Through reading “This is Your Brain on Art” and watching “A
Powerful Stroke of Insight” I can see how the authors can relate their ideas to
each other. For instance, if both of the authors were to have dinner together
Jill Bolte Taylor, speaker of “A Powerful Stroke of Insight” she would start
the conversation with her story about the time she had a stroke. Then Noah
Charney, author of “This is Your Brain on Art: a neuroscientist’s lessons on
why abstract art makes our brains hurt so good” would relate to Taylor’s differences
in her left and right side of the brain by explaining his ideas about “bottom
up” and “top down” thinking. They would both discuss the similarities as the
left side of the brain is detailed and about facts and in “bottom up” thinking
our brains are trying to make sense of things based off of past experiences and
things we have seen by reductionism. Taylor and Charney would also look at the similarities
of the right brain and “bottom up” thinking as they are both done unconsciously
and we don’t pay attention to them being there in our thinking process from our
senses and the assumption that a light in the corner is coming from the sun.
Charney would then quote a statement in his essay from Henri Matisse “we are
closer to attaining cheerful serenity by simplifying thoughts and figures.”
Taylor would then relate to this and agree because of her experience with
nirvana when she lost the analytical side of her thought process making life
seem simple and achieving joy. In conclusion, the authors ideas both relate to
each other, and although both sides of thinking are important they both
understand the differences.
Both Noah Charney and Jill Bolte Taylor are having a dinner date at a small café to discuss their thoughts of how the world around them is perceived and how they think it should be perceived. Taylor being older and having more experience (both studying the mind and her stroke) with the human brain would speak more condescendingly like a grandmother would talk. Taylor would tell Charney about her stroke and how that experience affected her perspective of the world and how it made her brain feel so good to be in that state of nirvana. Charney is intrigued and would follow up by mentioning his article and how abstract art can give you a different way of looking at things and make your brain hurt so good. The two would have a laugh and Charney would continue to speak about bottom up and top down thinking and how it is somewhat similar to how the two hemispheres of the brain think differently from one another. The similarities between both Charney’s article and Taylor’s speech are similar and lets the two discuss similar ideas but also different enough so both Charney and Taylor leave their dinner knowing more information and different perspectives on the topic to plug in to their next work.
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