WISDOM DIVISION

February 20th, 2021

Everyone on the planet can be asked for their opinion about whether a business idea is a good one or not, and likely each will have an opinion but no one can say with absolute certainty how well it will work.  For that the idea must be implemented.  That entrepreneurial leap must be taken, and then a different wisdom of the crowds begins to take over.

The brain is divided up in a similar way.  The left brain is responsible for all the at we say.  It formulates sentences, has the intimate understanding what each word actually means and it’s highly attuned to detail.  The left hemisphere, in this sense is like the individual who we can ask about whether our business idea will work or not.

Unfortunately, this left hemisphere is rather narrow in it’s focus, and it will give a plausible sounding answer even if it most certainly doesn’t have that answer.  Strangely, a person can do fairly well without this hemisphere, if say it is lost due to a stroke.  The right side of the brain is strangely capable to take over in such a way that a person can pretty much live a normal life.  

If however, the case is reversed, if the right side of the brain takes the hit and it completely taken off line, then people change quite a bit.  Such people cease to understand humour, they take everything extremely literally, and while they can speak just fine, they have a tremendous amount of trouble with the rest of their life.  The missing hemisphere in this case is the one that is attuned to the larger picture, the context in which fits all the details catalogued by the left.  Without the big picture, we are lost with no understanding of location or direction in that bigger picture.

Our brain seems designed to hold at once two different contexts simultaneously.  The narrow detailed one, and the expansive and pervasive one.

The evolutionary cause seems fairly robust.  That left brain - the narrow detailed one, is good for food.  It focusing the prey, zooming in, and moves towards it with little consideration for anything else.  While the right brain, focused on the larger context is suited to the issue of predators, not just because a predator can be anywhere, and therefore arises the need to be aware of that larger environment, but also to keep on hands possible avenues of escape.

The functional dichotomy within the skull seems at work on a larger scale regarding the market.  Each person can give a detailed and perhaps logical opinion, but only the overall group can give the answer, silently through the forces of the market.