Last edited Sept 11 2006

It is interesting that many esoteric spiritual traditions taught the idea of three planes of consciousness and even three different brains. Gurdjieff for example referred to Man as a "three-brained being".  There was one brain for the spirit, one for the soul, and one for the body. 

The Reptilian Brain. 

Preprogrammed mechanical brain.

The archipallium or primitive (reptilian) brain, or "Basal Brain", called by MacLean the "R-complex", includes the brain stem and the cerebellum, is the oldest brain.  It consists of the structures of the brain stem - medulla, pons, cerebellum, mesencephalon, the oldest basal nuclei - the globus pallidus and the olfactory bulbs.  In animals such as reptiles, the brain stem and cerebellum dominate.  For this reason it is commonly referred to as the "reptilian brain".  It has the same type of archaic behavioral  programs as snakes and lizards.  It is rigid, obsessive, compulsive, ritualistic and paranoid, it is "filled with ancestral memories".  It keeps repeating the same behaviors over and over again, never learning from past mistakes (corresponding to what Sri Aurobindo calls the mechanical Mind).  This brain controls muscles, balance and autonomic functions, such as breathing and heartbeat.  This part of the brain is active, even in deep sleep.

The Limbic System (Paleomammalian brain). 

Learning, memory, feelings, emotions; can overrule Neocortex.

In 1952 MacLean first coined the name "limbic system" for the middle part of the brain.  It can also be termed the paleopallium or intermediate (old mammalian) brain.  It corresponds to the brain of the most mammals, and especially the earlier ones.  The old mammalian brain residing in the limbic system is concerned with emotions and instincts, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual behavior.  As MacLean observes, everything in this emotional system is either "agreeable or disagreeable".  Survival depends on avoidance of pain and repetition of pleasure.

When this part of the brain is stimulated with a mild electrical current various emotions (fear, joy, rage, pleasure and pain etc) are produced.  No emotion has been found to reside in one place for very long.  But the Limbic system as a whole appears to be the primary seat of emotion, attention, and affective (emotion-charged) memories.  Physiologically, it includes the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala.  It helps determine valence (e.g., whether you feel positive or negative toward something, in Buddhism referred to as vedena - "feeling") and salience (e.g., what gets your attention); unpredictability, and creative behavior. It has vast interconnections with the neocortex, so that brain functions are not either purely limbic or purely cortical but a mixture of both.

MacLean claims to have found in the Limbic system a physical basis for the dogmatic and paranoid tendency,  the biological basis for the tendency of thinking to be subordinate feeling, to rationalize desires.  He sees a great danger in all this limbic system power.  As he understands it, this lowly mammalian brain of the limbic system tends to be the seat of our value judgments, instead of the more advanced neocortex.  It decides whether our higher brain has a "good" idea or not, whether it feels true and right.

The Neocortex, cerebrum

Ideas, symbols, feelings about feelings, art and adaptability.

The cortex , or an alternative term, neopallium, also known as the superior or rational (neomammalian) brain, comprises almost the whole of the hemispheres (made up of a more recent type of cortex, called neocortex) and some subcortical neuronal groups. It corresponds to the brain of the primate mammals and, consequently, the human species.  The higher cognitive functions which distinguish Man from the animals are in the cortex.   MacLean refers to the cortex as "the mother of invention and father of abstract thought".  In Man the neocortex takes up two thirds of the total brain mass.  Although all animals also have a neocortex, it is relatively small, with few or no folds (indicating surface area and complexity and development).  A mouse without a cortex can act in fairly normal way (at least to superficial appearance), whereas a human without a cortex is a vegetable.

The cortex is divided into left and right hemispheres, the famous left and right brain.  The left half of the cortex controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain the left side of the body. Also, the right brain is more spatial, abstract, musical and artistic, while the left brain more linear, rational, and verbal.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/intelligence/MacLean.htm#reptilian 

It is typpical for (most) scientists to render everything back to the material state of things.

Of course the matter that makes up this body, including the brain, is made up of pure energy to begin with…

Some people actually seem to do alright without a brain.                                    

Some had really big brains.         

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