I was having a discussion with a neurosurgeon last week about neuromarketing – the combination of marketing and neuroscience to generate response – and he brought up an interesting point, which was that once neural pathways have been established – you are simply seeing a map of the road (but, in the brain, obviously).
If you put an MRI on my brain and ask me to think of racing – you will see certain parts of my brain fire up. The thing is, my brain may fire up differently than yours. I used to race, so my memories will react differently. Asked to experience those memories (or having them triggered) is going to adjust my physiology (heightened visual cortex awareness, fast-twitch response activation), etc. Your experience with racing may be completely different. It’s not that I’m right and you’re wrong, it’s just that my brain got wired differently.