This blog post explores why humans seek to interpret the world through the narrative forms of myth and science, examining the cognitive structures and nature underlying this pursuit.
We humans are creatures that analyze causality. The question “Why?” has been a central pillar throughout human history. Questions like “Why do lightning and storms torment us?”, “Why does it not rain?”, and “Why do people die?” likely sprang from the fears of early civilizations struggling to survive in a harsh natural environment. Initially, they created religion. Gods were the source of nature beyond human comprehension and the central beings of destruction. Humans believed divine wrath and anger caused natural disasters like droughts and floods, so they offered sacrifices, built altars, and prayed. Myths and scriptures were written, becoming the way humans interpreted and accepted the world.
This interpretive approach is also found in the realm of scholarship. Ancient Greece sought to understand natural phenomena more logically.
They debated what nature was composed of and what its most fundamental elements were. Gradually, this discussion expanded into discourse analyzing society and discussing the state and warfare. In China too, various thinkers made ‘understanding’ and ‘interpreting’ society an essential task, criticizing the violent circumstances of their times and proposing solutions. Myth and religion are found throughout the world, differing only in degree.
Analysis and interpretation that exclude gods, along with understanding of society and the state, also appear across different cultural spheres. Thus, the human effort to analyze phenomena and unravel causal relationships in some form is a universal phenomenon and can be seen as an inherent characteristic of human nature. Regarding the question of where this nature resides, I would argue it is directly linked to our brains. Because our language and thought originate in the brain, the way the brain understands the world and the form in which humans understand the world within structures like society must inevitably resemble each other. To understand this, it is necessary to examine studies analyzing how the brain perceives the world.
As most people know, our brain is divided into compartments. The largest portion is the cerebrum, which consists of two hemispheres: the left and right brain. Between these two hemispheres lies the corpus callosum, a region composed of countless interconnected neurons. The corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres and, due to its high density of neurons, is responsible for information exchange within the cerebrum. Signals typically reaching the cerebrum via the spinal cord pass through the pons and the thalamus in the midbrain. Consequently, even without traversing the corpus callosum, these signals reach both hemispheres relatively evenly. While the two hemispheres of the cerebrum are connected to the midbrain and can exchange related information, this is not the case for information transmitted via the corpus callosum, such as visual information. Visual stimuli are a prime example of such information. When the corpus callosum is severed, the left hemisphere cannot perceive objects in the left visual field, and the right hemisphere cannot recognize objects in the right visual field. In this regard, the corpus callosum is a critically important region for information exchange.
Some individuals have undergone surgery to sever this corpus callosum. This procedure, called a corpus callosotomy, has been shown to alleviate symptoms of epilepsy. Considering the function of the corpus callosum, this is a logical outcome, as epilepsy is a disease caused by abnormal signal transmission occurring in localized areas or throughout the entire brain. This surgery has been able to alleviate symptoms for patients suffering from unpredictable seizures. At the time, it was a feasible surgery because the function of the corpus callosum was not clearly understood. Surprisingly, patients who underwent these surgeries lived their daily lives without significant difficulty. The person who began studying these patients was Dr. Roger Sperry. Through his research, he proved ‘lateralization’ – the concept that the two hemispheres of the cerebrum specialize in different roles. This firmly established lateralization, which had previously been indirectly confirmed through language disorders caused by left-brain damage. Later, Dr. Michael Gazzaniga discovered the ‘interpreting left brain’ and the patterns of lateralization using various methods.
In Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of The Mind, Dr. Gazzaniga described presenting a paper with specific instructions written on it to a split-brain patient (abbreviated P.S.) in their left visual field. For example, if the instruction read ‘Stand up from your seat,’ P.S. would naturally stand up. However, when asked why they stood up, the patient reportedly gave an unrelated answer like, “I was just about to go get a Coke.” This suggests that despite acting on the instruction, the patient failed to recognize the instruction itself and instead attempted to justify their own action.
Dr. Gazzaniga uses the ‘simultaneous concept task’ in his split-brain research with Dr. Joseph E. Ledoux. According to this study, split-brain patients are presented with two different pictures in each hemisphere. Because different visual information is presented in different visual fields, the patient’s left eye cannot perceive information in the right visual field, and the right brain cannot recognize information in the left visual field. For example, if a snow-covered road was presented in P.S.’s left visual field and a chicken foot in the right visual field, selecting a shovel for clearing snow and a chicken from a row of pictures would be the result of appropriate associative processing. Indeed, the patient selected the shovel with his left hand and the chicken picture with his right hand. The experimenter then asked the split-brain patient why he chose those pictures. Regarding the chicken selection, the patient answered it was because the chicken feet were presented. However, for the shovel selection, the patient explained, “Because it’s needed to clean the chicken coop.” This demonstrates that the patient could not refer to the visual information transmitted to the right hemisphere and attempted to explain their actions as logically as possible using the information they were aware of.
Through this experiment, Dr. Gazzaniga interpreted that with the corpus callosum severed, the left and right hemispheres could not exchange visual information, and the choices made by the right hemisphere could not be communicated to the left hemisphere. Since the brain region primarily responsible for language is predominantly located in the left hemisphere, only information recognized by the left hemisphere could be expressed verbally. Therefore, P.S. could state the reason for choosing the chicken, but could only give a statement differing from the facts regarding the reason for choosing the shovel. Dr. Gazzaniga concluded from this that the left hemisphere tends to interpret phenomena and situations while solely handling language functions.
Split-brain research revealed that the left and right hemispheres of the cerebrum share distinct roles, with the left hemisphere playing a particularly crucial role in language functions and logical/causal reasoning. While the right hemisphere can also perceive objects and process information, information composed of auditory or visual symbols originates in the left hemisphere. Another noteworthy aspect here is the left hemisphere’s ‘justification’. Gazaniga mentioned in Cognitive Neuroscience that the left hemisphere attempted to explain the patient’s choices as logically as possible. In other words, the left hemisphere approaches phenomena from an interpretive and analytical perspective, viewing the human tendency toward rational thought as originating in the left hemisphere. That is, explaining phenomena we cannot understand is deeply linked to our cognitive structure.
When a gap emerges between reality and our understanding, we construct and structure narratives in our own way. This characteristic of the left brain gave rise to ancient myths and folktales, through which we understood the world. Attempts to transform and modify myths to achieve a higher-level understanding of nature and society manifested as philosophy. Even in modern times, this structure persists within the worldview dominated by science. For example, we cast atoms and subatomic particles as ‘protagonists,’ viewing the formation and transformation of life and chemical reactions as a grand narrative. Within this, physical laws take the place of gods, and everything formed by particles exists as a single narrative and ‘hero.’ The desire to understand the world through such grand stories remains a fundamental human instinct, even if this structure, in a way, limits our perspective.
