Serendip Activities

I thought that the Serendip activities were sweet!!! The four I chose were Time to think, Find Serendip, Blind Spots, and Ant Colonies.

I learned in blind spots that in fact we do have blind spots, and that our brain is far more sophisticated then i thought. I was surprised to figure out that we actually have them, i didn't believe my classmates until i tried it myself. I never new that the brain discerns that it should put white where the black dot actually was!! After i figured out that we do have a blind spot, i admit it, i went around doing it to various things. Everything from the tv to icons on the computer. It was fasinating!!

I don't really know how blind spots would coinside with everyday life so i thought that a good one was And Colonies. I didn't get part of the activity, but i understood the information it gave me and it was knowledable. I learned that geese and fish have leaders in their groups, and the same thing goes for people i guess when i though about it. However, every ant is independant. There is no leader, and society is maintained through positive interactions. It would be nice if this were true for the human world, but we are too riddled with sin for such a thing to happen. Ants are simple creates of God, and most of them aren't intelligent enough to think to to evil, its all instinct. So i guess it really hasn't changed my perspective. I'm not cinical by any means, this is just how i view the world.

I learned many things in this week's chapter. The chapter was not really a mind opener, it just gave me more facts about the brain. I learned that certain ailments such as seizures can be stopped by separating the brain's hemispheres along the corpus colossum. I also learned that, through split brain research, like in "The Man with Two Brains", scientists discovered the left hemisphere is more verbal , while the right deals in perception and the recognition of emotion. Finally, I found it very thought provoking that almost all right-handers process speech in the left hemisphere, and more than half left-handers do too. It interested me because i thought left-handers would be more involved with the right hemispher. The activities made all this really very fun, and i enjoyed every one of them, even though i didn't learn much from the other two.