Two Liberal Thinkers Sit Down for Dinner

Jill Bolte Taylor, a renowned neroatonomist, is seated across the table from Noah Chaney, a respected art historian, novelist and founder of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art. Two incredibly well educated people both obsessed with the way a person thinks, would definitely make an interesting dinner conversation. According to both scholars, there are four ways a person thinks. Jill Bolte Taylor would probably engage in the conversation by taking points from her TED Talk video, “My Stroke of Insight” by explaining the two very different, but harmonious parts of the brain: the left hemisphere, and the right. Taylor describes the left hemisphere as being a serial processor that thinks in language and math and helps individualize a person. Unlike the left hemisphere, the right side only uses in the moment, sensory imagery to process the world around it. Chaney would most likely be interested in the difference between both hemispheres and add to the conversation by referring to his article, “This Is Your Brain on Art”. He would explain that top down thinking is when a person uses past personal experience and symbols to process thoughts, while bottom up thinking is used when viewing abstract art, because it strictly utilizes instinctual thinking, and is solely based on years of basic human perception with absolutely no priori knowledge. With that being said, the conversation between these two would continue to be both pleasant and agreeable, yet beneficially knowledgeable. Both professionals would be able to relate to each other’s way of thinking because they have both had experiences that provided them with different views of the world. Taylor’s stroke gave her the opportunity to temporarily see life through the kinesthetic, chatter-free world of the right hemisphere and witness the peace that came from it, forever changing how she perceived life. Chaney was able to learn that in order to see abstract art, one must eliminate an engrained way of thinking and look at it from a different point of view. I can say with confidence that both intellectuals would spend the evening exchanging informed, liberal insight about how to view the world.