The reverence of modern man for rationalism, logic and empiricism has an impressive tradition, one that includes Plato and St. Augustine. Using logic, nothing seemed impossible in the time of the medieval Scholastics. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles (1259) was considered to have countered all opposing criticisms of the church. The analytical logic of Aristotle, the syllogism and deductive reasoning, served in the Middle Ages as essential tools for the dominance of religion. Though religion was was supplanted by science, or "natural philosophy", the logical methods of both were closely related.

It is hardly surprising that in the hands of empiricists like Galileo, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, these tools were sharpened and used for dethroning spirituality as the purpose of life. Where rational discourse had for so long been the servant of academics, aristocrats and priests, in the scientific revolution it became the master. Not only was there a revolution against spirituality, there was a parting of the ways, and religion had little subsequent influence on the rise of science.

In 1996 Antonio Damasio published Descartes Error, in part a detailed study of neural pathways required by good decision-making and follow-up action. It is particularly valuable because it describes areas of the right brain whose malfunction causes the kind of indecision and inactivity typical of progress traps. It is not difficult to see how overuse of Geschwind's left-side parietal area, coupled with failure of Damasio's `decision circuit' on the other side, could lead to the kind of high-tech, industrial stalemate we are studying.

Damasio focused on damage to the frontal cortex, and the awareness and decision-making deficiencies of affected patients, reporting that a right-brain area—the somatosensory circuit— was, in addition to the frontal areas, essential in decisions and their execution. His descriptions of this right brain activity are valuable in defining what is lacking in individuals and societies where activity of the left brain (logical, verbal, sequential) predominates: