Consilience is the connecting together of subjects that were previously unconnected. Over history philosophers have mused about the relationship between science, art and religion but have never managed to explain the connections between them. At last we have reached a point of criticality and it is now possible to reveal the connections clearly and unequivocally. This has become possible for two reasons – both technological.

First: scientists now have powerful investigative technologies that reveal how the brain works. Microscopes are powerful enough to reveal the structure of the neurons; unbelievably sensitive probes can decipher the sequences of DNA that contain the instructions that create the cells; and newly developed imaging technologies, such as fMRI, enable scientist to view the living brain in action. In earlier decades technologies like EEG devices, recordings from implanted electrodes and dissection were too clumsy to reveal the details of how living neurons work together.

The second reason is the Internet. In total we know so much about so many different subjects that the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. The Internet is a key enabling technology because it permits everyone who is inclined to explore the connections between subjects without having to spend a lifetime sitting in classrooms and libraries wading through the minutiae.

Now it is easier than at any time before to learn from the expertise of diverse experts from all around the world. Of particular significance is how easy it is to search the millions of research papers that cover the brain sciences.

The volume, quality and accessibility of this information is such that it is no longer credible for anyone to attempt to explain the nature of the human mind without making reference to the growing scientific knowledge.

Much remains to be discovered about the human mind, nonetheless many of the details are known. Scientists know about the technicalities of how our eyes work, how they are connected to the neurons in the visual cortex, how genes are regulated and how the nerves are connected to our muscles to enable us to move. However, an exclusively scientific perspective does not get one far. In order to benefit from the science it is necessary to see how the discoveries tie together with advances in other disciplines.

With the Internet it has become close to effortless to find new ideas and see how they relate to each other. If a novel idea strikes you, all you have to do is to type the keywords into Google and within a fraction of a second you can scan a marvelously comprehensive listing pointing to a diverse array of information with perspectives that are scientific, historical, literary and cultural. And so it becomes easy to skim, leap and dive through a vast ocean of possibilities picking out whatever is most relevant.

In my quest to develop a better understanding of human nature, as well as the science and art of persuasion a number of websites have been particularly useful. Here are some of the most significant:

Wikipedia is an example of consilience in action. Vast (over 1.6 million articles) and growing it is a multi-language, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. It contains entries on traditional encyclopedic topics and it is an almanac, gazetteer, and covers current events.

It is illustrative of the dynamic nature of our vocabulary and what it represents. Look up words such as “phishing” or “podcast” and you find an up-to-date account of the words’ meaning, their derivation and links to everything associated with them. These words and the concepts they describe did not exist a few years ago and already they are part of the popular lexicon. For many, including myself, a phenomenon like podcasting is changing the way we participate in our ever-evolving culture.

The entries in Wikipedia unlike those you find in many traditional encyclopedias are amazingly multidisciplinary. This is a consequence of its collaborative nature and the millions of hypertext links that connect between entries.

Wikipedia is, incidentally, an illustration of the reasons why some of the basic tenets of evolutionary theory are suspect. Over the last two decades there has been an enthusiasm for theories about “selfish genes,” the application of games theory to human interaction along with figuring out why altruism has evolved. Anytime scientific theories appear to explain human behavior they become particularly interesting. However the metaphorical nature of the science is often unrecognized. It is nonsense to suppose that DNA, which is a chemical, can be “selfish” just as it is absurd to consider that a pinch of salt can be either happy or sad. Evolutionary psychology as a scientific explanation is seriously misleading when it is used to explain large swathes of human behavior. The contributors to Wikipedia are a case in point; they are unpaid and gain precious little kudos from their work except for personal feelings of satisfaction from creating something they are proud of. The feelings they get can be explained by understanding the nature of sociability, rather than attempts to link behavior directly to the characteristics of genes.

