We all take notice when someone starts a sentence with the word ‘we’. This implies that the speaker thinks they are speaking for everybody. Where does this come from?
In a study entitled, Neural Correlates of the False Consensus Effect: Evidence for Motivated Projection and Regulatory Restraint, researchers found that people who projected their own opinions onto a group consensus had greater functional connectivity between the ventral striatum and the ventromedial PFC. Here’s a graphical summary:
One of the key takeaways of neuromythography is that the ventral striatum is the locus of the world’s evil. I say this mostly seriously, but with a slight wink lest fools start contacting neurosurgeons for ventral striatum removal.
Terminology note: the nucleus accumbens (Nacc or NAc) is the principal nucleus of the ventral striatum. The ventral striatum definition typically also encompasses the ventral putamen and olfactory tubercle (OT).
Neuromythographic interpretation of panels A and B:
The ventral striatum is assigned Lilith/Lucifer.
s32 (Dharma): s32 tracks value across domains. This includes deontological value. Dharma is the Hindu/Buddhist concept of personal values.
The study also found that right rostral VLPFC activation was inversely-related to projecting your own opinion as a group consensus, i.e. the act of controlling the ventral striatum-s32 activation above. The mapping of panel C is:
Right a47r (Magellan): tracking of paths explored, rejecting paths already deemed unsuccessful, and finding new promising paths
Right p47r (Strachey): Strachey invented the programming language concept of polymorphism, which involves using the same programming verb to mean different things in different contexts.
When this right VLPFC area is damaged, people are unable to imagine that other people could have different opinions from themselves.
This is just the latest in a long line of evidence tying the ventral striatum to political madness. No one ever achieves nirvana without controlling it.
