A Right-Brain Future

[OrionzRevenge]

Improving Right-Brain functions is becoming a hot issue these days and as long as the U.S. Dollar is strong, vis-a-vis the third world, anything that can be outsourced will be. This will include the high-end Left-Brain dominate jobs.

Quote Source: Why right-brainers will rule this century - CNN.com

Your left brain is logical, linear, by-the-numbers; the right side is creative, artistic, empathetic. In Daniel Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind", he explores how right-brain thinkers are wired for 21st-century success.

Pink, a former chief speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, presents a convincing argument that our country is entering a new era -- the so-called conceptual age -- during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial than traditionally left-brained skills such as accounting and computer programming.

While the latter skills are readily outsourced, transformative abilities such as empathy and creativity are crucial in a new age "animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life," he writes.

QUESTION: Is improving Right-Brain Functions on your brain?

Why? or Why Not?

EDIT: Present Day Observations
When you look at the world around us you see our Cars, TVs, iPods, and Clothes coming to us cheap from the third world. Yet, it is western culture that produces the lifestyles, Movies, Music, and Fashion that most of the rest of the world craves. To create a new product or for Madison Avenue to sell it requires someone able to walk in the other guys shoes.

When I started tinkering with a computer the only way to make a picture was to type the syntax that defined the plotting and attributes of each pixel. Further, if I wanted an apparent 3D motion I had to employ Trigonometry and Geometry along with logic math to make it happen. Thus, trying to do visual was very Left-Brained.

Now, I just double click the PhotoShop or Bryce 3D icon and let my Right-Brain create. A handful of people make the high-level utility software that millions of people use to design for billions.

 

[Athenian200]

I do have right brain skills, but I'm extremely nervous about the prospect of being forced to rely on those skills to make a living. I don't like the kind of unpredictable, competitive, challenging work that involves the right-brain.

 

[FDG]

It doesn't seem like that's particularly true, to be honest.

 

[WickedQueen]

That won't happen... We need left brain to make sure that our internet connection run smoothly...

 

[Moiety]

I do have right left brain skills, but I'm extremely nervous about the prospect of being forced to rely on those skills to make a living. I don't like the kind of unpredictable, competitive, challenging boring work that involves the right-brain left-brain.

Fixed for personal relevance.


I used to think I wanted to do left-brain related work. These days I'm not so sure. I've done enough balancing throughout the years. Basically I'm a right-brain dominant that threaded the left-brain path for a long time and now became fed up with it. There are enough TJs in this world. Let them do what they were wired to do. I'm ok with "middle-of-the-road" or full-fledged right-brain work.

 

[King sns]

Thats an interesting theory...

 

[Thalassa]

Alright! Good news for me!

 

[FDG]

By the way, I truly think that they are stylizing some tasks in the wrong way. Writing a good computer program, solving a mathematical problem in an innovative way, creating a well-engineered structure require as much right brain as left brain. Purely left brain thinking is unable to find quicker/better looking ways of executing tasks, whatever the task is, and not many people are happy with that.

 

[nightning]

People try to split off the brain into two far too much. Creativity is nothing without logic and planning. Systematical thinking leads to little improvement without creativity. Enough said.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

People try to split off the brain into two far too much. Creativity is nothing without logic and planning. Systematical thinking leads to little improvement without creativity. Enough said.

I agree the geography is fuzzy. The book is really about becoming more right-brain aware and why you should be.

Dan Pink's book is on everybody's bestsellers list, has been translated into 18 languages, and is huge with educators.
The Book in Question

Here is a one hour and 22 minute video about the book's content(Pink appears at the 8 min. mark) :::A Whole New Mind LIVE AT TC WILLIAMS

 

[heart]

If left brain people are in the majority ( I have no idea if they are or not) then it would seem the world will remain left brain orientated. It sounds like right brain pipe dreaming to be honest.

 

[nightning]

Well heart, if you go by the Net generation philosophies... current society identifies with change. Just look at advances in technology, the internet, e-businesses etc, nothing stays the same for longer than a few years. In this case a swift, agile and ADAPTIVE mind is favored. Which is what this right-brained phenomenon is targeting... Since holistic thinking allows you to generalize from specifics and reapply them into new scenarios.

Ceti: Thanks for the link. I'll take a look at that later.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

If left brain people are in the majority ( I have no idea if they are or not) then it would seem the world will remain left brain orientated. It sounds like right brain pipe dreaming to be honest.

Left-Brain thinking dominates our culture but many feel it is learned or rather forced onto our kids who want to look out the window and see shapes in the clouds, but the teacher says pay attention and spell 'Draconian'.

If someone is not much of an artist but would like to be and is willing to explore how to tap into the right hemisphere...Then:

Drawing on the right side of the brain new edition PDF format. The book has been winning converts for 30 years.

 

[heart]

Well heart, if you go by the Net generation philosophies... current society identifies with change. Just look at advances in technology, the internet, e-businesses etc, nothing stays the same for longer than a few years. In this case a swift, agile and ADAPTIVE mind is favored. Which is what this right-brained phenomenon is targeting... Since holistic thinking allows you to generalize from specifics and reapply them into new scenarios.

