Knowing is Half the Battle

...but how important are the facts? America places a high emphasis on knowledge-based education, but what exactly is the value of cognitive information in comparison to experienced realities?

Photo: Dustin Diaz

 When speed reading, a person attempts to digest information at an increased pace without sacrificing retention. While there are various methods for learning how to speed read, all involve some form of skimming over words without focusing on what those words mean. The thought is basically that traditional reading methods cause us to slow down because the intuitive right-half of our brain has to wait for the analytical left-half to catch up and process every letter and word. The shocker is that the comprehension rates for well-trained speed readers are astoundingly high!

This beautiful image of another artist working comes via this site.  Sadly, the business site is a dead link.

 Artists essentially speed read life. They process the world and spit out comprehension in the form of their work without waiting for the fussy left brain to sequence and catalogue every last detail. That is not to say that some artists do not use highly logical or intricate methods to create their work, or that artists should not be articulate in describing their art. (They sometimes do, and they all should.) What I mean is that the creation of art (even in the case of text-based pieces) happens in a wordless scan and response. It values knowledge above the facts.