The lying brain: do we really know why we do what we do?

How does our brain control our tastes, preferences and cravings?

The brain is at the base of everything we are and do.

It is the seat of our personality, responsible for our emotions, and how we feel during the day; but it is also the organ that enables us to chew gum, kick a ball, go out for a coffee with a friend, read a book, plan where we will go on vacation, prepare a practical work for college, fall in love, choose a church to get married, and thousands and thousands of other things. From the seemingly smallest and most trivial action to the most sophisticated mental processes, we can do all of these things..

To be able to do all this, it would be logical to think that the human brain is an organ perfectly prepared to rationally and consciously process all the information that comes to us from the environment. However, the brain does not always work on the information we consciously process, and there are even times when the mental processes that guide our behavior spontaneously generate lies.There are even times when the mental processes that guide our behavior spontaneously generate lies.

Lying brains and short-circuit deception

The first thing we should know to better understand why the brain does not have to work from the objective information that comes to us through the senses is that the brain is divided into two large structures known as cerebral hemispheres.

The left hemisphere and the right hemisphere are, in appearance, morphologically the same, as if one were the mirror image of the other. They are located on either side of the head, slightly separated by an external fissure, but connected inside by a thick bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum.

Left hemisphere: the rational and analytical part.

The left hemisphere is the seat of analytical comprehension, numerical comprehension and logical analysis.. This is also the region responsible for language.

Right hemisphere: nonverbal and emotional information.

The right hemisphere is more concerned with processing the non-verbal and affective information of language, such as the tone of speech.such as the tone of voice, rhythm and emotional meaning of what is being heard.

The corpus callosum is responsible for complementing both hemispheres.

As can be seen, these differences are complementary. The two hemispheres form a whole; the brain works as a unitIt is precisely the corpus callosum that allows permanent communication and interaction between both structures. Another fact that is not minor: the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left side.

Let's see a simple example. If we close right and look at a picture of a tulip, the stimulus travels preferentially to the left hemisphere, and from there crosses to the right hemisphere through the corpus callosum. In this way, our brain perceives the image in its different aspects but in an integral way. It obtains a full understanding of what it is observing; we can be sure without a doubt that it is a tulip. We are able to describe it and even remember everything we know about that flower... But... what does it have to do with the flower?.

But what does this have to do with deception?

A few years ago, a group of scientists noticed a series of strange phenomena in patients diagnosed with epilepsy who had recently undergone an operation known as ablation of the corpus callosum.

Epilepsy reveals something important

Of course, there are different types of epilepsy and of different magnitude, most of them controllable with medication. But in severe cases, when the frequency and intensity of seizures are very high and all possible treatments have been exhausted, there is a last resort, there is a last resort.

This is a surgical intervention in which the corpus callosum is sectioned, leaving the cerebral hemispheres permanently disconnected. Of course, this does not cure the disease, but at least it prevents the seizure that starts in one of the cerebral hemispheres from taking the opposite hemisphere by storm through the corpus callosum.

But it turns out that the procedure leaves some unsuspected sequelae, a series of side effects as strange as they are intriguing. When patients were asked why they had made a certain decision, and depending on which hemisphere was processing the information, they could outright lie in their answers, and worse, they seemed unaware that they were doing so, they could outright lie in their answers, and what was worse, they seemed to be unaware that they were doing so..

Some examples of 'neurological lies'.

If an ordinary person is asked to perform a particular action, such as closing his eyes, and then asked why he has done so, he will naturally respond that he has simply complied with the command he was given. But that expected, sincere and spontaneous response changed drastically when the neuropsychologist leaned over the recently operated patient and whispered the order into his left ear, and then asked him for the reasons for his behavior, but into the right ear.

In that case, to everyone's surprise, the patient gave a false answer..

"My head hurts a little, and I need to rest my eyes," he could say calmly, with the assurance of one who knows he is honest and is telling the truth.

"Raise one arm," he could be commanded in his left ear. "Why did you do that?" he would then be asked in the right ear. "Well, I'm a little tense and I needed to stretch," the patient would respond in the most matter-of-fact manner.

What was going on?

Let's review. Information gathered from one side of the body travels to the contralateral hemisphere on the opposite side. If a certain piece of information enters through the left eye or ear, it travels to the right hemisphere, and then is integrated into the rest of the brain by crossing the corpus callosum.

We also know that language is a well lateralized function, and that it is located, to a large extent, in the left hemisphere. It can be said, simplifying the subject a little bit, that the right hemisphere of the brain is a mute hemisphere.

