Just yesterday, I saw a baby yawn.
And then, who knows, in my mesencephalon,
Or maybe deeper still, my metacephalon,
Inside, the reflex of a mirror neuron
Did make me also yawn.
Our gregarious species is under considerable pressure to conform, maybe to show the unity of humanity, possibly to shield us from our personal insecurities, or maybe to blank out the dread of mortality. For whatever reasons, and there are many, we have evolved with mirror neurons in different parts of our brain. They seem to exist in the supplementary motor area, the primary somato sensory cortex, the inferior parietal cortex, the ventral premortal area, Broca's area, Wernicke's area, the fusiform gyrus, the angular gyrus, and the primary motor cortex. You yawn, I yawn, and vice versa. The reflex is hard to resist.
And we all have noticed it, haven’t we? Little twitches in our muscles. You can see it at a track meet in the fans observing the high jumper at the beginning of the leap. You can see it at a baseball game in fans observing the batter’s swing. And, as I note above, you can see it in the mimicking of a baby’s yawn.
Call it by whatever name you want, it’s apparently related on the most complex human scales in social contagion. Those we observe influence us from the time we are babies. Good thing in some ways: Watch the mother robin’s offspring observe her finding and extracting the worm. We learn much by imitating.
And thus, when we see a society under the influence of special agendas, we find ourselves succumbing unconsciously to the pressure to conform. Societies can change slowly through the process as ideologies not in favor in one generation slowly move into favor in the ensuing generation.
You can take this wherever you want. You can apply it to any aspect of society. I won’t lead you further mentally or farther physically along the paths of current social influence. I’ll leave you with two questions: When you look at what you accept as valid, healthful, or proper, can you see your own mirror neurons at work? When you look in a mirror is it you that you see or a reflection of those around you?
And then, who knows, in my mesencephalon,
Or maybe deeper still, my metacephalon,
Inside, the reflex of a mirror neuron
Did make me also yawn.
Our gregarious species is under considerable pressure to conform, maybe to show the unity of humanity, possibly to shield us from our personal insecurities, or maybe to blank out the dread of mortality. For whatever reasons, and there are many, we have evolved with mirror neurons in different parts of our brain. They seem to exist in the supplementary motor area, the primary somato sensory cortex, the inferior parietal cortex, the ventral premortal area, Broca's area, Wernicke's area, the fusiform gyrus, the angular gyrus, and the primary motor cortex. You yawn, I yawn, and vice versa. The reflex is hard to resist.
And we all have noticed it, haven’t we? Little twitches in our muscles. You can see it at a track meet in the fans observing the high jumper at the beginning of the leap. You can see it at a baseball game in fans observing the batter’s swing. And, as I note above, you can see it in the mimicking of a baby’s yawn.
Call it by whatever name you want, it’s apparently related on the most complex human scales in social contagion. Those we observe influence us from the time we are babies. Good thing in some ways: Watch the mother robin’s offspring observe her finding and extracting the worm. We learn much by imitating.
And thus, when we see a society under the influence of special agendas, we find ourselves succumbing unconsciously to the pressure to conform. Societies can change slowly through the process as ideologies not in favor in one generation slowly move into favor in the ensuing generation.
You can take this wherever you want. You can apply it to any aspect of society. I won’t lead you further mentally or farther physically along the paths of current social influence. I’ll leave you with two questions: When you look at what you accept as valid, healthful, or proper, can you see your own mirror neurons at work? When you look in a mirror is it you that you see or a reflection of those around you?
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