Little devil wired into our brains? Posted: 10 months ago by rambler
The tokoloshe, in African mythology, is a diminutive human-like creature with a large head and big eyes, often blamed for mischief or evil deeds.
Raising one's bed by placing it on bricks is said to offer protection against it.
Researchers say that the key to the tokoloshe could lie in a part of the brain called the indusium griseum, two thin strips of grey matter that had no known function in adults.
Comments: 4 Score: [-] 417 [+].
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Posted: 10 months ago by pocksucket:
It might just be the way the article is written but I see no link between the self image that might or might not be held in the indusium griseum and the mischievous behaviour of the Tokoloshe.
Score: [-] 79 [+].
Posted: 10 months ago by rambler:
« pocksucket : It might just be the way the article is written but I see no link between the self image that might or might not be held in the indusium griseum and the mischievous behaviour of the Tokoloshe. I agree, the article is written poorly in that regard. I think it tries to say that the little man some people are afraid of, is a reflection of their own ("virtual") body, carried in the memory of the indusium griseum.
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Posted: 10 months ago by pocksucket:
« rambler : I agree, the article is written poorly in that regard. I think it tries to say that the little man some people are afraid of, is a reflection of their own ("virtual") body, carried in the memory of the indusium griseum. I wasn't sure if it was saying that or that this structure was responsible for impish behaviour as well as hosting the image.
There is a sense that if the concept of a little hominid (e.g. Tokoloshe, Gremlins, Leprechauns, Gnomes, Pixies, Fairies, Imps, Demons, etc.) is floating around in the (literally) backs of people's minds that this mysterious figure who can never be interrogated would be the obvious entity to blame for things that go inexplicably wrong; especially to a less advanced society with only the evidence of immediate observation to build their world view on.
Certainly body memory is a powerful thing as all the documentation surrounding amputees experiencing phantom limbs attests, but a lesser known demonstration is the sick-to-the-stomach sensation that men feel after a swift kick to the plums.
When the brain is mapping the body the testicles are located in the abdomen and so this is where it expects the pain to be in the event of that most terrible of boot applications.
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Posted: 10 months ago by 923julia:
There may be a SPAM in evey body 's mind.
edited by tigertony
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