Biology 202 Book Commentary

Through the centuries, generations have passed on wisdoms about the mind. Recently cognitive and social psychology research has indicated that a lot of this wisdom was true. In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt discusses ten such wisdoms and how they can be applied to our lives today. Haidt also discusses the evolution of certain parts of the mind. In this commentary, I will be focusing on the origins of the storyteller and how it advises and explains our intuitive gut reactions.

“A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?”-- C. P. Snow

Desmond Hubbard

NeuroBiology and Behavior

Prof. Grobstein

The Sociopath Next Door

Jim Wiltsee
Professor Grobstein
5/9/09
NeuroBio & Behavior
Book Commentary: The Metamorphosis by Kafka

"Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day.                                         He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941.  He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963.  He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all events in between  (4).”

Every person on this planet has a personality that hasdeveloped over the course of his or her life. There have been a numerous numberof explanations as to why people behave in the way they do. The majorreasoning’s given for the development of personalities is either genetics orenvironment. Why do we have the personalities we do? Is it because of theparents that we have, or is it because of the environment we grow up in?

The Storyteller’s Reconstruction:
Over My Head, by Claudia Osborn  

            Claudia Osborn’s Over My Head is a riveting journey of coping, rehabilitating and learning before and after brain trauma.  The story shines a new light on the behavioral consequences of such an injury.  Through the lens of biology 202, we are able to understand that a reconstruction of the storyteller occurs in Claudia’s case.  This reconstruction leads to novel confabulations of the same stimuli that she received before her accident.