posted
I don't know how else to describe this other than hand movements. I've always wondered why it's impossible for me to move my hands going in motion the opposite way. Like starting one hand, motioning it forward in a circular rotation and the same with the other, but the opposite direction. I just can't do it. I can try, it just doesn't happen. I hope that made sense.
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It all has to do with the concept of handedness, and how your brain has organized itself. To grossly oversimplify, as you probably already know your brain is split into two seemingly identical halves that turn out to have rather different functions. Language, emotional responses, and on and on, are all located in different spots (and these spots aren't always in the same place in every person!).
Anyway, aside from splitting up those sorts of processing functions, the two hemispheres of your brain also control your motor functions. Lots of people think that it's an opposite sort of affair. That is, the right hemisphere controls the left side of your body and the left hemisphere controls the right, but I don't think that's necessarily universal, and at any rate the brain is very complex and hard to map.
But, as I was saying, your brain, however it has split up its functions, has made a very definite choice on which side to favor for what. And so you have a dominant hand, a dominant eye, and so on. (Unless you don't, which happens fairly often too.) When you try to move both hands at once in opposite directions, your brain has trouble getting the message across, it being much easier for it to make both hands do the same thing than it is for each to do its own thing. This is why playing the piano is hard.
If this really bothers you, there's a surgery that some epileptics undergo, where the corpus callosum, which acts like your brain's dedicated ethernet card, connecting the two halves, is severed. The two halves stop talking to each other directly, and all sorts of reallyinteresting things happen.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm not sure if I can actually do it correctly, but I believe I can to an extent.
And ya know what, my right eye and ear are dominant, but my left hand, arm, leg, feet and even my nostril (my right nostril is often stuffed up, so I breathe through my left nostril) are dominant.
Man, I'm weird.
[ June 10, 2002, 21:03: Message edited by: Dat ]
-------------------- Is it Friday yet?
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I've got the same nostril predicament, only it seems to switch between the two. :-\
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It's easier to learn the piano if you've already taught yourself how do to something that requires your hands to be doing different things, like playing fingerstyle guitar.
As recently as five years ago playing the piano seemed impossible for me. Constantly playing guitar seems to have helped, because now I've picked it up faster than a lot of people.
My left hand is still my stupid hand, but as I've been using it more and more often I've found that as it gains a certain skill in one area, other things become fine tuned as well. It doesn't feel as clumsy as it used to.
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Dat, apart from the nostril thing, you sound like an A1 case of "handedness". While the body from neck down is "crosswired" so that the left hemisphere controls the right side, everything from neck up is supposed to be wired "straight" (except for the optic nerves, which basically crosswire the left halves of both retinas to the left side and vice versa, although this particular issue is way more complex).
What we are really interested in are the following:
-which hand has the longer fingers? -which foot is larger? -which testicle hangs lower? -can you whistle? -can you roll your tongue?
According to an enjoyable collection of beginning-of-the-century (20th, that is) popular science magazines I just dusted off for the lazy days of the summer, some of the above are supposed to reveal homosexual tendencies. Or was that when you whistle while rolling your tongue over the testicle?
posted
I can perform a circle with my hand, moving it forward-away from my body, while the other hand makes an opposite circle alongside it, I've always liked these exercises. But if you stop concentrating the right hand starts following the left.
I have no problem driving a car with a switched steering wheel either, that turns right when you wheel it left. We did it on a company kickoff trip to Gotland. You just have to concentrate, mind over matter.
They also had a car that was two front halves of two SAAB's, welded together, so both ends had wheel. You really had to cooperate to get between the cones.
There have been so many parallels drawn between physical peculiarities and their effect on one's personality. "They" say that if the ringfinger is longer than the indexfinger you are prone to creativity and deep thought and also more prone to depression and sadness.
Granted, my ringfinger is longer than my index finger on both hands, but so what?
These things can have a backwards-placebo effect on people who believe too much of what they read.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I do the hand movement thingy if I try really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hard.
My question is: why would you need to do such a thing?
Oh yeah - why is my name not bold like everyone elses?
[ June 11, 2002, 11:46: Message edited by: akb1979 ]
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I think your name isn't bold when you're logged in. Maybe it's a feature so we don't forget who we are.
There's no point to the hand thing. It just seems like something that should really simple, but isn't.
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
what kind of update was done.. besides that, ive noticed some little blue arrows that i, in my 'old ways' style, have been afraid to click for fear of changing The Order of The Way I Do Things When I Am On This Board...
Sign me up for a brain severing.. sounds like fun!
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
For each blue arrow you click, $1 is sent to a poor Canadian child.
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Charles Capps
We appreciate your concern. It is noted and stupid.
Member # 9
posted
The Blue Arrow is your friend. Click it.
The name bolding/unbolding is a bug, and will be fixed in the next release.
Registered: Mar 1999
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