In the mission statement for this website I write: 

“Here in the 21st century, with exponentially expanding computer intelligence and worldwide digital connection as the driving forces, evolution is accelerating at a speed never before experienced in human history…

 We have left the world of logical, linear, one step at a time, sequential thought,

                    We have entered the age of the quantum leap.”

Two scenes from one of the greatest films to portray a quantum leap in consciousness set the stage for today’s essay. 

2001: A Space Odyssey was purposely designed to provoke, disorient and challenge.  In this essay let’s look  at the film as  powerful metaphor for the required  shift in emphasis from the left hemisphere of the viewer’s brain to the right hemisphere.

As previously discussed, our brains are divided into a left and right hemisphere.  They are separated by a bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum through which the two hemispheres can communicate with each other.  The key to understanding their relationship, as masterfully explicated in Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, they each see the world from very different perspectives

The left hemisphere sees a material world which can be understood best by breaking things down into parts and figuring out how they fit together.  Very useful for creating advanced technology and organizing large systems.  But its weakness is a constant search for certainty–it’s  not comfortable with complex questions which require a tolerance for ambiguity and novelty.  It also has a tendency to get stuck within its own boundary.

The right hemisphere, which is physically larger and has more synaptic connections, seeks a “bigger picture” of the world and our place in it.  It’s capable of making intuitive, unpredictable leaps into new ways of perceiving and understanding.

As Iain McGilchrist writes,

“While making it clear that both the left and right hemisphere’s ways of looking at the world are important, “…I suggest that it is as if the left hemisphere, which creates a sort-of self-reflexive virtual world, has blocked off the available exits, the ways out of the hall of mirrors, into a reality which the right hemisphere could enable us to understand.”  This has resulted the modern society, both physically, emotionally and spiritually becoming “increasingly mechanistic, fragmented decontextualized world, marked by unwarranted optimism mixed with paranoia and a feeling of emptiness….reflecting, I believe, the unopposed action of a dysfunctional left hemisphere.”

2001:  A Space Odyssey can be seen as  a virtual celebration of the imaginative leap capabilities of the right hemisphere. Here is director/co-author Stanley Kubrick’s own description of the film in an interview with Eric Norden for Playboy Magazine:

“2001 is a nonverbal experience; out of two hours and 19 minutes of film, there are only a little less than 40 minutes of dialog. I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content. To convolute [Marshall] McLuhan, in 2001 the message is the medium. I intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to “explain” a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation. You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film — and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level.”

Note words and phrases Kubrick uses such as:

• “nonverbal” (psychologists have shown that most communication between and among us is at the nonverbal, subconscious level, a region the “implicit” right hemisphere is more comfortable in than the “explicit” left which depends much more on written and spoken verbal language;
• “free to speculate,” again a nod to the “implicit” where the right hemisphere subjectively fills in the gaps rather than the left hemisphere’s preference for exactness and objective clarity;

The Jump Cut / Synaptic Leap

One of the most unexpected, brilliant “jump-cut” edits in movie history is the rotating bone flung into the air by one of the prehistoric apes morphing into a futuristic space shuttle heading towards the moon.

The bone reflects the leap in intelligence of the leader of one of the ape groups after he and other group members flail nervously around the strange monolith (which helps induce the synaptic jump in the lead ape’s brain).  This ape discovers for the first time that the bone can be both a useful tool for digging and a powerful weapon for beating off other ape groups competing for territory around a life-supporting source of water.

The jump-cut edit to the modern space shuttle, from one point of view (the left hemisphere) is an exponential leap forward…who can deny the leap in tool sophistication between a primitive bone and a space shuttle to the moon?  From a technological perspective, yes.  But is it an equally large leap in consciousness?

We get the answer when we witness the lead American scientist, Dr. Heywood Floyd, under military orders, refusing to reveal to Russian scientific colleagues he has previously worked with any information about the discovery of another monolith found by American scientists doing research on the moon.  Rather than share the information in a collaborative effort, the American response is to keep the discovery secret, cutting off all communication from American scientists on the moon.  Floyd’s body language and verbal language  is incredibly stilted, emotionally void, tight-lipped, protective.