If we put these two pieces of knowledge together, we have the answer to the problem.

When the hemispheres are disconnected from one another...

If the bridge connecting the two halves of the brain is dynamited, the epileptic seizure is restricted to one of the hemispheres. But the same will then be true of any information that enters through the senses..

Any instruction that the experimenter could give the patient would be trapped in the right hemisphere. That is, this side of the brain knew the real reasons for performing the requested action, but when the patient was asked, he could not verbalize them, since the language areas are in the other half.

In contrast, the left hemisphere can speak, but does not know what is happening. He has followed the behavior performed by the individual, since when he touched the tip of his nose or stood on one leg, both eyes monitored what he was doing, even though he could not give an account of why.

However, and here comes the surprising thing, far from humbly admitting his ignorance, from accepting that he does not have the answer for everything he observes, the left hemisphere ventures to give an explanationwhich in principle may sound reasonable, but which in reality is far removed from the true motives that gave rise to the behavior.

"Why did you start singing?" the patient was asked after giving the command to the right hemisphere.

"Suddenly that melody came to my mind," the left hemisphere would respond. Or: "I think I feel especially happy today".

To the question, "Why are you scratching your head?", the patient with the split cerebral hemispheres would look in surprise at the man in the white coat who is evaluating him and reply, with some disdain, "Because it itches, what else could it be?".

Beyond the anecdote

In light of these findings, it is legitimate to think that one of the many functions of the left hemisphere is the interpretation of reality. The justifications that these people make for their actions are the result of the brain's efforts to make sense of what it is observing.

The human brain has evolved to help the individual understand and adapt as well as possible to the complexity of a changing world. For this reason, one of its main functions is to interpret reality, to formulate and wield theories that can explain the vicissitudes to which we are exposed during the course of our lives.

Sometimes these theories are true and well adjusted to reality, but everything seems to indicate that most of the time they are mere speculations most of the time they are mere speculations that are nevertheless taken as valid by the person, since their acceptance contributes to create certainty in a world plagued by mysterious phenomena.The acceptance of these speculations contributes to create certainty in a world full of mysterious phenomena. Thus appears the feeling of control over the uncontrollable.

Thus, the left hemisphere is a tireless manufacturer of rationalizations, illusory arguments created to satisfy one's expectations and make this world a little more predictable. And what is valid for external stimuli, i.e. everything that enters through the sensory channels, is also valid for internal stimuli, i.e. thoughts.

Tailor-made realities... or just plain lies.

The brain gathers information from the world through the five senses, but it is also true that it does not need sight or hearing to generate thoughts. And thoughts, moreover, are the raw material for mental representations, that accumulation of explanations with which we justify everything we are and do, both to ourselves and to others.

We have an explanation for everything, but... Is that the real explanation, or is it just one possible interpretation among many others?

Why do we buy one brand of jam and not another? Why do we go to the coffee shop down the block and not to the one on the corner? Why do we choose a two-door car and not a four-door car? Why do we like Mozart and not Beethoven? Why do we prefer Mar de las Pampas for a vacation instead of the hills of Córdoba? Why do we go on a date with Fulana and not with Mengana? Why did we decide to study law and not medicine?

These are all questions we can usually answer easily, but are our answers reliable?

We don't know very well why we do what we do, and worse, we dismiss the external influences that may have pushed us to do what we do.Worse, we underestimate the external influences that may have pushed us to do this or that.

On other occasions, exactly the opposite happens: we overestimate factors that are hardly related, attributing to them a weight or power that is not so. This is what often happens when we undergo a certain treatment, with a certain amount of positive expectations.

The simple fact of believing that a therapy is going to help us feel better about ourselves, or to lose weight, or to control the anxiety that afflicts us, makes us experience a much more important improvement than we could objectively realize. And the more time and money invested, the more convinced we will be of the benefit obtained.

In conclusion

How can we be sure, after knowing these experiments, that the explanations with which we go through life are nothing more than the resulting product of a part of our brain ready to give an opinion on everything and obsessed with arguing about what happens to us?

Well, my reader friend, now you know that we can't take our own beliefs and thoughts too seriously, and this includes all those "certainties" that we have about our own beliefs and thoughts.and this includes all those "certainties" about oneself and others.

The history of mankind shows the disastrous consequences of letting ourselves be carried away by fanaticism and seemingly unquestionable ideas. We must always try to keep in mind that our worldview, the way we see the world, is only one possible "interpretation", but not necessarily true or the only one. To the extent that we allow ourselves to doubt and dare to dive into questioning, we will slowly but inexorably approach the truth.