Theos-Talk Archives (September 1997 Message tl00286)

> Hi Jaqi, how are you doing, you wrote:
> > On the contrary, I think perhaps one side of his brain is longer than the
> > other in order to preserve continuity ...that way he doesn't have to flip
> > them quite as often as the rest of us do.
> I read a couple of quickies in a medical journal recently.  Apparently
> the male brain is much larger than the female and their time lag from
> intiation to rentention is longer.  Also apparently, studies of
> prehistoric human's brains reveal a thick tissue connection between left
> and right lobes which we no longer have.  Current hypothesis:  this is
> why we have become disconnected from the mystical.   Ummm.
> Take care.  Annette.

Hi Annette, I'm fine, and you?

This is interesting, for I just had a conversation yesterday with a
friend about much the same thing.  I'm not sure exactly what you mean by
"initiation and retention", but I imagine it has a lot in common with what
we were talking about, being "initiation and recollection".  We came to a
perhaps erroneous conclusion that most, if not all, men "recall" in an
associative(and linear) manner, whereas women "recall" in an almost
quantum(and non-linear) manner.  In other words, when a man wants to
remember something, he has to follow a trail of associations, which are
done quickly, such as coffee, then bean, then mom's bean soup, then
mother, then mother's blue topaz earrings, the earrings being the proposed
item of recall.  A woman, on the other hand, does not need this
association technique, (at least not as often).  She seems to have her
information in close proximity, almost as if coffee reminded her of her
mother's earrings.  In its purest (non-linear) form, we have photographic
memory, which is close to what a woman has.

Now, being as this male friend and I are severely analytical, almost to
the point of irritating the hell out of each other, we decided to
investigate the hypothesis furthur, under the guise of a competition of
thought forms.  The results were interesting, however unfounded, due to
the lack of participants in the experiment.

It is generally thought that in high schools and colleges, girls are
better at math than boys.  We decided to test this theory first.  Here are
the results.  I was able to compute more complex equations much faster
than he could in my head.  However, and this was very interesting, he was
able to, after lengthy thought, to provide me with more complex questions
than I was able to give him, using the same amount of time.  Also, he
remembered many more mathematical theorums than I.  His retention was much
better, but his recollection was not as efficient.  This well explained
the reason behind girls doing better than boys in mathematics.  It also
explains why we find more male software programmers than female...although
it takes a little more time, they remember more than the female might.

This led to another test.  Remembering lines, and if we could, entire
stanzas, of Hamlet.  He would state one line, and I was to state the line
or stanza which followed it.  I was able to remember, with clarity, three
out of five, one of which was the stanza(paragraph, whatever).  With those
three I needed little time, maybe five or ten seconds, to remember.  Even
after thinking for a minute or more, I couldn't come up with anything 
better than scraps from the other two.  After some thought, I came up with
five as well.  He knew four of them, three which were stanzas, however, it
took him a minute or two to remember them in their entirety.  With the
fifth one, he couldn't even remember the line I gave him, so it was kind
of unfair *giggle*.  I'm beginning to wonder if I was right about the
line...it may have been from somewhere else...

Well, to conclude, I have another friend who has photographic memory.
(The same lady who had the problems with the militia...grrr)  She
possesses both pluses.  Her retention is extremely effective, and,
likewise, her recollection is as efficient, if not moreso than mine.  The
reason why I bring this up is because my friend is also a female
hermaphrodite, (which is one of the main reasons why the "religious"
fascists didn't like her in the first place), which could be one of the
reasons why she has the best of both worlds.  It would be interesting to
find out if other hermaphrodites, male or female, also have this kind of
retention and recollection.  It could explain the genius of Alexander...

Ok, I'm done...:)
---
Jaqi.