This is your brain on metaphors

[taysteewonderbunny]

Article by Robert Sapolsky here.

An excerpt:

What are we to make of the brain processing literal and metaphorical versions of a concept in the same brain region? Or that our neural circuitry doesn’t cleanly differentiate between the real and the symbolic? What are the consequences of the fact that evolution is a tinkerer and not an inventor, and has duct-taped metaphors and symbols to whichever pre-existing brain areas provided the closest fit?

Jonathan Haidt, of the University of Virginia, has shown how viscera and emotion often drive our decisionmaking, with conscious cognition mopping up afterward, trying to come up with rationalizations for that gut decision. The viscera that can influence moral decisionmaking and the brain’s confusion about the literalness of symbols can have enormous consequences.

Please read the whole article. It's not long, not overly jargon-laden, and it, hopefully, will help give us pause and help clarify why it is so difficult to discuss things rationally, now or ever.