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Overall I can understand the bipartite brain story and accept it. I recently wrote a paper about how the unconscious part of ourselves affects our likes and dislikes, such as our favorite things. Sometimes when people are asked why their favorite movie, book, or painting is their favorite, they respond with, “I don’t know, it just is”.  Are these preferences fueled by the unconscious emotion that the conscience is not fully aware of? I think so for the most part.

One hypothesis I’ve heard of that was proposed by Damasio was the Somatic Marker Hypothesis. It says that emotions can guide behavior especially when it comes to decision making. If emotions and the unconscious can play a huge role in behavior, is this the answer to the Harvard Law of Animal Behavior? Animals are not robots that have a specific output to specific inputs but they have emotions that contribute to their behavior and since emotions are unpredictable, so is behavior.

However, just because I accept the theory of the bipartite brain, it doesn’t mean I’m completely comfortable with it. It makes me wonder how many secrets my brain is hiding from me. In a way, it makes studying the nervous system more intriguing and fascinating. At the same time, it seems a little frightening living with this knowledge even though I know that so far my brain hasn’t harmed me by making up some things and that this may be an evolutionary benefit.