We stagger around for most of our lives desperately hoping that someone, somewhere will actually understand us.
Not in the "what the bloody hell is he saying?" kind of way. But in the "Oh, I totally realize why he just took his trousers off and did a handstand while singing the national anthem of the Congo" kind of way.
When you go around trying to explain yourself, it can be extremely tiring. Both for you and for the person who has to listen. Thankfully, scientists at University College, London, have taken significant steps in, well, mind-reading.
If I were to choose someone to read my mind I would hope for someone like Pink, Mila Kunis or, at a pinch, the great Italian author, Andrea Camilleri, to be able to see just what is inside my head.
But if I have to tolerate a scientist for just a short while, I suppose I can make myself look forward to it.
The University College experiment consisted of normal humans wandering around a virtual world, while the boffins bored into their hippocampus with a fMRI scanner. (You mean they didn't have one of these things in Guantanamo?)
The project leader, Eleanor Maguire, seemed a little astounded at just how easily the experiment went. She told the "Financial Times": "Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data, we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality room."
Because I do not have the technology at hand, I can only guess that this man is thinking about marzipan.
(Credit: CC Carbon NYC)This appears to be the first time that it has been shown that memories are kept in very tidy compartments in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is very fond of drugs. Well, what I really mean to say is that it's the part of the brain that imagines future joys, remembers stuff and steers you from one nightmare to the next.
The experiment fills me with giant, tingling relief.
Far too often, people have decided I thought one thing when I thought something entirely different and, indeed, opposite. Yes, at times, their utter myopia, lack of incisiveness and sheer dearth of basic human sense drove me to a distraction from which not even my hippocampus could help me return.
Now, at least, I can hope for an independent scientific referee and factotum. One who lays bare the interpretation with just a brief squint at my hippocampus. One who can explain me without my having to ever explain myself. One who makes the very idea of a shrink entirely redundant. One who has Pink's cell phone number.
Now if this technology has been widely available before we might have been able to prevent Bernie Madoff, Jim Cramer and the new U2 album. Or at least to understand their existence.
That's all every one of us wants. Just to be understood. Oh, it's always such a giddy relief when science does something useful.
Since embracing Incorrectness, I have noticed that the passion of those who love either Microsoft or Apple seems even to exceed a Goth's passion for black eyeshadow.
The more I have come to know the two sides, the more their mutual stand-off resembles the kind of love-hate continuum embraced nightly by those two remarkably large-headed souls, Fox's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
Now, research led by Professor Semir Zeki of University College London may help to illustrate and explain the inflamed emotions that surround two mere technology brands.
It appears that, although love and hate seem to be rather opposing feelings, some of the same nervous circuits in the brain are responsible for both emotions.
The lovely thing is that the two radical heights of intensity both seem to involve two of the most pornographically named parts of the brain's sub-cortex: the putamen and the insula.
(Credit:
CC AndiLeBlanc)
But here's what the study, which involved delving into the darkest parts of 17 deep haters, suggested was the main difference between love and hate.
Hate is more rational.
"This may seem surprising since hate can also be an all-consuming passion like love," Zeki told the Independent. "But whereas in romantic love, the lover is often less critical and judgmental regarding the loved person, it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise exact revenge."
This surely suggests that those who love Apple and Microsoft have utterly lost their minds to each brand. But when it comes to the loathing, they coldly find the most vicious yet factual criticisms to stir their negativity.
Love, it seems, is blind. Whereas hate has GPS.
So the more rational reasons an Apple enthusiast finds to hate Microsoft, the more intense his (or her) hate becomes. (Might this, perhaps, be related to the entirely unscientific fact that there seem to be a few more Apple-loving Microsoft-haters than Microsoft-adoring Apple-haters around at the moment?)
What Zeki's interesting analysis doesn't seem to cover, though, is whether hate for a thing, person or brand, given that it comes from the same cranial regions, actually reinforces love of another thing, person or brand.
Does hating Microsoft reinforce an Apple fanboy's love of the brand that bore the iPod? Or could the strangely close neuroscientific relationship between love and hate actually hide a reluctant and dangerous admiration for the hate-object?
I only ask because when I watch Olbermann skewer O'Reilly on a nightly basis, I wonder whether he secretly covets his ratings. Or his salary. And when I watch O'Reilly, I wonder whether he covets Olbermann's penchant for saying what he really thinks.
Similarly, is it possible that Apple fanboys secretly covet something about Microsoft? And that Microsofties are desperate for some of Apple's pips? What might be the object of their hidden, painful admiration and desire?
Microsofties and Apple fanboys, please examine your putamen and insula immediately and let me know.
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