The Edge is a cosmic water-cooler created by John Brockman, a literary agent and science groupie. It is where leading scientist-writers congregate to discuss their ideas. The website is dedicated to the emergence of the “third culture,” which is an idea inspired by C. P. Snow’s historic lecture on the split between the culture of the sciences and the humanities. “The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who,” Brockman writes, “through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.” If cultural development is characterized as a contest between the humanities and the sciences, he takes the position that science is winning. This position is mildly incongruous as the site is artistically pleasing, each article is elegantly written and suffused with the beliefs characteristic of modern science and its subcultures.

The contributors are highly articulate and relish in overturning old orthodoxies. Here are a few of my favorites that relate to consilience:

• Dan Sperber is an anthropologist-sociologist who has written about the connections between communication, linguistics and culture. The lack of progress made by traditional sociology is, he explains, the result of two presumptions about human culture that have been implicit in mainstream study over the last few decades. They are first, that culture somehow resides outside the people who constitute the society. Second, human communication is a form of unbiased information transfer and so it does not influence the form that culture takes. Sperber is a pioneer in an approach to linguistics known as pragmatics, and is a proponent of the theory of relevance. For everyone working in marketing the concept of relevance is key, and is far more significant than say, “creativity,” which is talked about with such zeal.
• George Lakoff, I would contend, is a leading contributor to the genesis of consilience. He is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Where Mathematics Comes From (with Rafael Núñez). He has done more than anyone to explain the pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday language. In 2002 Brockman posed the question, “What is your question?... Why?” George Lakoff responded, explaining why the cognitive sciences will change the way we think more than the other sciences have. Note how he answers questions that are puzzling to other scientists with a confidence that would be cheeky were his arguments not so convincing.
• The sociologist Philip Zimbardo discusses how we humans are products of our environments, in particular our social environments. In Western culture it is our predilection to imagine that our behavior results from “free will.” However there is overwhelming evidence that “you can’t be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.” Look no further than what otherwise civilized people do when they go to war, or when they “defend freedom” in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
• Another pervading metaphor in Western culture is our belief in how progress is a fulfillment of evolutionary imperatives towards increasing sophistication. One of the distinguishing characteristics of human culture, so the argument goes, is language. Only humans have sophisticated abilities to create novel ideas and communicate them. But then along comes Irene Pepperberg who has been working with African Grey parrots that have tiny brains compared to humans, and yet she has been teaching them to perform the same types of complex cognitive tasks observed in young children. She along with other ethologists lead us to query many well-established cultural dogmas.

One remarkably useful website is Amazon. It is not only useful because it makes finding interesting books easy, it is also a rich resource that enables one to explore the relationship between ideas, how they are presented, as well as how the explanations strike different subcultures. This is shown in the star rating system where the scores can be polarized, particularly for books that cover orthodoxies that are scientific, academic, political, religious and professional. A book written about evolution is likely to be panned by religious fundamentalists. A book that criticizes Sigmund Freud and his conception of the subconscious is likely to be given zero stars from practicing psychoanalysts.

Medline is a bibliographic database with over 12 million citations dating back to the mid-1960's covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. Medline is invaluable as it enables one to review recent progress in the neural sciences. Specifically it has allowed me to dip into the most up-to-date research that relates to our common sense assumptions about the brain. For instance it is commonly believed that the left-brain is logical and involved with language and the right-brain is creative. However, when you look at the details of the thousands of abstracts that cover brain lateralization it is apparent the situation is not so clear-cut. There are anomalies on every level. To start with every individual who is investigated is different; some people have reversed lateralization, and many are somewhere between the two extremes. Next, capabilities such as language involve large areas of the brain simultaneously, so the idea that the brain is modular, and constructed like a radio from the Second World War, is flawed. Lastly, the categorizations of “language” and “creativity” are not as cut and dried as generally presumed. We cannot avoid using words like these but they cannot be considered to be empirical or “scientific.” In the final analysis the studies on lateralization do not tell us much of significance about how the brain works, rather one is left to answer a rather more interesting question, which is why so much effort has been spent researching the matter. The answer relates to the tools that have been available to scientists – they have been too clumsy to allow investigation that is more finely split. Of most significance however, is the psychology of explanation. Simple left-right, dualist, binary dichotomies are easy to comprehend and appealing to humans in every sphere.

