> On Aug 12, 11:38 pm, turtoni fastmail.net> wrote:
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>> On Aug 13, 2:05 am, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>> On Aug 12, 3:19 pm, "Theresa McCarty" qx.net> wrote:

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>>>>     Socialization and genetics aside as crucial variables, individual
>>>> subjectivity is not otherwise differentiable and is thus identical in all.

>

>>> It might go deeper than that. The experience we recognize as
>>> experience, or feeling like we exist, may be happening in the brain-
>>> stem, and hence most animal have this self, but don't have a bunch of
>>> stuff wired up to it like limbic systems and outer cortices.

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>>> Your "3-Brains-in-One" Brain

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>>> You may have thought all you had was one, but inside there are two
>>> more brains.

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>>> Actually, you already know this from your experience: for example,
>>> remember a time when you really wanted to do something, but you knew
>>> you shouldn't? The most illogical or irrational "wants" we have
>>> probably derive from older parts of our brain, while the understanding
>>> of smart versus dumb choices comes from the newest part. If that idea
>>> offends you, or seems just too "Western" or "scientific", you might
>>> take a "de-tour" for a moment and read this essay on science.

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>>>  Take another example: you can be hungry, but not feel it until you
>>> pay attention to it; then when you do notice, you realize you've been
>>> getting hungrier for a long time. Hunger comes from the most basic
>>> parts of our brain, but our awareness of it is controlled by the
>>> newest part.

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>>> Here are the "3 brains":

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>>> Brain One
>>> -Center of the Brain
>>> -"R complex"
>>> -snakes, lizards

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>>> Brain Two
>>> -Wrapped around Brain One
>>> -"limbic system" or "old mammalian brain"
>>> -dogs, cats

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>>> Brain Three
>>> -Outside Surface
>>> -(Wrapped around Brain Two!)
>>> -"neocortex"
>>> -primates, especially human primates

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>>> Brain One

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>>> This is the brain we share with birds, and reptiles. Think of it as
>>> the "housekeeping brain". Just the basics: hunger, temperature
>>> control, fight-or-flight fear responses, defending territory, keeping
>>> safe -- that kind of thing. The structures that perform these
>>> functions within our brain are extremely similar to those in the
>>> brains of reptiles. Thus, this brain is called the "R complex" (R for
>>> reptilian). You can take a Tour of the R complex when you wish; and
>>> you will see parts of it in the section on obsessions.

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>>> Brain Two

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>>> As animals became more complex, other structures were added around the
>>> R complex in a shell, or "girdle". The Latin word for arc or girdle is
>>> "limbus", and this brain is called the "limbic system". We humans
>>> share this brain with older mammals like dogs, cats, and horses, and
>>> even mice (as opposed to newer mammals like chimps; we'll get to them
>>> in a moment). Their brains, and this part of our brains, are extremely
>>> similar.

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>>> Think about the difference between a mouse and a lizard, or between a
>>> cat and a snake, and you'll recognize what this mammalian brain adds
>>> to a creature's capacities. Mammals have "feelings" like ours. We'll
>>> be looking at the structures of the limbic system in the sections on
>>> mood, memory, and hormone control. The main parts of the limbic system
>>> (except the thalamus, which is generally regarded as part of Brain
>>> One) are shown below. By taking all the Brain Tours you'll see each of
>>> these parts and get a better sense of how this set of structures is
>>> positioned underneath the cortex.

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>>> Brain Three

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>>> Here is the familiar "cortex" you can see from the outside. With this
>>> brain, primates can do things that horses and cows cannot, like
>>> complex social interactions and advance planning (such as planning an
>>> attack on a neighboring troop). In humans the cortex has grown to a
>>> huge size, somehow in association with our development of language.
>>> Other primates like chimpanzees, or monkeys, have much less cortex,
>>> which is surprising since chimpanzee DNA differs from ours by only
>>> 1.6%%! (stunning, really; I hope you're stunned. Recently some
>>> technical issues have arisen with this number, but for now, it's still
>>> generally regarded as, well, amazing!). If you wonder why we humans
>>> have populated the entire globe, while our chimp relatives are stuck
>>> in a shrinking rain forest with their nearly identical DNA -- read The
>>> Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond. You've got a great question, and
>>> his is a great answer. (Similarly, if you wonder why white-skinned
>>> humans seem to have an unfair share of the resources and money, his
>>> other masterpiece offers a solid explanation beside skin color: Guns,
>>> Germs, and Steel).

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>>> Three Brains in One

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>>> To keep all this straight, think of the following image (ok, it's a
>>> little odd, but it seems to work; write if you have another one). The
>>> R brain is like a golf club. Let's make it a driver, one of those with
>>> a big fat wooden head. Hold the club so that the head is at the top.
>>> There's your R complex, with your spine sticking down toward the
>>> ground. The R brain is just a big swelling at the top of a spinal
>>> cord, and that's how it developed. Worms have little swellings, snakes
>>> have bigger ones. OK so far?

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>>> Next we'll add the layer that makes mammals behave so differently from
>>> reptiles. This next "layer", the old mammalian brain, evolved on top
>>> of the R complex. It was not a remodel so much as an addition, like
>>> adding on bedrooms all the way around a kitchen/bathroom. This
>>> addition covers the entire R complex, leaving the R complex deep
>>> within the brain. In our model, take the golf club, and cover the head
>>> with a sock; a big thick red one would be nice. Now you have the R
>>> brain (golf club), with the old mammalian brain wrapped around it
>>> (sock). Notice that the red sock forms a shell, or continuous border
>>> around the golf club head.

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>>> To complete the brain picture, add a bicycle or hockey helmet on top
>>> of your red-socked golf club head: that's the newest mammalian
>>> addition, the "cortex", and it is the grey squiggly stuff you can see
>>> on the outside. If you'd like a tour of the cortex itself, as you've
>>> seen it so far (like, what are those colored parts?), click here.

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>>>http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/triune%%20brain.htm

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>> I think this is too simplistic. Wrapped around?

>

>> More likely the whole brain structure is a complexity of interwoven
>> networks rather than layers of inherited intelligence building over
>> themselves.

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> Only problem with that is that reptiles have similar parts to their
> brain stems but nothing else, some vertebrates and mammals don't have
> any outer cortex but have the reptilian brain stem and the limbic mid
> brain structures. In order for you position to be sustained you would
> need to account for those strange similarities and differences and the
> accompanying behaviors that each of those three brains have been show
> to contribute to.