Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

When things are going according to plan-that is, when our actions fulfill our desireswe feel secure, even happy. When nothing is going wrong, the cortical systems expressly responsible for the organization and implementation of goal-directed behavior remain firmly in control. When cortically generated plans and fantasies go up in smoke, however, this control vanishes. The comparatively ancient "limbic" hippocampal and amygdalic systems leap into action, modifYing affect, interpretation and behavior. The hippocampus appears particularly specialized for comparing the (interpreted) reality of the present, as it manifests itself in the subjective sphere, with the fantasies of the ideal future constructed by the motor unit (acting in turn as the higher-order mediator-the king, so to speak-of all the specialized subsystems that compose the more fundamental or primary components of the brain).