This morning I stumbled upon an extremely powerful and intriguing piece from the TED: Ideas worth spreading 2008 talks. Before I attempt to make sense of this mixture of madness and euphoria, I highly recommend that you take the time to watch this brave women retell her story of a stroke. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist, and she relives her incredible experience of the power and mystery of the brain, from the inside out.
Click on the image to view video…
Jill clearly had a very profound experience. Her intense re-telling of her experience raises many profound questions. Did she truly experience “Oneness” or were her feelings misinterpreted by her catastrophically injured brain? Also interesting to note that she had apparently enough mental awareness to realize that she didn’t keep track of the last number dialed when calling for help and yet not enough to be able to pick out her business card. Can reality only be defined as that which is experienced with the help of both brain hemispheres?
It is easy to get carried away discussing this as this becomes a debate of what is real. Though some people certainly do have very interesting takes on this.
That being said, the logical world is also a trick of the brain. You are a trick of the brain. You don’t really exist. You have no spirit. There is no life force. You’re just a cloud of noise kicked up by the genetic machine, and when you die the noise will be silenced and you and the universe will cease.
We are not connected. We don’t exist.
I would have to say that that is a very depressing take on all of this. Just try telling the woman whom it took 8 years to recover from such a profound experience that it was all but a trick. So then what is real?
I don’t really know which pill to swallow. So I can’t help but feel in awe and dumbfounded amazement at all of this. Just how much we don’t understand. Sure we have green cars, fast food and we can crash particles into each other, but we are still very much limited in our understanding of our brain. Not to mention the recursively mind bending puzzle of being able to study (using our brains), the brain.
Who are we to define what is real?
But perhaps what is most amazing and what most of us take for granted, is just how flexible and powerful our brain really is. The woman you watched in the video spent 8 years recovering from a clot the size of a golf ball in her head. Yet here she is 8 years later, coherent, lively and enthusiastic. Full of hope, passion and creativity. Truly an inspiring trip from euphoria to madness and back again.
Filed under: Health, Life, People | 1 Comment
… thanx for taking the time to find and then post this [ the extra set of eyes : ) ]
What I find most intrigueing is how much “science” and “spirituality” are really not as seperate as we have always assumed. As science continues to evolve in it’s understanding and perception of reality I think we will see more and more of these magical collisions…
the scientist and the seer will eventually meet and realize they were only at opposites of the same pole or continuum.