‘THE CONCEPTUAL AGE’
Let’s understand our recognition. We are so called
human beings, the most sensitive creature, who have well-stablished their
adaptation on the host planet earth. Leaving all the facts behind, today, we
know how we are superior to other creatures of this incredible nature. This
reflects the knowledge and thinking power of us. We know our background well. Our
history is the level of our knowledge which keeps the ability to give birth to
technology. Thus, our recognition is our technology. Technology is upgrading
the level of thinking of people. The journey from the agricultural era has now
arrived at the information age. What is the next era?
During our journey from agricultural age to the
present time, we have excessively used the thinking power of our mind. People
invented massive machines which led to the development of industrial age, and
now the development of technology is leading information age towards
perfections. The world till now has been dominated by the left-brain thinkers.
Will this go on forever? Obviously not. Because, the world today seeks the
technology with human touch. Right-brain thinkers are rising through many
sectors of technologies, leading us to a totally new era termed, by experts, as
the ‘conceptual age’.
Left Brain and Right Brain
As the thinking power of people has brought this era
in front of us, it is not unfair to characterize the upcoming age on the basis
of our thinking power. We can say our mind is very active and this process will
go on. That’s why, we cannot exactly say what will be the form of our thinking
in the near future. Let’s apply our
trick/logic in characterization of our level of thinking in the new era. Wait.
Let’s stop thinking by our mind. Let’s do it with our heart. These are the
stuffs of literature. But Sperry
experimented on the activity pattern of the human brain on different nature of
thinking and he concluded the fact that thinking can be produced by the two
parts of our brain. The logical, technical, scientific, linguistic and so like
other thinking are produced on our left brain. Whereas, our right brain
produces thinking related to emotion, ego, literature, art, decoration,
concept, understanding, and so on. Obviously, left hemisphere of the brain
makes us superior to the beasts and right hemisphere of the brain makes us
human. However, the two hemispheres do not operate as on-off switches – one
powering down when other starts lighting up and vice versa. Both the brains
play a role in nearly everything we do. The difference only is the more
participation of one part than another in any function of the brain.
There are many people in the world who think that
everything can be divided in two categories- east versus west. Logic versus
emotion. Left versus right. But in most realms, we don’t have to pick sides.
The logic without emotion is the chilly, spoke-like existence. Emotion without
logic is the weepy, hysterical world. However, there are two parts of brain, it
is divided not to work separately but it is designed to work together as a
smooth, single, integrated whole in one entire, complete brain. This is exactly
what happens in the conceptual age – the coordination of L-directed thinking
with R-directed thinking.
Let’s make our view point travel into past. We can
find that L-directed thinking has been being gradually developing. For the
contribution to scientific development, there is strong tilt towards left part
of brain. But this is changing – and it will dramatically reshape our lives.
Left-brain-thinking used to be the driver and right-brain-thinking used to be
the passenger. Now, R-directed thinking is suddenly grabbing the wheel. Of
course, for the development of technology, here was a significant role of
left-brain thinking in the past, but now the trend has been changed a lot. Participation
of only left-brain thinking is no longer sufficient for the development of any
technology. Right-brain thinking also needs participation. Actually, the main
motive of modern technology is to fulfill necessities of the human society.
Actually, the R-directed thinking recognizes the real requirement of people,
and then L-directed thinking produces the logic to discover the technology and
again R-directed thinking guides the way of discovery.
The development of technologies is to fulfill the
necessities of the people. The fulfillment of the necessities of people does
not grantee their satisfaction with that technology. The related developers,
now, are focused on seeking the technologies that can make people satisfied.
R-directed thinking applies here. It belongs to how technology is shooting the
word, rather than what it is doing. This is how R-directed thinking is leading
the world to a totally new era, the conceptual age. Unlike the massive machine
structures at the beginning of industrial age, modern technology is granting the
production portable and very much user friendly. Now, none like to use the
room-sized computers as they have one fit in lap and even palm. None prefers to
use classical mobile phones, now, as technology has integrated thousands of
features on modern cell phones. This is how the R-directed thinking is taking
control over the L-directed thinking.
Last century, machines proved they could replace human
back. This century, new technologies are proving that they can replace human
left brains. The impact of R-directed thinking on professions is also
significant nowadays. In the old days, only the person with good knowledge of
computer programming routine used to get job as a computer programmer, but this
is no longer nowadays. There has been development of software that can make
software and a normal person can program a software. Nowadays, the programming
with arts and creativity are being preferred to the only logic based complex
programming. Engineers and technicians of this century are being focused on the
conceptual and creative knowledge rather than technical manuals, and more on
fashioning the big pictures than sweating the details. Automation is replacing
doctors in diagnosis. Computers are playing more accurate decision making in
detection and cure of diseases. All these developments emphasize human touch.
The main characters now are the creators and the
empathizers. Mere survival today depends upon being able to do something that
overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper, that powerful computers can’t do
faster, and that satisfies one of the non-material transcendental desires of an
abundant age. We will need to supplement our well-developed high-tech abilities
that are high concepts and high touch. High concepts involve the ability to
create artistic and emotional beauties, to detect patterns and opportunities,
to craft a satisfying narrative and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a
novel invention. High tech involves the ability to empathize, to understand the
subtitles of the human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it
in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian, in pursuit of purpose and
meaning.
Well, the world is obviously moving towards the
conceptual age as revealed by the application of high concepts and high touches
in each and every field. Let’s extract an example of American medical school,
where curriculum has been changed a lot and students are trained on “narrative
medicine”. As the research has revealed despite the power of computer
diagnostics, important part of diagnosis is contained in understanding of
patient’s stories. USA is moving forward in art-business, which focus on
people-oriented products and by the use of creativity and art on the products,
art-business is now granting the satisfaction and human touch. High tech is no
longer nowadays. Cooperation of high tech with high concept is the one that can
compete in the market of business. In 2012, Richard Florida identified a group
of 38 million Americans that are labeled as “creative class”. The growth of
this class rank is hard to ignore. What is happening to modern trend of
technology is what is happening to America, and what is happening to America
today is happening in many other countries. And we can imagine how this world
will be in the upcoming conceptual age – ruled by the R-directed thinking.
Read the book "A Whole New Mind" know about the Conceptual Age in detail
Book name : A whole New Mind
Author : Danial H. Pink
Publication : The New York Times
File available: PDF
File Size : 3 MB
0 Comments