Scirus is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Like Google it allows one to explore the connections between different fields but here you don’t have to wade through waste deep flotsam on sex, celebrities and speculations about Jessica Simpson’s cosmetic surgery.

The New Scientist is a weekly science digest. It covers scientific news as well as summaries of developments in topical subject areas. The quality of the writing is superb. There is a channel on the website on "being-human".

One leading researcher and theorist who has explained how the neurons in our brain work in concert is the veteran neuroscientist Walter J. Freeman. His website is unremarkable, however I include it here because he has managed to link domains that were previously unconnected. He has linked the EEG patterns generated by the brain with the mathematical patterns characteristic of complex-critical systems, and also he has explained the ways that our sense organs create patterns in our mind that contribute to making us conscious.

One of the challenges of understanding human behavior is to try and reconcile the new scientific findings with the ideas promoted by psychologists. When psychology is taught it is often portrayed as a “science” which means its conclusions are considered to be factual – at least to some extent. An antidote is provided by the study of the history of the subject, which shows how psychological ideas have been changing unpredictably and sometimes bizarrely over the past hundred years. They change as a result of the technologies that are available, how its practitioners communicate their ideas, teach and debate them. In order to investigate the development of psychology one can read the excellent accounts by historians of psychology such as Kurt Danziger. Various papers covering the History & Theory of Psychology are available at this Eprint Archive. It is edited and administered by Christopher D. Green of the History & Theory of Psychology Program at York University, Toronto. Most instructive is to read the original works because then one can see how leading thinkers created the ideas that became mainstream and why, at the time, they were so convincing. The ideas caught on as a result of the quality of the communication, which, it could be argued, was more significant than the correctness of the ideas.

Another resource that covers the philosophy of mind is at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

It is impossible for us to view the human mind objectively because all our observations, without exception, are made using it; it is like a colored lens that we cannot bypass. Our ideas about how our mind works are the result of ideas that we have inherited from our forebears. Having said that, there are several techniques that help us view our brain in fresh ways. One is to investigate what happens when there are deficiencies in normal brain functioning; they help reveal the mechanisms that are so inbuilt we are unaware of them. An example would be the way we can empathize with what other people are feeling. This capability is so natural we cannot see its profound significance. In those who have high-functioning autism, where the capacity is missing, we can see how empathy gives us the capability to raise children and work together. Another example is how we project conceptions we have in our mind onto robots. Our conceptions can be seen to be false because the robots have not been programmed using the same assumptions. Two researchers are of particular note in this regard. Kerstin Dautenhahn is a Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science (Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences) at University of Hertfordshire. She has studied social interaction in people and robots. And also Maja Mataric’ who runs a robotics laboratory at the University of Southern California. Both researchers have perspectives that are interdisciplinary, drawing on mathematical theories, experience in neuroscience, cognitive science, social science, health, and education.

Some of the incorrect presumptions that the human mind makes innately have been reinforced by the orthodoxies of science. One presumption, that even babies appear to make, is that causes and effects are related in ways that are fairly linear, and therefore predictable. Consequently when we see something that is highly complex and structured we presume that it must have been created by something with commensurate characteristics. Recent advances in mathematics are showing that our innate presumptions are not necessarily true. It is possible to derive never-ending, semi-ordered patterns from an extremely simple mathematical formula. The Mandelbrot set provides the clearest demonstration. A tiny formula gives rise to patterns that are intricate, beautiful and never-ending. You can find Mandelbrot generators on the Internet. Here is one of many that you can use to zoom in on a small area, and zoom in again, and see how the patterns unfold.

Similarly, our mind projects its biases on whatever we observe. When we see a pattern we naturally assume it exists for “reasons.” The mathematical formulas of complex-criticality and emergence demonstrate that many of the patterns we observe in the world do not exist for the reasons we presume. This site on emergence from MIT demonstrates how very simple software rules can give rise to patterns, which our mind interprets as objects that “behave” in ways that are not reflective of the underlying facts of the situation.