At the conference on the moon with fellow scientists, Floyd makes clear the need for absolute secrecy: If word got out that an artifact had been found buried by an alien intelligence, it was assumed people on earth would freak out.  How different is it from the primitive ape’s use of the bone to prevent other groups from using the water hole on the African savanna different from lead scientist Floyd preventing any other nation, or for that matter, the inhabitants of earth, from any information about the monolith?  Both moves come from the part of the brain which is dominated by a strict territorial imperative.  With the prehistoric apes, it was the need to dominate the water hole against any outside group–with the human scientists on the moon, it was the need to conform to  strict, bureaucratic protection of the existence of a higher intelligence.

So, one conclusion taken from this is  that while we homo sapiens have figured out how to make huge advances  in the usefulness of tools/technology, a primary attribute of the left hemisphere of the brain, there is not nearly the leap in consciousness that understands the advantages of collaboration and openness to the new and unpredictable–that which requires a leap in understanding,  attributes more conducive to the right hemisphere.

 Unplugging HAL

One of the most crucial, intriguing questions about the film has been “What made HAL go crazy?”  After making a computational error, the two astronauts are convinced the super computer, responsible for all the complex mechanisms of the space craft,  needs to be shut down. HAL, unknown to the two astronauts Bowman and Poole who made sure the computer couldn’t hear their plan to shut him down, can, however read their lips.  Out of self-protection (and to his computer brain, out of his instructions to guide the spacecraft to its intended destination, it murders one and refuses to let the other, Bowman, re-enter the spacecraft.

What caused HAL to break down and become a murderer? According to Kubrick, in an interview with author, journalist Joseph Gelmis:  “In the specific case of HAL, he had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility.”

But I prefer the explanation given by Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick, then gave his explanation in his sequel novel 2010:  The Year We Make Contact, (also made into a movie.)  Clarke, who had a background as an engineer/science writer as well as science fiction novelist, explains in the novel sequel that HAL broke down due an inability to resolve two conflicting algorithms inputted by orders of the humans in charge of the Jupiter mission. On the one hand, HAL was instructed to give astronauts Bowman and Poole accurate information to ensure the spaceship gets to Jupiter.  At the same time, those in charge of the mission feared that if the astronauts knew they were heading towards an alien intelligence, they’d freak out and not be willing to complete the mission.  So, HAL, after being instructed to give Bowman and Poole accurate information, was given the contradictory instruction to lie to them about the true purpose of the mission.

This breakdown in HAL’s brain when trying to hold two opposing algorithmic instructions  is analogous to the human phenomenon we’ve all experienced in our brains:  cognitive dissonance. This is the psychological pressure felt when holding two or more contradictory thoughts, values or beliefs at the same time.  Doing this while accessing the right hemisphere of the human brain’s capacity to use ambiguity and volatility to reach a higher level of understanding can actually lead to a more enlightened vision as will be noted towards the end of this essay.  And as awesome as the leap in AI has been since the turn of the new century,  computers can still not match the attributes of the human  right brain hemisphere.

So, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, according to Arthur C. Clarke, HAL pretends to make a potentially disastrous mistake regarding one of the spaceship’s mechanisms so that when the two astronauts left the spaceship to fix the exterior unit, HAL could cause their deaths and would no longer have to maintain the lie.  Bottom line:  It was the human error of inputting two contradictory instructions that fractured HAL’s computer brain.                            

A Metaphorical View

On the literal plot line level, HAL needed to be turned off since he had become a murderer.  But we can also consider the unplugging of HAL’s brain as reflecting astronaut Bowman’s need to cross over the Corpus callosum of his brain from predominantly left hemisphere (organized, focused, analytical, more predictable) to his right hemisphere (expansive, curious, more open to totally novel perceptions and sensations).

The left hemisphere of Bowman’s (or any human’s) brain could not tolerate Bowman’s mind-altering, totally mind-altering trip through the Star Gate set up by the monolith, which appears orbiting Jupiter right before the bizarre trip begins.

