Dramatica and the Brain

Recently, a Dramatica user asked a question about the relationship of the Left Brain / Right Brain concept to Dramatica’s Story Mind concept.  My reply (which follows) provides the nitty gritty, but is pretty dense and uses “short speak” because the Dramatica user is something of an expert with a lot of depth and pre-knowledge about Dramatica’s psychological underpinnings.  So, this probably isn’t very readable and may even come off as word salad or bull crap to the uninitiate.  Still, it has a lot of good information in a small space for those who are into such things.  So, for the benefit of all you die-hard Dramatica groupies, here’ the durn reply, as is, take it or leave it….

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Ganglia are like tiny brains – they share a fractal relationship with the brain at large. Just as they are networks made up of individual neurons, the brain is a network made up of individual ganglia. The brain’s dynamic functioning is more directly connected to the output and more directly inputs to the ganglia than to individual neurons, just as the body, as a whole is more directly affected by the organs than by the individual cells that make them up. And so, we create, in essence, one magnitude of fractal distance between the brain and its tiny, similarly functioning ganglia. The operation of each defines, essentially one fractal dimension, so by considering them both simultaneously, we can see two fractal dimensions. Putting that aside for a moment, let’s just look at the brain in terms of left and right brainedness. Now we have two functions that operate within the same fractal dimension – a structural side (the left brain) and a dynamic side (the right). Jumping down to a ganglia, we see the same division within its fractal dimension – a left hemi-ganglion and a right-hemi ganglion. Now I haven’t kept up with the latest in neurology, but twenty years ago Mental Relativity theory predicted that there would be a structural and dynamic component to the ganglia as well. I original suspected it would be the same as the larger brain, based on left-ness or righted-ness. But then, I learned of L cells and R cells within each ganglion. And I began to wonder if perhaps these cells were what created two dimensions in each ganglia. I speculated that perhaps one of these kinds of cells produced mostly neuro-exciter neurotransmitters, and the other produced mostly neuro-inhibitors, similar to serotonin and dopamine. The influence of one would favor the structural (binary) firing of neurons and the influence of the other would inhibit that, allowing the biochemical environment around the body (axon) of the neuron to have more influence, thereby favoring slightly the more analog effects of the ebb and flow of the biochemistry within each ganglia. It occurred to me that perhaps that is where, physiologically, the differences between male minds and female minds actually resides. Perhaps before birth, the wash of hormones that occurs in the womb around the 12th week, as I recall (being no expert, mind you, and also twenty years out of date in research) – this wash of hormones “sets” the ratio of effectiveness of the L cells to the R cells throughout the brain, thereby making each little neural network any given ganglia a little more leaning-toward structural or dynamic processing. But, I digress. The specific physiology is way out of my pay grade. What I do expect is that the left and right brains work at the same level, but one structurally and the other dynamically. I expect this will be found (functionally) in each ganglion as well, but as one fractal dimension below that of the whole brain. The result is a relationship similar to that of Knowledge and Thought (using Mental Relativity Theory terminology) which are both at the same “fractal level” in concept, just as are Mass and Energy. This can be seen insofar as they can both directly interact such as with kinetic energy transfer in billiard balls, for example, but also they can transmute from one to another, such as in a nuclear bomb. In short, just as with Mass and Energy, it takes a lot of Thought to make a little bit of Knowledge, but a tiny bit of Knowledge can generate a tremendous amount of Thought! But to complete the Mental Relativity Quad of Knowledge and Thought, you also must include the other two elemental components of the mind, Ability and Desire. When you thing of them, they are at a whole different fractal level. They share the same relationship as Space and Time, respectively. Knowledge and Thought (or Mass and Energy) are a “Dynamic Pair” – meaning that they have something of an inverse relationship (the more you come from what you know, the less you think). Ability and Desire (or Space and Time) are also in an inverse relationship (hence, what is perceived as a space-time continuum, though I take some exception to that perspective). Space and Time belong together like Mass and Energy do, but each pair isn’t operating at the same fractal level as the other, just as the two sides of the big brain belong together, just as the two aspects of the little brain (ganglia) do, but big and little aren’t on the same playing field – they are in two separate leagues, operating similarly, but one is the minor league and the other the major. And yet, both leagues are dependent upon one another, one for new talent from below, the other for financial support from above. And so, collectively all four items, Mass, Energy, Space and Time or Knowledge, Thought, Ability and Desire, or Left Brain, Right Brain, Left hemi-ganglion and right hemi-ganglion all form quads, each a slightly different fractal harmonic of the others, but working internally with virtually the same structure and dynamics. We directly perceive four dimensions because our brains exist in four dimensions. Our brains exist in four dimensions because we perceive them. In fact, no such limitations exist and dimensions may easily extend both up and down the magnitude scale. But when perception becomes locked, dimensionally, to reality – or more poetically put, when mind and matter become dynamically locked in a structural interrelationship, they dance around the ring of reality like two boxers in a bout, covering all the ground in a universe and bound only by the limits of their own unbreakable inter-relationship. Hey – sorry I got carried away, but you asked! 🙂 – Melanie