Food for Thought

                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. 

Dinner for 2

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.

Food for Thought

The two authors, Noah Charney and Jill Bolte Taylor, have minds that are very open to new concepts and attain advanced thought processes. Their conversation over dinner would be very intellectually stimulating as they apply their knowledge from their fields of study into their experiences. I imagine they would enjoy a few glasses of wine as they discuss metacognition. They would be at the dinner table for at least a few hours before they realize how much time has passed. I envision this to be much like the tea party scene of Alice in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Their conversation of what seems like nonsense to the outsider is in fact just a new way of looking at an idea and expanding it to its fullest potential. Of course, with minds like those, the stray of subject is bound to happen. Their ideas would trigger other ideas and a whole fascinating world of imagination and possibilities is likely to be born. While some topics would be argumentative because of their different way of organizing thoughts, others would build on each other as the two hemispheres and bottom-up/top-down styles of thinking flow together. These authors' conversation would be productive in the sense that their intellectual viewpoints would be very engaging and controversial. They would most likely say good-bye after arranging to meet again soon.

Dinner Party

The authors would see the world as a very beautiful and abstract place. Each author talked a little bit on seeing the world with abstract eyes, and how they viewed simple things in life as extraordinary. I envisioned all of the authors sitting around a circular table with their favorite pieces of artwork and the best boxed wine Target has to offer. Drinking, and laughing while they show off their favorite abstract artists and artwork that they have collected. Although the authors all think with an abstract mind, each author has a different approach to using it to interpret various types of art or everyday things.  If I listen carefully I can hear one author talk about what some of the paintings would have looked like when she was having her stroke, or another breaking the paintings down further and further until he solved the imaginary and  philosophical case he had created for the painting. While others may still choose to be more analytical like the movie critic, they still have brief moments and thoughts that allows the abstract side to be seen every now and then. Despite their different thought patterns and experiences, if all of the authors we have seen or read so far were to have dinner together, they would have one hell of a time exploring each others thoughts and perceptions.

A Hippie, a Scientist, and an Author go to dinner

I can imagine this evening being full of intellectual conversation, prolonged eye contact, and plenty of wine. I feel as though soon after the introduction and understanding of one another's view points, they would realize it is not a matter of the "best way" to think but rather when to think which way. On one hand, if you spend all your time thinking in your right hemisphere, you would lose your way in this world. On the other, if you always thought from a bottom-up standpoint you could end up missing the bigger picture by always generalizing and with a top-down standpoint you could end up looking within too much which threatens to eventually lead to a dead-end. And on the third, while Oliver Burkeman makes it clear one must balance positive and negative thinking, people come in many forms, and for a pessimistic or depressed person, enforced positive thinking maybe the only way to begin changing their lives. The best way to think is to be well-informed about each type of thinking and to be aware if one or the other creates a biased viewpoint. For instance, when involved in politics, one should choose to think from their right hemisphere which would create the effect of the “golden rule.” While when understanding and working through internal turmoil, one should not suppress their negative thoughts or feelings but allow them to come and just as soon, go. When learning a new subject, one should be aware of the influence bottom-up and top-down thinking has on their perception and know when to put it aside to learn more directly. By the end of the night, they are belligerent and laughing hysterically as they wonder when thinking became so complicated.

Observing Through the Minds Eye

Having dinner with the Authors that we’ve read on, that are invested on the muse of abstract and objective art connecting them to the view of reality. Fueling a conversation of how we should view life would produce a tasty conversation for the night. Carrying the discussion of the best way to see the world would lead to a well in-depth debate that doesn't truly have a right or wrong answer. Comparison of seeing actual objective reality and how you interpret your own reality. Something that can only be decided by someone's individual view, rather than developing a specific criteria to view life. Whether you can picture it or not it's still a form of reality that may be understood depending how people interpret it. No matter if you see animals in the clouds or just clouds in the sky the reality you see is the reality you develop for yourself. The Authors would agree to this discussion because everyone is unique in their own way and may encounter reality way differently then they may experience themselves. From both point of views I believe they will settle at the point that reality is not a specific settlement that is to be seen through one lens but left to the eye of the beholder.

Brain Chatter

After reading the selected readings and watching the video, I feel that the authors would only agree that thinking isn't as simple as we think it is. The context in each of these ideas show a different way of thinking. If they were to sit and talk, they might even have an educated argument because of their different ideas. One author feel there is two ways of thinking, the speaker feels that it would be better if we all used the right side of our brain to create the feeling or no worries or neutral, the third author feels that negative thinking is helpful which might be close to the last essay about how emotions work together to form our way of thought.

These are all valid ways of thinking but the ideas don’t connect, well not all of them. If I could pick which way of thinking I agree with the most, that means these authors’ research are original in relation to the others. I could argue why I agree with one author instead of the other, also showing the thoughts originality compared to the others. I only feel that, “The power of Negative Thinking” reading and “Ode to the Joy” reading is similar because they involve our emotions in a way that we can control. The reading, “This is your Brain on Art” involves the outside of the box thinking not including emotions until you think about the idea at an art museum. Lastly, Jill Bolte Taylor’s video was different by her physically talking about the brain and its two sides, no animation, and a real-life trauma that she took as a wonderful experience.