The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

What do I mean by ‘betweenness'? Think about the nature of music. Music does not exist in one particular note – which is in itself meaningless; or in a lot of such single notes, each in itself meaningless. I am tempted to say it exists more in the spaces than in the notes: the spaces between successive notes in pitch that creates the melody, the sp

The human brain does information acquisition, pattern recognition, and goal direction. Give the goal direction system a goal and you give the pattern recognition system a purpose and the information acquisition system a target. Cortisol levels drop. It’s why, Lion believes, everyone needs a mission.

If one had to characterise the difference overall, is something like this. Experience is forever in motion, ramifying and unpredictable. In order for us to know anything at all, that thing must have enduring properties. If all things flow and one can never step into the same river twice– Heraclitus’s phrase is, I believe, a brilliant evocation of t