Neo Cortex Quotes

Imagining you are going to die is all part of that third brain… the neo-cortex. That’s where the Landlord really screwed up.

You know what the best course I ever took at college was? Biology. We studied evolution. And I learned something important.’ Now he included Leonard in his gaze. ‘It helped me choose my career. For thousands, no, millions of years we had these huge brains, the neo-cortex, right? But we didn’t speak to each other, and we lived like fucking pigs. There was nothing. No language, no culture, nothing. And then, suddenly, wham! It was there. Suddenly it was something we had to have, and there was no turning back. So why did it suddenly happen?’ Russell shrugged. ‘Hand of God?’ ‘Hand of God my ass. I’ll tell you why. Back then we all used to hang out together all day long doing the same thing. We lived in packs. So there was no need for language. If there was a leopard coming, there was no point saying, Hey man, what’s coming down the track? A leopard! Everyone could see it, everyone was jumping up and down and screaming, trying to scare it off. But what happens when someone goes off on his own for a moment’s privacy? When he sees a leopard coming, he knows something the others don’t. And he knows they don’t know. He has something they don’t, he has a secret, and this is the beginning of his individuality, of his consciousness. If he wants to share his secret and run down the track to warn the other guys, then he’s going to need to invent language. From there grows the possibility of culture. Or he can hang back and hope the leopard will take out the leadership that’s been giving him a hard time. A secret plan, that means more individuation, more consciousness.’ The band was starting to play a fast, loud number. Glass had to shout his conclusion, ‘Secrecy made us possible,’ and Russell raised his beer to salute the theory.

As the neo-cortex of the brain keeps getting more complex through further evolution, eventually our far away progeny will born in a world where there will be no more religion to be endowed upon them.

WHAT corresponds to the neo-cortex, the “newest” part of our brain, which is responsible for rational, analytical thought and language.

When you watch TV, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, which in itself is a neurological anomaly. “The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body’s natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.).”1 In other words, your television works as a high-tech drug delivery system, and we all feel its effects. Another effect of watching television is that the “higher brain regions such as the midbrain and the neo-cortex, are shut down, and most activity shifts to the limbic system, your lower brain region. The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded ‘fight or flight’ response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on.

Bright light activates the neo-cortex (the newest part of the brain, responsible for complex thought, the home of logos), it also stimulates adrenalin production.