Thoughts regarding human physiology and form <--> function

This is going to be kind of a run-on post containing much of what I have been thinking about this summer while attempting to re-engineer myself to become a better version of how I currently stand.

For much of my life, I have had trouble with holding inner tension and not breathing properly. Although, luckily, this did not work to impair my physical or mental development (to my knowledge at least), I have noticed a kind of difference between myself and other people where I have ignored certain obvious pieces of information that any other sane person would have noticed. More specifically, these pieces of information have been related to expressed emotion or certain holistic features. Holistic features can be categorized as one's ability to judge a situation in the context of something else. This ability is represented, for example, in being able to judge what part of the city you are in and how to get to your destination without navigation. Then, the analytical part of your brain kicks in which breaks down the turns you need to get from point A to point B.

There is a distinct relationship between being able to read emotion and judging holistic features as they are both right brain-ed activities. The lateralization of brain functions, in my opinion, is a very obvious fact that can be reached consensus with through pure observation. The most common way to differentiate between left and right is to watch yourself in the mirror as you try to recall some kind of factual information based on true events and compare it to constructing some kind of an imaginary story with certain strong emotional aspects. For most people, the former results in their eyes looking to the left, somewhere between 0-90 degrees from their nose where as the latter results in looking towards the right at an angle >90 degrees. I think that such strong lateralization is probably a result of gradual emergence of consciousness. This concept is evident in that the lateralization is a result of the brain's core structures (immediately above brain-stem) being specialized for technical thinking or holistic thinking. From there, much of the studies have confirmed that our brains have evolved from inside out. To expand upon why I think that these basic structures might be specialized, I have an anecdote.

I first got the idea that consciousness has to be gradual when I saw a wasp find its way into my garage through a little opening above the door. Then, I saw it go to a certain corner and examine to see whether it was a good place to build their next home. And finally, it left through the same opening it had come through. A day went by, and I found a wasp (probably the same scout) in my garage the next day around the same time as the day before at the same location it had been examining the previous day. So, I decided to play a little trick on the wasp. I patched up the opening that it had come through to see its response. The wasp, not knowing that the opening had been patched up, started going back and fourth between the corner it was examining to build a nest in and the opening above the door. It deliberately did that 4 or 5 times before becoming completely confused. This seemed like a perfect example of relative positioning that the wasp used to find its exit route. Moreover, this kind of decision making is not possible with only the right brain or the left. It must constitute of both, as the wasp has to understand its position holistically and also figure out the navigational route which consists of precise steps from A to B. So then, I was really no different from the wasp, other than the fact that I could plan ahead and think of many more possibilities in any scenario due to the increased computational power evolution endowed me with, in comparison to the wasp whose neural circuits were likely a small subset of mine. Some interesting reads on lateralization are here (source for the image below) and here.

The concept behind the number 2, or a division into two parts, has got to be one of the most fundamental concepts that exists in our observable lives (mentioned much in The Bible). A cell divides into 2 new cells, it takes 2 to produce an offspring (although asexual reproduction exists), or any other dichotomy that you have likely ever heard about. In a sense, the concept of two of anything represents some pareto optimal state where a singular state, too unstable by itself, is balanced by its opposite extreme. Even in physics, the principles of symmetry, based around multiples of two can be observed, but that is a lengthy topic of its own and there is some more funky stuff going on as you probe deeper into atoms. Simple reading regarding symmetry here. One could argue that maybe its our brains that look for these 2s in everything as that seems to be the most basic combinatorial process used in thinking (computer chips based on x bits with 2 states each) that more complex thoughts are built on, but its only mine or anybody's guess based on current knowledge.

You might be wondering how this relates to my personal experiences of holding inner tension? Put simply, by being tense, you are cutting blood supply to certain parts of your brain. At a minor level, this can probably result in certain aspects of your thinking being underdeveloped, but also, physiological states where one's body is tense lead to a reduction in bodily functions regulated by the part of the brain that blood supply is cut to. This all might sound like a bunch of baloney backed by nothing, but if we think about how the endocrine system works, it seems less so. The hormones of the pituitary gland regulate endocrine glands. The pituitary gland is innervated by hypothalamus which takes inputs from many different brain regions. In short, it suffices to say that if one of the brain regions controlling the hypothalamus is receiving low amounts of blood flow, it cannot perform the necessary computation to regulate the blood hormones at optimal levels.

Blood flow is the essence of one's being. It is regulated by the size of one's lung's and the organization of the blood vessels. Blood vessel organization can be guessed by the shape of one's chin and the lines on their hand. Lines on their hands are important because they marks the end their blood vessels. This might sound like palmistry or physiognomy but it seems true as it lends itself to a bottom up construction. To be continued..