But before looking at Bowman entering the Star Gate:

It’s important to acknowledge the crucial value of the left-hemisphere in the big picture view of the Jupiter mission.  Without the ordered, sequential, organized mind-set of the two astronauts working with HAL, the exponentially superior brain at maintaining the mechanical quality of the spaceship,  Bowman would never have reached the Star Gate.

At the same time, without moving from the left hemisphere mode to right hemisphere (the Star Gate seen as a metaphor for the Corpus callosum, Bowman’s brain would have likely shut down, unable to deal with the disorienting, massive  evolutionary leap in consciousness his mind  experiences (a supersized version of cognitive dissonance).

Entering the STAR GATE        

At one metaphoric level, the unplugging of the computer/left hemisphere and the crossing over to the right hemisphere Stargate begins an accelerated evolutionary leap towards a newborn star child, a re-birth of Bowman (in human history a rebirth is represented by a Renaissance, “from Old French renaissance, literally “rebirth,” usually in a spiritual sense.”

When asked to talk about the final scenes, Kubrick responded, “No, I don’t mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot:”

“When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or Star Gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he’s placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination.”

We are now in the region of “dreams” and “imagination,” the province of the right hemisphere (Neurologically in our brains, Dr. Iain McGilchrist writes “…during REM sleep and dreaming there is greatly increased blood flow in the right hemisphere…EEG coherence data also point to the predominance of the right hemisphere in dreaming.”

Kubrick continues explaining the story line of the final Star Gate scenes:

“In a timeless state, his (Bowman’s) life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child…and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man’s evolutionary destiny.”

It is the premise of this website and the webinar associated with it that we are on the precipice of an evolutionary leap…a leap induced by exponentially expanding computer intelligence, the fast approaching scientific breakthroughs in genetic engineering and brain implants along with the potential for unprecedented breakthroughs in philosophical wisdom and psychological expansion through the collaborative network of the World Wide Web.

2001: A Space Odyssey, despite being produced over 50 years ago, remains one of the most powerful symbolic experiences of this potential for ‘evolutionary leap’ premise and, central to our theme here, remains one of the most effective symbolic celebrations of the crossing of the corpus callosum from the predominantly technical, specialized, utilitarian, closely focused left hemisphere to the more big-picture, imaginative, empathic, paradigm-breakthrough qualities of the right hemisphere.

CODA

We are the first beings on the evolutionary path here on planet Earth with the ability to consciously direct our own evolutionary path.

So, in what direction are we being pointed? The insight from one of the most insightful historians on the planet right now, Yuval Noah Havarti, which we highlight on the home page of this website is a deep insight into the speed of change generated by expanded computer intelligence percolating through all aspects of our lives:

“In long run, people will have to continually reinvent themselves.”

What if we combine that insight with one from the mind of Marshall McLuhan, the provocative media theorist we quote often on this website?

        “We Shape Our Tools,

                And Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us”

2001:  A Space Odyssey points to both the crucial importance of computer intelligence and its ultimate failure without the overriding influence of the right hemisphere of the human brain.

It is quite a challenge to feel what astronaut Bowman must have been going through in his mind after entering the Star Gate and experiencing those strange, unprecedented transitions leading to his rising from his death bed, pointing at the monolith which appears close by.

In nature, here on planet Earth Bowman’s leap is perhaps best reflected in the astounding molecular transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.  In human terms, spiritual teachers throughout the flow of the Perennial Philosophy, speak to the necessary inner transformation within the psyche in order to reach a deeper perception of reality.

Reflecting on the dry, impersonal, tight-lipped, overly defensive scientists and engineers who populate 2001:  A Space Odyssey and the over-dependence of the left hemisphere limited world view which has brought our civilization to the precipice of systematic collapse (climate change) , I again point to an insight from Iain McGilchrist:

“When we remember that it is the right hemisphere that succeeds in bringing us in touch with whatever is new by an attitude of receptive openness to what is—by contrast with the left hemisphere’s view that it makes new thing actively, by willfully putting them together bit by bit—it seems that here, too, is evidence, if any further were needed, that the right hemisphere is more true to the nature of things.” 

