Art, science and meaning

As Jimmy Gutterman says:

Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard neuroanatomist, eavesdropped on her own stroke. As I wrote the day of her talk, she walked us through what she felt and thought while her brain was going wild, from the borderline-metaphysical ("I can't define where I begin and where I end") to the borderline-hilarious ("I'm a busy woman. I don't have time for a stoke"). Her description of her time in that strange state, caught between two worlds, the rare researcher who has been able to chronicle a brain-changing event from the inside, was astonishing.

Eighteen minutes of purest drama. For me it crystallised something I've long felt but haven't quite been able to articulate - that art and science are, at one level, in the same business, which is making sense of our lives. See it for yourself.

note for a friend

Anyone with no principles is a cynic.

The person with one principle is either a simpleton or a fanatic.

Someone with any two good principles is a nut - because at some point in their life the two principles will come into conflict like the two arms of a nutcracker, with him or her feeling the pain in the middle.