My Wife Already Knew It!
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said ‘The test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function’.
Well either he was wrong or there are no first-rate minds as neuroscience revealed the impossibility of the task.
Comes as no surprise to my wife, but neuroscientists yesterday revealed that it is impossible for a human being to hold two thoughts at the same time–let alone opposing ones. What my wife would perhaps not have been so pleased about is the fact that it is the same for either gender–women finding it just as impossible as men.
Early humans had one mind. It was what psychologists call a “reactive” mind. It only exhibited what we would consider higher thought processes when it was presented with a problem. It didn’t plan for the future or imagine how to improve things like a dwelling, a tool or escaping a predator. It only reacted to situations that happened in the “here and now.” But, according to neuroscience, a sudden improvement happened when the human brain decided to double its efforts in thought processing. Now, although you and I have one brain, each half of it has the ability to act independently at the same time.
Our conscious mind can only focus on data from one side of the brain at a time. We can switch from one side to the other very quickly (with our corpus collosum which acts rather like a biological Ethernet cable) but that’s not always the most efficient way to act and eventually ultimate authority to enter consciousness is delegated to one brain or the other. In our modern world, this battle is almost always won by the left brain. This left brain is seen as the logic center, the right being more engaged in creative or emotional reaction.
The next time you find yourself entering a business critical