific experimentation and hypothesizing.)
We need to find a way to transform the everyday nearnsightedness of educational discussions so that we can get on to the the real work of helping our young and ourselves learn how amazing we are and how wondrously wealthy we might all be in common.

[Anna Billings]

Hi David,
Thanks for your comment and for the great video! I would love to view the next segment on creativity that was mentioned at the end of this one. How can I access the rest of that series? Also I'm interested in finding the BBC series. Is it available on DVD? And your Ning sounds fascinating.
Anna

[Skip Zilla]

Thanks, Anna, for posting this video.
There is so much we can't intellectualize in a left-brained way about being the mindful (both right and left sided) beings we are. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows what Jill Bolte Taylor has experienced. In some way, we all have had at least moments when we've experienced for ourselves the very different ways our hemisphered brains equip us to be in the world. Those times in my own history when I've for one reason or another been disconnected from the everyday world's definitions of who I am (socially), it seems that another me fills the void of identity with a much more expansive, amazing, even energetic self connected more deeply and directly to what exists no longer as other around me. There are wonders and signs that comprise the amazing minds we are which emerge from our amazing brains.
Some people might say that when you get to a certain age in life you've lived long enough to have learned that some matters of living are more valuable than others you thought were so when you were younger. There is a kind of foolishness which younger folks would hardly call wisdom that one "knows" to have been accumulating perhaps subliminally and without acknowledgment during the most active engagements of one's lifetime, which seems like home--a home to which one is returning as if it had been in a state of preparation all along.
Jill Taylor is whole, has made that round-trip. What she tells of what she's learned to be true about herself as a person and as an object of scientific understanding has important implications for how we approach an understanding of what education can and should be about. It also affirms what somehow we all deeply know already.

[Anna Billings]

Thanks for your comments, Skip. Another example of how our experience of being human is a huge and mysterious realm where all fields of study, wonderings, and experience love to meet and play, muse, hypothesize, conjecture, and investigate. My sense is that our humanness will always elude precise definition, but that's part of what makes it (and us) so fascinating. I'm quite intrigued by these recent brain-studies, neuroscience, and the world of new technologies (limited as my understanding might be). It's a boost to me to know that positive changes in the brain (new synapses and such) have been documented in the realm of therapeutic relationships. Certainly this is true of all significant and positive relationships not the least of which is that of teacher-student.
Anna

[Anna Billings]

My apologies to all as the posted video isn't working properly. I'll try correcting it soon. Meanwhile, David and Skip, thanks so much for you comments. I'll post a more thoughtful response sometime tomorrow as I'm on my way to work now. Thanks for your help and coaching, Skip. I'm still in tutorial about it all.
Anna

[ddeubel]

Skip,

You are bang on about how this new knowledge will help transform how we live and what we "should" do, with our precious time here on earth. Much that is so amazing and your notion of a "revolution" is not far off the mark.

That said, I do think we are still in the dark ages but with some cracks for the light to get through .......... I loved Jill's talk but I also can say that I disagree with her own "science" , especially regarding such clear distinctions of use and process by each brain hemisphere. An axiom to follow when talking about brain function should be "latent structure rules obvious" to borrow from Heraclitus. Meaning, the brain is multipharious (sp?) and what we see as obvious is only surface and not the true underpinnings. A good analogy would be those hubcaps that appear to be going clockwise while the wheel is going counter clockwise. I don't by the distinction of brain hemispheres but have another explanation (probably just as incorrect and temporary) for theory of mind. There is a fascinating recent story of a severe epileptic who had his whole right brain removed.....he became absolutely normal and able to function well in the world.....the brain can adapt incredibly and WHY it can is what will reveal so much for us. (like those special encephalactics who deprived of oxygen during the later stages of pregnancy don't "grow" a brain. They are born with only a thin film on the inner casing of the cranium. You can shine a flashlight through their brain. Still , they are "normal" and this microfilm of a brain has all the same functional ability as our own one of several kilos.)

The videos above are in the public realm and can be found also at www.learner.org . They also have a few old but good explanatory videos about brain structure and functioning...

For the Brain story series, hosted by a world renowned brain specialist, you got to download by torrent. The series is old and should be public!!!!! why we hoard "ideas" is beyond me.

Very easy to do. first download this piece of open source software : utorrent

Then go to the Brain Story torrent (pieces of the video flowing around cyberspace) and click on the episode you want. Click Download and then click Open. The above software will open and download this for you. May take some time. It will display how much you've downloaded and you can stop the program anytime and restart when not using the computer (because it can take up some computing power).

I"m sure you all have the brain power to figure it out!!!!

David

[Anna Billings]

And it remains a mystery as to why I can't get this video up and running here. As a test, I practiced with several other Ted videos, posting them to my comment box — all successfully. Using the same method, every time I try to post the Jill Taylor one, it doesn't work, gets stuck in "loading video." Skip was able to post it successfully on my page in a comment box. You also can go directly to the Ted Website to view this. Meanwhile, for now, my inability to get it working here rests in the realm of mystery. I welcome any creative ideas for solutions, left-brain, right-brain, or any spontaneous "ah-ha".
Anna

[ddeubel]

Anna,

Those are the only 3 videos I know in that series.....

Here is a great list of podcasts about the brain and the amazing discoveries and "non discoveries" (just as important, these "failures". Hosted by Dr. Ginger Campbell. Go to the main blog and find lots of interesting reading.....A great topic!

[Connie Weber]

Thanks, Anna, Skip, David, for this fascinating and uplifting discussion--
The references here could keep us going for days. So much to learn, such powerful ways to be learning... Great that we can pool our knowledge-paths, strengthen and energize our community learning. This is a good example of what it's all about in 21st century learning. Very grateful for what's "being composed" here!