TEDTalks this weekend is all about the brain, the left and right hemispheres thereof, and their rightful places in our everyday lives and relationship to society. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who gave the featured speech, is a brain brain of some sort. I believe neural anatomist was the term she used. She had a stroke a few years back but, being an expert in the old cerebellum, she was objective enough to actually think about what was happening to her.
We’ve Got to Live Together
There are two special observations I would like to make about Dr. Taylor’s speech. First of all, kudos to this incredibly brave and level headed scientist. When most people would have felt disorientation, she felt inspiration. When most people would have felt panic, she felt curiosity. When most people would have felt extreme anguish at the thought of their own death, she tried to study it and preserve it for posterity. Tough lady.
Secondly, if she hadn’t announced right up front that she was talking about a stroke, I would have thought she was talking about an acid trip. You get the same sensory inputs as everybody around you. You see the same sights, you hear the same sounds. You just interpret them a bit differently. They aren’t really hallucinations. You see a tree. I see a tree god. Both interpretations have some validity.
Anyway, in addition to being an inspiring speech about the beauty of the human mind, it made me think about the internet. Artificial intelligence. The external mind of those who will inherit the earth. That rough beast, slouching into your living room and waiting to be born.
The human brain has two sides. The internet has thousands. They all need some time to work apart. They all need a healthy corpus callosum to keep them working together.
We can learn from examining the brain. We can learn how to build a better one.
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