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Creativity and the Law: Jill Bolte Taylor and Clifford Stoll and TED

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The past few days I’ve been bombarded with “creativity” of the best kind.

From a very interesting discussion, and a funny How We Won the Case story, with a local attorney about the use of creativity in the law (not as straightforward as it sounds) to these amazing video clips from the TED Conference (and the TED blog) – my brain is whirling happily. These two 18 minute clips were funny, scary, inspiring, and mind boggling, but you can be sure they all are:

How the Mind Works: Stroke of Insight: “Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.”

2) Talks: Clifford Stoll: 18 minutes with an agile mind: ‘… could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he’s not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll’s to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides — and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he’s a scientist: “Once I do something, I want to do something else.”

(You might remember Clifford Stoll as the writer of the riveting, suspenseful Cuckoo’s Egg and provocative Silicon Snake Oil. He inspires and surprises once again, here in this <18 minute video.)

It’s amazing what a family reunion accompanied by the joys of Portland food and drink will do for the imagination 🙂

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3 responses to “Creativity and the Law: Jill Bolte Taylor and Clifford Stoll and TED”

  1. Anonymous says:

    I read “My Stroke of Insight” in one sitting – I couldn’t put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it’s a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I’ve ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Some less positive thoughts about that video:

    http://westallen.typepad.com/idealawg/2008/04/some-critical-t.html

  3. Anonymous says:

    Thank you for that. Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight is one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her TEDTalk video blew my mind wide open to new possibilities. On the one hand, there’s what she went through and how she emerged from it. On the other hand, there’s what she can teach all of us.
    I saw the 4 part Oprah interview on Oprah dot com Soul Series and I did learn a lot from that, but I’d like to find our more of how to do what Dr. Taylor did, without having a stroke of course!
    Thin how many of us are living too much in the head, and not the heart. And of course, you can’t get more left brain than a Harvard Brain Scientist. Isn’t it ironic that she should be the one to have the stroke and transform from the quintessential left brainer into this “”seen the light”” disciple of finding inner peace?
    I hope this movement keeps going. Maybe there will be My Stroke of Insight classes where we can practice what Jill Bolte Taylor is preaching.

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