One of the characteristics of complex-critical systems is that tiny inputs may cause effects that are completely out of proportion to them. Theories found in traditional marketing textbooks are based on scientific metaphors which presume that the world can be understood using a logic that is, on the whole linear and predictable. So for instance the presumption is made that to achieve high sales you need to invest proportionately. However in reality markets rarely behave predictably. Sometimes you can invest millions with little success. Other times you can strike lucky with right product at the right time that is noticed by the right people and sales can explode.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell describes the nature of non-linearity and how it applies to human populations. On Gladwell’s website he describes how the idea for the book came to him when he was reporting on the AIDS epidemic for the Washington Post and realized “how strange epidemics were,” recounting how, “if you talk to the people who study epidemics – the epidemiologists – you realize that they have a strikingly different way of looking at the world. They don’t share the assumptions the rest of us have about how and why change happens.” The reason is because the spread of disease reaches states of criticality, and in those situations the outcome is impossible to predict. (His book Blink is also pertinent to consilience as it describes how the brain works using “rapid cognition;” linear “thinking” is not as significant as most people imagine.)

The non-linear dynamics described in The Tipping Point are seen in the ways in which public opinion can change. A single speech has the potential to affect how the majority of people view a situation. After the tragedy of 9/11 George Bush stood in front of the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers and proclaimed that the hi-jackings were “acts of war.” The timing of the speech, its context and delivery were such that no one seriously challenged the accuracy of the statement (technically it was not an act of war; it was a criminal act just as Timothy McVeigh’s 4000lb bomb that destroyed a government building in Oklahoma City was). The statement was accepted, so as a war was perceived to have already started, the subsequent military actions and curtailments of freedom were accepted more than they would otherwise have been. An excellent resource that polls public opinion and provides commentary on it is the Gallup Organization.

Politicians, marketing practitioners as well as writers of every guise, use words in different ways that cause them, over time, to change their meaning. For example, the word “terror,” in the context of the “war on terror,” has come to mean the fight against “Islamic extremism.” “Terror” and “terrorism” originally meant oppression by a state of its own citizens, and it was not until 1947 that the terms were used to describe politically motivated attacks on civilians by outside forces.

The Oxford English Dictionary is the most comprehensive record of how the meaning of words change. It is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. Newsweek calls it, the “greatest continuing work of scholarship that this century has produced.” It traces the usage of over half a million words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

To use the Oxford English Dictionary you need to pay. An alternative that is easier to use, and free, is Douglas Harper's labor of love, the Online Etymology Dictionary, which is, "a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English."

Listen to the weekly podcast, The Word Nerds, for lighter, more entertaining discussions of how the meaning or words changes over time. Three teachers broadcasting from just outside Washington DC, which they call “the capital of obfuscation and acronym,” discuss “words, language, and why we say the things we do.”

The relationships between popular culture, commerce and public opinion are tracked in publications such as Advertising Age. The intermeshing between the media and the commercial aspects of our culture are not generally appreciated in the broader community. The media is comprised of commercial enterprises, whether profit-oriented or not, which work symbiotically with business and government. The media is an inherently schizophrenic place as on the one side you have the writers who are skilled in the human dimensions of communication and know how to engage their audience, on the other side you have the unforgiving logic of business with its insensitivity to the significance of the arts. The editorials in Advertising Age express the conflicts when they rant about the stupidity of advertisements these days. “What’s really broken in today’s system is the amount of very bad advertising that gets approved by top management,” the proprietor Rance Crain states. “Are CEOs so absorbed by trying to make their next deal that they tolerate the inept and stupid ads guaranteed to alienate their best customers?”

A central challenge that pervades business results from the disconnection between the managerial logic taught in business administration courses and the skills needed to work with people. People skills are difficult to make sense of when viewed using typical managerial logic; they can be better comprehended by recognizing how they are related to the techniques that have been used for the last few thousand years by artists, writers, religious leaders and other practitioners of the humanities.

