James Olson (author)

James Olson (born Chet Myles Olson; June 27, 1943) is an American philosopher and author.

A generalist focused on psychological aspects of the brain, neuropsychology, Olson explores the brain's role in influencing the nature of human consciousness, thought, and behavior.

In particular, he seeks to understand how genetic dominance and functional lateralization combine to create a series of inheritable default brain-operating systems to help guide perception and response.

After attending Oklahoma State University, Stillwater from 1961-1963, and the University of Vienna, Austria in 1963, Olson graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

In 1967 he attended graduate school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Olson currently promotes whole-brain thinking and works to reduce social and political polarization in order to create a more peaceful world.

The scientific foundation of his published works starts with the split-brain research of Roger Walcott Sperry and his then student Michael S. Gazzaniga, and includes the work of Ned Herrmann, Iain McGilchrist, Robert Ornstein, and Jill Bolte Taylor.

Olson's approach is interdisciplinary, focused on fundamentals, and inclusive of physical, mental, and spiritual values.

To explain the brain's role in feeding consciousness, he describes sixteen variations in how the brain gathers and processes information and informs our response.

Focused on practical aspects of brain science, Olson works to understand how we can consciously interact with and influence this activity.

The foundation of Olson's philosophical and scientific research starts with a knowledge of the complementary systems that manage the operation of the two hemispheres, one a dual system (as expressed by ontological dualism), the other a nondual system.

He explores how the two hemispheric systems relate to one another, seeking to understand the nature of the mental viewpoints they give us, and why they elicit the responses they do.

Olson is the author of How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future (Origin Press, 2017), a book that seeks to explain human behavior by focusing on functional differences in the brain's hemispheres in terms of how they view and manage the information that generates our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and The Whole-Brain Path to Peace (Origin Press, 2011), which promotes peace though whole-brain thinking.

To explore the brain's role in our decision-making and behavior, Olson studies the character of the macro management systems that oversee the brain's operation, explaining how the various systems help shape our viewpoint, bias our perception, and divide us.

As shared in Olson’s speaking engagements and radio interviews, his passion is to help bring a greater measure of peace to this planet by reducing the level of conflict created by dysfunctional polarizations.

Olson believes that mental conflict is initiated in the brain/mind complex, the result of profound differences in the left and right hemisphere as expressed though the unique viewpoints and ideas that they generate.

According to Olson, the perceptual and ideological conflicts that arise and divide us can often be consciously eliminated by recognizing the two hemispheres and their operating systems as a complementary whole rather than as parts.

Olson was born in Kansas City, Missouri.

He grew up on a farm near Waynoka, Oklahoma, and was an active 4-H member.

A former church deacon, Olson began with a core of conservative Christian values, which were later complemented by the study of other religions and the acquisition of more liberal values as a result of having lived in Paris, France, Vienna, Austria, Murnau, Germany, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, and Iserlohn, Germany.

Having studied each hemisphere's viewpoint (the view it shows us) and its typical response (its default reaction to what it perceives), Olson then set out to explain in detail the differences between left-brain and right-brain consciousness, resulting in his latest book How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future (2017) which outlines his four- and sixteen-variation models of consciousness.

Four-part brain-management model

In researching for his 2017 book, Olson found that the dual consciousness discovered by Roger Sperry (for which Sperry won a Nobel Prize in 1981) [9], is a consequence of genetic dominance, specifically, genetic complete dominance, which produces the left-hemisphere- or right-hemisphere-dominant model of consciousness advocated by Sperry.

Based on patterns common to genetic dominance, Olson hypothesizes that genetic co-dominance causes the two hemisphere to work as an integrated team to inform consciousness, and genetic incomplete dominance causes the two hemispheres to integrate into a hybrid system of operation.

Brain operating systems and gender

Olson views gender as a consequence of systems behavior.

The specialized management systems that operate the hemispheres, like all management systems, can be described based on their operational characteristics.

All systems, he points out, are characterized by their purpose and scope, and by the values they adhere to and promote, among other things.

Based on a broad body of research detailing the brain's operation, Olson believes that in most people the left hemisphere uses a dual system of operation and the right hemisphere uses a nondual system.

The brain’s dual and nondual systems engage in a variety of different tasks and in doing so produce different feelings, and gender is, in part, felt.

Dualistic consciousness is aggressive, materialistic, selfish, and fearful.

It feels masculine.

Holistic nondual consciousness is passive, people oriented, selfless, and loving in character.

It feels feminine.

Gender's four variations

Considering common genetic dominance patterns of behavior, Olson believes that some of us experience a combination gender.

Whereas genetic complete dominance produces either masculine or feminine gender, genetic co-dominance can be expected to create a team-based operating system that, by default, produces a bisexual gender experience; and genetic incomplete dominance can be expected to give us a hybrid operating system that defaults to produce a hybrid gender variation that produces polysexual behavior.

Sixteen variations in consciousness

Olson claims to have resolved a major conflict between lateralization of brain function studies and handedness studies.

The body of behavioral studies that form the foundation of functional lateralization suggest that most women are right-brain dominant; however, handedness studies indicate that most women are left-brain dominant since most women are right-handed, and right-handedness is widely accepted to be a reflection of left-brain dominance.