In her effort to spread the gospel of creativity, MacBain puts on a lavish conference in the mold of the Clinton Global initiative. The Global Creative Leadership Summit, as Orwellian a title for a conference as is imaginable—an “art Davos,” MacBain calls it—runs for three days, with barely time for tea. She opens the festivities with a speech. “Technology and globalization have forced new proximity and new challenges—out of sight is no longer out of mind,” she says, her skin dewy with some sort of moisturizer and her slim form like a mannequin’s in a black suit. “A Website can be shared between Beijing and Berlin. Damage to the Arctic Circle raises the temperature in Great Britain. One diseased bird from India can infect many in Iceland.” She looks out at the assembled crowd. “They say no man is an island,” she says. “But today, no island is an island.”

Some of the speakers are friends of MacBain’s and have dined at her Charles Street “think tanks,” but many tell me that someone from her foundation, or MacBain herself, had simply called them up and said flattering things about their work before inviting them along. Everyone seems happy to be here, in such excellent and diverse company—David Boies and president of the United Nations General Assembly Sheikha Haya Rashed, Peter Bergen and the CEO of Best Buy, the ambassador from Qatar and Francesco Clemente, plus at least a dozen neuroscientists of stature who work mostly on understanding the brain’s role in visual perception and emotional experience, looking around themselves with pleasure at finally having been recognized for the important part they will play in the future of the world. (Bianca Jagger, MacBain’s best summertime buddy, when Jagger crashes at her Southampton house and uses her driver, was a no-show.)

MacBain, resting for a moment in a cream-colored sitting room, explains how she selected the participants. “I’m interested in culture, and I say to myself, ‘Why am I interested in culture?’ ” she says. “I feel that every time I open a subject, the culture component is a major, major issue. And whenever you talk global or geo, you talk conflict. So I think, Let’s find people who study the Roman decline and the Greek empire and see if there are some parallels. Let’s ask them, ‘What do we really need to prevent cultural conflicts?’ Well, we need empathy, okay, and empathy starts from the brain. So why not get a scientist to talk about it? Let’s dialogue! Dialogue is an interesting tool: We all know it’s harder to kill someone you know. And in dialogue, we say, ‘What are the solutions for the culture?’ Perhaps the Internet; we want to know what happens there. Then you think about the threats to cyberspace, and you think, I must get someone there.”

With such logic leading the conference, panels ping-pong from topic to topic, like the secret of world peace or the origin and architecture of human emotions. How are we to address avian flu, catastrophic terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, dollar collapse, cybercrime, famine? Does the new information economy level opportunity between those who have wealth and those who do not? Is it possible that the brain’s capacity for creativity could be the answer to fixing the world?

Everyone basically agrees that creativity is a good thing. There are oohs and aahs as Robert Greenberg of R/GA shows off a soon-to-be-released Nokia camera phone that’s being used to shoot full-length features—it’s a remarkable DVD player, camera, music player, and Web-accessible cell phone that immediately takes images and posts them to a Flickr account. The group listens raptly to Henry Kissinger, happy to talk about creativity instead of answer pesky international-relations inquiries. “But I shouldn’t talk about computers,” he says, lurching forward in his seat to treat the crowd with a Kissingerian scowl. “I am almost illiterate on the subject—my grandson, total contempt.”

Then Abbot Shi Yongxin, the spiritual leader of the Zen Buddhist sect of the Shaolin temple, is trotted out to demonstrate kung fu. His “boy virgins” leap across the stage, chopping hard at the air and throwing their legs behind their heads. Does anyone want to kick one of them in the nuts to demonstrate “Iron Groin”? “Mind is form, form is mind, and it’s all empty, so go for it,” says the abbot’s translator. “Any skeptics?”

“John Gage should do it!” calls out Esther Dyson, pointing at the Sun Microsystems chief researcher, but he refuses.

Someone else kicks the monk in the nuts. He stares back at the audience with contempt.

Around midday, James Watson, the Nobel laureate who discovered the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953, takes the stage for his talk, titled “Discovery: To Infinity and Beyond!” Now 78 and with hearing aids in his ears, a proponent of genetically modified crops, genetic screening, and genetic engineering (“Getting rid of the bottom 10 percent of stupid people,” as he has put it), Watson is introduced by the New York Academy of Sciences president, who nicely asks him to address MacBain’s topic: the notion of creativity as he sees it. “The lack of creativity in even intelligent people is surprising,” says Watson. “I think it’ll be a much better world when we accept that people aren’t equal—the difference between smart and dumb people is the extent of neurogenesis. Someday, the world’s going to completely change when we can read people’s throw of the genetic dice and realize that some people got good ones and others got bad ones. That’s it.”