Search results for: left brain

Things I never knew about my father @proflisajardine @conwayhall

Blogging live from the Conway Memorial Lecture at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. Lisa Jardine’s subject is her father Jacob Bronowski, public intellectual and humanist responsible for inspiring a generation, myself included. When I blogged about my “Bronowski Moment” some years ago, I discovered it was a moment shared with many, including Lisa herself. The … Continue reading “Things I never knew about my father @proflisajardine @conwayhall”

Bang Goes The Big Bang

Blogging live from the IAI – How The Light Gets In – conference at Hay-on-Wye. (Not to be confused with the contemporary and almost co-located Hay Festival of Arts and Literature.) Well, I was live when I wrote that – but sadly teeming rain, muddy tented venues and lack of any safe power supplies, meant … Continue reading “Bang Goes The Big Bang”

Hold Your Definition

Blogging after quite a hiatus, more of which in the next post, and reading a first book since October, the two not unconnected. Received Dan Dennett’s “Intuition Pumps – and Other Tools for Thinking” as a Christmas present. No secret here on Psybertron that I’m a big fan of Dennett, and Intuition Pumps is a … Continue reading “Hold Your Definition”

Life After Death

A recurring theme, and target in the various naive God vs Science debates, I last mentioned it here, but it’s just not an issue for this atheist /scientist. It’s like this: We are our minds; “our” minds are concentrated in our brains but distributed throughout “our” bodily electro-chemical systems; the content and consciousness of our minds … Continue reading “Life After Death”

Master and Emissary

Iain McGilchrist talking with Bryan Appleyard at the Wellcome Foundation brain exhibition. Thanks to David Morey for the link on Facebook. Timely in view of my reading of Haidt’s Righteous Mind. Interesting, the idea that the right brain understands why it needs the left, but the left doesn’t understand why it needs the right – … Continue reading “Master and Emissary”

Confirmation Bias

I’m often guilty of confirmation bias. I have a particular world-view that favours balance across multi-levelled patterns, over extreme positions at any one level, so being an unfashionable position (in the blogosphere) I often latch onto examples that illustrate points that support my position. I was expecting Kahneman’s best selling “Thinking Fast and Slow” to be … Continue reading “Confirmation Bias”

Beer Myth

There is a British myth that, apart from perhaps Belgian beers, British “real ale” is the the best beer there is. Now much as I do love traditional English ales, in all their varieties (Ordinary/Sessions, Specials, Extra-Specials, in a beer garden, by the river, on a summer’s day, etc.), there is so much more to … Continue reading “Beer Myth”

A Myth Too Far

In an effort to debunk brain myths, Claudia Hammond at the Beeb attempts to play down the significance left-right brain effects. Of course boiling anything down to two “objects” is absurd reductionism. Of course left and right brain are hugely connected. But as the final sentence admits they work in complementary ways, their behaviour and … Continue reading “A Myth Too Far”