The left hemisphere of the human brain is great at inventing new tools and technology; the right hemisphere more suited for re-inventing our perception of the world, particularly relevant when the “nature of things” feels like they are shifting dramatically under our feet.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a visually beautiful cinematic trip leading to the “re-birth” (Renaissance)   guided by an alien intelligence.

The question: Here on planet Earth in the year 2021, is the “nature of things,”  the pull of evolution, pointing us on a trip towards a synaptic leap within the right hemisphere of our brains, to “re-invent” the way we perceive ourselves and our place in the world?

END.

 “Our Time is a time for crossing barriers,

      for looking ahead,

         for probing around.”

This is one of many deep insights you’ll find on this web site going forward from the man called the Prophet of the Electronic Age, Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan’s call for “crossing barriers,” on one important level, can be seen as a reference to the opening up the mind by literally crossing from the left-hemisphere of our brain through the anatomical barrier of fibers called the corpus callosum, to the right hemisphere.

While the left hemisphere of our brains, which dominates our educational, social and cultural systems, is wired to break things down into understandable parts and then analyze them to reach a clear conclusion, the right hemisphere is wired for “looking ahead and probing around,” actions more likely to generate imaginative leaps, exhilarating new insights, and new patterns of perception.

McLuhan, who was both revered as the go to media theorist and guru of the electronic age during much of the 1960’s and harshly criticized for uttering cryptic and puzzling phrases, was asked by a TV interviewer why he was so difficult to understand.  McLuhan answered, “Because I’m using the right hemisphere when they’re trying to use the left.”

McLuhan pointed out that all new media technologies re-wire the human brain in ways which at first often disrupt and disorientate before generating new gateways of perception (so, it’s not surprising to read so many apoplectic warnings about the dangers of the new gateway to expanded knowledge: The digital screen.)

As McLuhan pointed out in his book “The Gutenberg Galaxy,” the uncomfortable, disorienting rewiring of the brain by new media technology has been going on for millennia:

“If a technology is introduced either from within or from without a culture, and if it gives new stress or ascendancy to one or another of our senses, the ratio among all of our senses is altered. We no longer feel the same, nor do our eyes and ears and other senses remain the same.”

 

He then notes that Plato, one of the greatest philosophers in human history (in his dialogue, “Phaedrus” around 370 B.C.)  made clear his warning about the dangerous new technology of the alphabet and writing.  The alphabet and writing dangerous??? Plato was concerned that if people rely on writing instead of memorizing speech, they will too much be dependent on the external written symbols and lose their brain’s ability to “remember of themselves.”

Sounds similar to complaints from educators today that the digital screen is scrambling kids’ brains and students can’t remember what they read as well on the screen as they do from books.

I think we’d all agree that the invention of alphabets and written language was an evolutionary leap in knowledge, despite understandable concerns about how it would rewire the brain going forward.  And there’s a delicious irony Plato was well aware of when he wrote about his concerns about the new technology of writing:  He was expressing his insights through the medium he was warning against—the written word.

The Gutenberg Leap

Jump cut to the year 1439 as Johannes Gutenberg is unveiling the first print printing press using moveable type.  This revolutionary new technology opened up a whole new world, ripping apart the monopolizing grip of the church on both the content and access to knowledge and truth.  The printing press transformed science, the economy and communication.  At the same time, as had the invention of the alphabet and writing, the new experience of reading books caused severe disorientation and dislocation in the human brain.  Many worried at the time that people would isolate themselves, heads buried in books, deteriorating the art of conversation.

Neil Compton in a review of McLuhan for Commentary Magazine in 1965, explained McLuhan’s insight into the limitation of print technology:

“By translating all human experience into the visual, linear, sequential form of written sentences, and by mass-producing the result with the aid of the printing press, Western man has tended to alienate himself from deep involvement with his environment. “Numbed” into a “hypnotic trance” by his visual bias, ‘the bookman of detached private culture’ cannot cope with reality until it is processed into the linear, mechanical order of print.”

This ties beautifully into the need for a shift from left hemisphere dominance to a more right hemisphere thinking.  Breaking the world down into understandable, linear, sequential parts is the way the left hemisphere is wired.  It demands certainty and resists any attempt to break past its clearly defined territory.

