A

34 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind

Server processing occurs in the top half of the left hemisphere and
Perceiver thought in the top half of the right.A

Neurology also divides the cortex of the brain into front and back.
Neurology tells us that the back of the cortex interacts with the external
world. This is where sight and sound are interpreted and where memories
of specific actions, objects, experiences and words are stored. In contrast,
the front of the cortex contains the internal world. It is this part of the brain
which allows us to become individuals who are persons. Someone who
loses his frontal cortex becomes a creature of his environment—a
Pavlovian dog who can only salivate in response to the bell of external
need. He may still be able to act, talk and respond, but he has no internal
world of love, hope, planning, or understanding with which to integrate the
fragments of his personality.

Left Hemisphere Right Hemisphere

TOP

BOTTOM

Teacher

Server Perceiver

M ercy

THE BRAIN

Back

Front Back Front

(Superior)

(Inferior)

(Posterior)

(Posterior)

Our research suggests that each of the four simple styles has a sensory
part in the back of the brain and an associated internal world in the front.
Mercy strategy, for example, has an inner world of emotional memories. It
is this internal world that determines the emotionally appropriate way of
reacting to the external world of experiences—it appears to contain the
core mental „furniture‟ of the Mercy room. Take away this part of the brain

A I could „get technical‟ and refer to brain locations such as FEF, IPL,

SMA, or STS. I would manage to impress some people but I would also
lose my audience. I know what it is like to be snowed under by
neurological terminology. I learned about the brain simply by going to the
medical library and starting to read. Occasionally a researcher would slip
up and actually define one of his terms. Two hundred tomes and about one
thousand esoteric papers later, I have acquired some knowledge about the
subject. However, I have found that the useful information in a paper is
often contained in the little asides which a researcher throws in just „by the
way.‟ So, I decided to gather all my „little asides‟ into a book and only add
technical detail where necessary.