Concordance/Discordance

Life is rarely explainable in black and white terms. However, when we can describe them in concrete and explainable terms, it often feels right. That’s concordance, the idea of our thoughts working in agreement.  I feel, however, that there’s typically a spectrum to most ideas, theories, and postulates. In politics, religion, and every other  human construct imagineable, the sides seem so distinct with ever growing fences in between. However, my hypothesis on living in the 21st century is based more in the realm of concordance and discordance. I first learned these terms in a neuropsychology course in which the concordant (left) brain and discordant (right) brain were explained as having very stark and different functions, however the same functions are interwoven with a host of circuits which tie it all together like a juxtaposed circuit board of functioning.

In development, the pre-adolescent and adolescent brain starts to produce more white matter (software) and starts to prune the grey matter (hardware). For most of scientific history, neuroscientists believed that the brain stopped developing previous to adulthood and, therefore, humans were stuck with the hardware they were given at a young age. Of course, now we know differently. The brain actually continues to wax and wane in it’s physical growth and areas of use appear to strengthen, even enlarge, over several years of practice by a phenomenon known as brain plasticity.

So, one can look at concordant and discordant brain processes as somewhat of an anomoly of what scientists previously thought. Together with the theories of brain plasticity and brain circuitry, the idea of concordance and discordance takes on a newer, distinct role. I will only touch upon these lightly, but the lessons learned can be taken on in various measures.

Because the logical and calculated left brain develops and synthesizes language and linear verbal reception and expression, the idea of concordance can be platformed as a portrayal of a verbal menu, diagram, or chart. The right brain, on the contrary, is responsible for the abstract, non-linear, and imaginative parts of our thinking. This is the hemisphere of discordant thought, the instigator and global thinker, so to speak. Most of us often reside in one side more than the other, but it’s our series of circuits that appear to work their magic in making connections between both hemispheres.

The idea of left and right brain thinkers is still commonly used in pop psychology and even some modern neuroanatomy literature. However, the idea of circuitry is more current and accurate and discoveries are being made every day as to what these circuits are responsible for in humans. I took to the idea of concordant and discordant thoughts while study the brain simply because I connected with the idea of brain localization. At first, my left brain was in full bloom to the concrete areas and their functions. But it wasn’t long before I recall wanting to know more about the how, why, and where than simply the theories 0f what. This is where my right brain began to explore the possibilities. I often think of the possibilities as being identified by the left brain, hatched and nourished in the right brain, and given purpose by the circuits of the brain. It’s the circuitry where the puzzle gives itself meaning and we start to see the picture. It’s the circuitry where we begin to see ideas become applicable as function.

Strangely, but appropriately, after all my studies, I view the world in much the same way I view the brain. People are often in concordant or discordant arenas. Think about politics, religion, and even the very nature of laws, both human nature and legal ones. People tend to sit somewhere on the spectrum of being concordant or discordant in their views. I’ve often thought that if we stopped to make use of our corpus collosums, the white matter tract connecting the hemispheres, we might understand each other more. If we looked at how we’ve strengthened some circuits more than others, we might see some of the habitual acts as strengthened practices in others.

My inclination is that, as we begin to discover more about the brain, we also begin to step into uncharted waters often making matters of ethics more clouded and controversial. The very idea of artificial intelligence, creating super humans with megabrains, and programming brains to pre-determine behavior makes me quiver in the proverbial fear of mankind overcoming humankind. If we, in fact, are manifested products of our bodies and the hardware and applications in our brains combined with our experiences and previously learned behaviors, then where does that leave us in terms of individuality, spirituality, and morality. The areas of research are vast, perhaps endless, and continually interesting. I’m fairly certain that’s why I am where I choose to be, continually curious and often discordant with my own concordance.