Next Renaissance thinking requires this “crossing the barrier,” moving forward from  patterns of perception which served humanity in the past (brilliant technological achievements, but lacking the bigger picture of what technology and its accompanying materialism  have wrought (the Industrial Age pollution and now the potentially end game of climate change.

Let’s take a look at how the linear, orderly, sequential process of reading words, lines and sentences in a printed book, while fostering focused readings of interesting subjects on the one hand, limits the associative, synaptic leap powers of the brain on the other.

A good analysis of how our brains work when reading print can be found in the Scientific-American article, “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age”  by journalist Ferris Jabr.

One of its main conclusions, and the reason so many educators bemoan the amount of time students spend on digital screens, is because tests show that reading on the printed page is more conducive for “working-memory.”  If this sounds like a familiar refrain, earlier I pointed out Plato had the same concern about the invention of the alphabet and written language.  It should also be noted that more modern testing has shown that as the years go by and students (as well as most of the rest of us) get experience reading and researching on the digital screen “working-memory “gets better.

But for our purposes, helping to usher in the Next Renaissance, there’s a deeper point here:  What’s so great about “working-memory.?” Most of the school curricula currently in use are based on a 19th century industrial model which rewards students for memorizing facts in Pavlovian fashion, regurgitating them back on tests to show they understood what administrators who chose what books would be used wanted them to learn.

The word, “education,” has a very important etymology.  It come from the Latin phrase “to draw out,” i.e., to bring out one’s natural curiosities about the world, not to stuff in controllable information, which is still the favored mode of education at least up and through high school.

As the article linked to above points out, there is also a heavy “physicality” involved in reading books along with an unconscious sense of clearly defined boundaries no longer restricted on the digital screen.  There is a comfort in reading a book, knowing these boundaries are there.  But, also, a limitation, mostly subconscious, indoctrinating the sensibility that life is linear and has clear, definable boundaries.  As quantum physics and more recent scientific/philosophical breakthroughs such as Chaos theory, Self-Organization, Flow and Emergent theory reveal, nature, and for the most part, our brains are based on non-linear, unpredictable, synaptic jumps.

Maryanne Wolfe, whose doctorate is in human development and psychology, is quoted in the article:

 “In most cases, paper books have more obvious topography than onscreen text. An open paperback presents a reader with two clearly defined domains—the left and right pages—and a total of eight corners with which to orient oneself. A reader can focus on a single page of a paper book without losing sight of the whole text: one can see where the book begins and ends and where one page is in relation to those borders. One can even feel the thickness of the pages read in one hand and pages to be read in the other. Turning the pages of a paper book is like leaving one footprint after another on the trail—there’s a rhythm to it and a visible record of how far one has traveled. All these features not only make text in a paper book easily navigable; they also make it easier to form a coherent mental map of the text.”

But while it’s more comfortable right now for most of us to navigate through the single insights of one author writing in the familiar, measured lines of printed on pages in a book with clear boundaries, the full capacity of thinking is limited when seeing the world in linear, sequential order.

None of this is to imply that books are no longer relevant. The pleasures of reading text will continue to be a significant part of learning.  At the same time, the shift to the digital screen offers exponential leaps in exploring and synthesizing information.

The Shift to the Digital Screen

All the way back in 1945, Vannevar Bush, an inventor who worked on some of the early analog computers, anticipated both McLuhan’s insight and the World Wide Web:

“With one item in its grasp, the human brain snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain”

This insight into the “intricate web of trails carried by cells of the brain” anticipates the connected network of the world wide web and the dynamic “snaps” of hypertext links which break through the limitations of a bounded page of print and open up “trails” of connected thoughts.

(NOTE:  Clearly the digital screen is being manipulated by advertisers and fake news snake oil salesmen and there is a serious problem with kids getting addicted to the screen.  While these problems need to be addressed, as previously noted, EVERY major new media technology “disorients” at the beginning and creates new “downfalls” along with greatly expanded “upsides.” Much of this can be understood through McLuhan’s insight:

“It is the framework which changes with each new technology and not just the picture within the frame.” 