How many people really live intense internet/techonology lives though (outside of business emails)? Most people I know offline do not. I am lucky to be able to get them to answer an occasional email. They prefer phone calls. They really dislike buying things online, they want to go out, see and touch what they buy. Many of them ten or more years younger than me!

 

[nozflubber]

The left hemisphere/right hemisphere distinction you quote is old, retarded garbage. And even if the hemisphere distinction was important and meaningful (it really isn't - global functioning of the overall brain is meaningful, regional activation preferences in the neocortex are just that - physiological geography), his idea is still fanciful.

Look at it this way: perform a hemispherectomy on a young child, and the remaining hemisphere adopts ALL of the functions of the would-be other half. Do not perform said surgery, and the brain develops with split functioning. What does split functioning mean?!? Absolutely nothing, it's just how your head is setup - it does NOT predict cognitive performance, or what you are going to be able to do in life.


The "present set-up" of your brain firing isn't what is important in the 21st century (or any century)- it'll be what cognitive skills you have, not what-is-firing-where.

The good associations you are making have to do with embracing more children's imagination. This is not a left-right brain bias, it's about nurturing the best possible outcome given how the child has to learn things. It is true that more children need less structure, and more embracing of their natural gifts as imagination. But that's more temperament related than hemisphere-dominance related. Your problem is thinking that something like imagination and normalized empathy result just from ONE hemisphere.... it 99% of humans, that is NOT the case.

 

[nightning]

How many people really live intense internet/techonology lives though (outside of business emails)? Most people I know offline do not. I am lucky to be able to get them to answer an occasional email. They prefer phone calls. They really dislike buying things online, they want to go out, see and touch what they buy. Many of them ten or more years younger than me!

Well considering I'm planning on entering the web industry. It's relevant for me. It's also not really so much the current working generation this is targeting but those born ~1800s or later. Kids that grew up with internet etc are going to make a significant impact once they hit the work force. When that time comes, I'll be phased out unless I can "do the shit" better than them. I guess it doesn't really pertain to you because you'll likely be retired by then.

The left hemisphere/right hemisphere distinction you quote is old, retarded garbage. And even if the hemisphere distinction was important and meaningful (it really isn't - global functioning of the overall brain is meaningful, regional activation preferences in the neocortex are just that - physiological geography), his idea is still fanciful.

Exactly noz. I've complaint before about the hemisphere divide. Except the CONCEPT of lateral, holistic thinking carries through regardless of which hemisphere (or both) you utilize. The whole "right-brain" description is just a way of attracting attention of the general public because it's easily visualized and sounds cool. Not because the hemisphere functions are that clear-cut.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

The left hemisphere/right hemisphere distinction you quote is old, retarded garbage. And even if the hemisphere distinction was important and meaningful (it really isn't - global functioning of the overall brain is meaningful, regional activation preferences in the neocortex are just that - physiological geography), his idea is still fanciful.

Look at it this way: perform a hemispherectomy on a young child, and the remaining hemisphere adopts ALL of the functions of the would-be other half. Do not perform said surgery, and the brain develops with split functioning. What does split functioning mean?!? Absolutely nothing, it's just how your head is setup - it does NOT predict cognitive performance, or what you are going to be able to do in life.


The "present set-up" of your brain firing isn't what is important in the 21st century (or any century)- it'll be what cognitive skills you have, not what-is-firing-where.

The good associations you are making have to do with embracing more children's imagination. This is not a left-right brain bias, it's about nurturing the best possible outcome given how the child has to learn things. It is true that more children need less structure, and more embracing of their natural gifts as imagination. But that's more temperament related than hemisphere-dominance related. Your problem is thinking that something like imagination and normalized empathy result just from ONE hemisphere.... it 99% of humans, that is NOT the case.

Geez, I thought I said the geography was fuzzy.
The 'Labels' Left and Right are applied because of where the majority of synaptic firing occurs in most people. The phenomenon was first seen with people that have their Corpus Callosum severed (bundle of connections that 'wires' one side to the other) and is supported with recent MRI studies.

The REAL issue that both books I listed speak upon is that, due to our 3 Rs Education system, most people are so dominate in this thinking they don't know how to tap into letting the right brain functions have say. The perfect example given in the "Drawing on the right side of the Brain" book is: if you draw stick figures instead of pictures it is because your Left Brain wont let go. For many, if you try to draw a face from a picture the left brain says "I don't really have to 'see' the picture to draw a nose. I have a symbolic understanding that a nose is a 3 sided pyramid with two holes at the bottom." Thus, your picture sucks. However, if you draw the picture upside down then the Left Brain is stumped and lets the Right Brain See and Draw. Try it! Feel the zone when it happens. We ALL have it because we can instantly ID a face we haven't seen in 10 years. Right Brain switching methods pop up in sports too. Many are trained to mutter something (keeping the Left Brain busy) while the Right Brain Throws the ball.