The optimistic brain

I watched two television programmes recently that set me thinking. The first was presented by the Venetian nobleman Francesco da Mosta who was touring his native Italy. He was explaining that a characteristic of the Italian people owed something to a legacy of two thousand years of the Roman Catholic Church. To illustrate his point he took the viewers to a chapel in  Orvieto cathedral which depicted scenes from the New Testament book of Revelations, that vividly pointed out the trauma of the last judgement and the fate of mankind.

The other programme was Horizon's look at the subconscious human brain and it's huge untapped potential. One of the revelations of experiment had found that the human brain had the capacity to ignore negativity in making judgements, encouraging the breed to take chances in pushing back boundaries, promoting innovation, enterprise and exploration. In other words it has been crucial in the development and growth of the human race.

Although da Mosto felt that the murals in Orvieto may have frightened the faithful, he may have been reassured that the subconscious Italian brain would automatically be discounting the religious threats, allowing the nation to bring up a normal ration of sinners.