OK, it was 
#2 (the old mamallian brain), not 
#1 (the reptilian brain) where
feeding, fighting, fleeing and sexual behavior are centered.

Fighting and fleeing are presented as two behaviors, rather than 
aspects of one (the fight/flight response).


   -Fred


I plagarized the following from 
 http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR880/MR880.ch17.pdf.
 
However, that in turn was, I suspect, plagarized from 
an old 1984 book by Richard Restak - I have a copy, but haven't checked.

There's a little more at that reference.
(But the entity within which this good stuff is embedded 
(chapt 17 of "A NEW EPOCH—AND SPECTRUM—OF CONFLICT") is 
your typical Strangeloveian beltway bandit blue sky bullshit snowjob.)
 
According to Paul McLean, the human brain is actually three brains
in one, a "triune" brain. Each brain is specialized in function and
interconnected with the other brains. 

The reptilian brain comprises
the brain stem, the midbrain and the basal ganglia. It controls the
reticular activating system, breathing and heart rate. With only the
reptilian brain, we would be cold-blooded reptiles. 13

The limbic brain surrounds the reptilian one. The limbic is a paleomammalian,
or early mammal brain. According to Robert Ornstein and Richard F.
Thompson, it is the source and regulator of the basic mammalian
survival activities: feeding, fighting, fleeing and sexual reproduction.
Ned Hermann describes its contributions as controlling the auto-
nomic nervous system and its involuntary responses. The limbic
registers rewards, punishments and emotions. It maintains a hierar-
chy of dominance and submission within the species and between
the organism and the environment. The limbic drives sexual
courtship, "follow-the-leader" rituals and mass migrations. The
limbic also conditions behaviors such as ganging up on the weak and
the new, defending territory, hunting, bonding, nesting, greeting,
flocking and playing. 14

With only the limbic and its embedded
reptilian brain, we would be warm-blooded mammals.

The capstone of the brain, as we know it today, is the 
neocortex orneo-mammalian brain. The neocortex comprises 80 percent of total
brain matter. It enables us to think, organize, remember, perceive,
speak, choose, create, imagine and cope with or adapt to novelty.
Within the neocortex 180 billion neurons or nerve cells interact with-
out any physical connection. The possibilities for interconnections
between neurons in one human brain are "greater than the number
of atoms in the universe," according to Ornstein.

The triune brain also appears to have specialized hemispheres. The
left hemisphere of the neocortex or the left brain, is the site of cogni-
tion. It processes words and numbers and organizes data in logical
and linear sequences. Unlike the left brain, the right brain is more
adept at registering the images, patterns, sounds and movement dis-
cernible in phenomenological perceptions or sensory input. Using
holistic processing, the right hemisphere of the brain conceptualizes,
hypothesizes and maintains an intuitive sense of the whole.

Because Western oral and written language and scientific notation are
linear and sequential, the left brain dominates these activities. Be-
cause creation is the product of illumination or insight, pattern
recognition and new or hypothetical conceptual constructs, its
source may be the right brain.





13

Paul McLean discussed by Ned Hermann, 
The Creative Brain
(Lake Lure, NC: Brain
Books, 1988), 31.

14

Robert Ornstein and Richard F. Thompson, 
The Amazing Brain
(Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1984), 21­40, 133­71.