Adjusting to an entirely new media “framework” jolts the mind on both the unconscious and conscious levels, but, as history as shown, after initial disorientation and warnings, the new media leap us forward on our evolutionary trip.)

Another important point often ignored or forgotten by those admonishing the hyper speed/hypertext disorientation of the digital screen is how this new media technology, as with those before it, is expanding knowledge exponentially.

Writer and teacher Melissa Gouty, who clearly loves books and literature, nonetheless understands the economic and environmental advantages of the digital screen:

       “The cost of digital books is less than printed books, allowing schools and libraries to purchase more,               new inventory at a fraction of the cost. Readers can access online materials through free sites, giving               them resources that would not have been available if they have had to pay for print books.

         Digital resources don’t require physical space. No one has to build additional wings, construct shelves            or figure out where to house collections.  Online materials are not subject to mold, mildew, or theft like            print books are.

          Online materials are accessible at any time of the day or night, and deliverable within seconds. They              are portable and without weight.”

The New “Biliterate Brain”

The analogy which comes to my mind regarding the relationship of the digital screen to the printed page is that of Einstein’s revolutionary theory of relativity to Newton’s laws of cause and effect.  Einstein didn’t prove Newton wrong.  In fact, today Isaac Newton is still considered one of the greatest scientists of all time and his insights into the physical world remain highly relevant.  But Einstein did prove Newton’s insights to be limited. At speeds nearing the speed of light, new ways of looking at the world were needed in order to make the leap forward into the quantum age.

To use a phrase now becoming more popular, we need to become “biliterate,” that is, learn to use the distinct advantages of both the printed page and the digital screen while understanding they each wire our brains differently.

Melissa Gouty, addresses this in her article “Why You Need to Develop a Biliterate Brain—And How to Do It.”  She writes:

“We live in a modern world where we daily navigate the vast network of digital sources.  But we also have to be able to feel, understand and enjoy the depth of literature…

We NEED biliterate brains capable of both FAST and SLOW styles, looping and linear patterns to survive.

Digitally-developed brains are capable of flipping through visuals, assimilating ideas, jumping from thought to thought, and finding information FAST. Print-oriented brains allow us to SLOW DOWN, savor the language, and consider the implications of the words on our lives.”

CODA

We have left the world of one step at a time, linear, sequential thinking.

While continuing to experience the joys of sitting down with a good book and the need for slowing our brain waves down into contemplative insight, we are being pushed forward by the inevitable force of evolution into the sped up, hypertext, digital zeitgeist of the synaptic jump and quantum leap.

McLuhan anticipated this  back in the 1960’s when he stated,

“After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding” 

What’s called for to deal with systematic breakdown of  economic, social and political systems is a deep psychological paradigm shift in emphasis from the left-hemisphere focused point of view to a more right-hemisphere openness to probe novel, expansive regions of the human brain, to detect the rays of light which inevitably shine through the cracks of the systematic breakdown.

In the emergent Digital Age, with our brains extended outwards through the World Wide Web, we are adapting to a less fixed/linear/sequential reality to one allowing for a remixing of previous patterns of thought and more innovative, imaginative patterns of perception.  Disorienting, no doubt.  Frightening, if we stay controlled by our brain’s amygdala and restricted to the more certain, predictable confines of the left hemisphere.  As McLuhan made clear, this is a time “for crossing barriers, for looking ahead, for probing around.”

He also offered a therapeutic insight regarding the chaos, confusion and anxiety that accompanies the re-wiring of the brain through the invention of powerful new media technology such as the World Wide Web:

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools and yesterday’s concepts.”

And

 “There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”

End.

Enjoy the quotes and links below:

“My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognizably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bi-hemispheric structure of the brain. It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture.”                    

                                                                           Psychiatrist, Neurolgy Researcher, author, Dr. Iain McGilchrist

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“Traditional education gives little room for students to develop their creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking beyond predetermined, standardized boundaries. The next generation needs to be prepared to tackle not only the known, but also the unknown problems our world will face. Therefore, we must be forward thinking about how we train and inspire our upcoming generation…focusing more strongly on developing right-hemisphere potential, and corresponding values like intuition, creativity and empathy, is essential.”

Article about author Daniel Pink