Logic, art and belief are generally presumed to be unrelated. People are inclined to categorize different professional occupations as logical or artistic or relating to belief. Scientists and engineers see themselves as logical rather than artistic; writers and entertainers see themselves as predominantly artistic rather than logical. However irrespective of the labels, aesthetics and the ability to communicate are essential in every job, and even the most artistic pursuits have a large component that is rational.

The craft of communication is exacting and, in large part, can be understood rationally. However, understanding the skills used by communicators is not the same as being able to practice them; in just the same way as a baseball fan can be an expert in the rules of the game but be unable to play it. To become proficient in either requires skill developed through practice.

In the case of communication there are several rules that are so pervasive that professionals and non-professionals alike sometimes do not appreciate them. The most essential characteristic for a communication to be effective is that it needs to have a single focus (or “point”). Also the point needs to be relevant to the audience – that is, the question, “why should they care?” needs to have a clear answer. In addition the communication needs to be coherent, so all the details are consistent and mutually supporting. I describe these fundamentals, as well as others, in Consilience and the Business of Persuasion. I also describe how they relate to the structure and chemistry of the brain. It is here that the arts and sciences come together.

Writers and non-writers alike often believe that the practice of writing hinges on “creativity.” The exact nature of creativity is seemingly mystical and impossible to define clearly. However, the craft of writing is comprised of the exacting skills of linking words together with extreme discipline. To gain insights into the discipline of writing tune into “The Secrets” presented by Michael A. Stackpole. He describes the techniques he uses to create bestselling science fiction.

In marketing to achieve optimal results you need to employ technology, and the skill of reasoning, as well as the skills of different artistic disciplines like writing, design, musical composition and acting. Also you have to understand the nature of people, including such characteristics as peer group identification, teamwork, pride and what makes some beliefs “common sense” or “factual.” All of this would be challenging enough, but it becomes more challenging because the prevailing mindset in business venerates technology and logic, and discounts the skills that relate to other domains.

When typical managerial approaches are employed that are linear and complacent the results are, at best, patchy. These days marketers are not recognized for their broad perspectives, wisdom and their skill in managing creative professionals. The industry’s output is sometimes inspired but much of the time it is inelegant and annoying. There is no shortage of those who comment, often humorously, on the thrills and spills of the marketing industry. Here are three popular blogs: Adpulp, Adfreak, and Ad-rag.

Then there is the entertaining podcast American Copywriter by John and Tug who work at the Kansas agency, Sullivan Higdon & Sink. They rap about their own cultural influences. Their knowledge of 1970s TV shows and movies is remarkable.

Real-world marketing and the skills that are commented on in the above blogs and podcasts are difficult to teach and learn. Marketing intersects with leadership and communication, which by their nature are impossible to encapsulate in simple-to-learn principles. Marketing techniques themselves change constantly. And further, small details that are mishandled can derail initiatives that would otherwise be sound. The consequence is that most students are taught about “strategy” which is a relatively trivial aspect of making a company successful, as compared to the skills of listening, comprehension, selling, building credibility and being believed. The best conceived strategy will always fail unless employees, trade partners, customers bankers and others, trust management and believe in the viability of the initiative.

Marketing as a discipline takes extraordinary skill as it requires an understanding of the dynamics of markets, which are not well taught, together with the skills of logic, that then have to be combined with the skills of communication. One of the best ways to get the hang of marketing is to actually do it. The next best is to learn from those who have actually done it. A particularly useful resource is MarketingSherpa that writes up lots of case studies with their results.

To be effective in marketing it is necessary to stay on top of emerging technology trends. Innovation Watch is an excellent newsletter edited by David Forrest, who is a Toronto-based writer and consultant. He writes, “An extraordinary future may be coming – the culmination of unprecedented growth in human knowledge, technology that borders on the inconceivable, and a globally connected world.” Mirroring the approaches that I cover in Consilience and the Business of Persuasion, he writes, “Innovation Watch is a personal attempt to explore the dynamics of this emergent future, through the lens of history and the insights of complex systems science.”