I thought this TED talk from Jill Bolte Taylor (Neuroanatomist) an excellent summary as she reports on the experience of her own stroke.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight#t-79229
Enjoyed the ted talk. Where do you want to go with this?
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I am happy for discussion to go anywhere. I liked this TED talk as Jill encapsulated spirituality for me. I think the US is a unique in the western world as it still clings very strongly to the notion that religion = spirituality. In most other western countries spirituality is a broad concept that considers how a person is connected to something bigger than themselves (be it God, gods, religions, nature, community, universe, etc). Spirituality in this sense is the realization that “I” am insignificant in the scheme of what is around me but despite my insignificance, “I” am still connected and influence the world around “me”.
The biggest realization we could ever have is how the self fits into the world around it (unfortunately we generally spend our entire lives trying to force the world to fit our sense of self).
I’m wondering if there are persons not privy to neuroscience who have experienced what Taylor has. Perhaps her subconscious was reiterating what she had learned. Roger Sperry came up with the split brain theory about half a century ago. Taylor would have known that. Would my stroke yield the same insights?
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Having supported many stoke victims on the journey to recovery or on the journey to death, I can experientially say that strokes don’t yield the same result (and Taylor would also know this). I don’t think the split brain theory hold a lot of weight scientifically other than in pop-science culture. For example, within the modern education system (which rarely exists) teachers are encouraged to not go down the split brain theory approach as generally it is a lot of codswallop.
Having said all that, I think Taylor is using a bit of creative licence in her recount and conveniently left out a lot of blood sweat and tears. But where I think she is coming from is that she came to a “death-realization”. Arriving at the point where a person “truly” acknowledges ones fear of death is the only way to accept ones own death. This fear of death and acceptance of death then brings about the motivation for change.
I did not interpret Taylor’s recount as a call to follow science or as a call to follow religion or as a call to find out the causes of her realization. Her emotions and tears and beautiful recount was a call to bring about change in how we live our lives and in doing so to bring about change in how we die.
I agree with you. Being an ardent follower of TED, I saw this talk some time ago and I have mentioned it on ILP somewhere, but what I found to be the primary statement was that our mind shapes our perception and when it doesn’t, we get a glimpse of how selective our perception of the world actually is. That said, we should then question what ideas shape our concepts - and how in touch with reality our concepts actually are.
Sorry, I missed this reply Bob. Yes, I follow TED too… nice stuff. And agree, but Is it possible for our minds not to shape perception? I would put forth that we have no choice in the matter, our minds will always shape and distort our perception… the trick is to shape our perception in such a way that it produces beneficial outcomes for ourselves and others.