divided brain

It would be crazy to suppose that our brains were so perfectly constructed that they could understand and make us aware of everything in the universe.

from The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning by Iain McGilchrist

by baja · updated 1mo ago

Kirk Susong

1 year ago

Even on Unherd there is a herd and I am always concerned when I find myself outside of it... but unlike most of the comments here, I actually did not find this to be an enlightening or insightful interview.

On the contrary, Dr. McGilchrist’s comments seem to me to be too vague and abstracted to mean much, irrefutable in their ... See more
from Left-brain thinking will destroy civilisation by Iain McGilchrist
baja added 1mo ago
comments section
The book suggested drawing in ways that frustrate your usual LH habits — for example, trying to draw something upside down from how it looks in front of you. The logic here is that if you give the LH a task that it doesn't want to do, it goes away and refuses to do it, leaving only the RH to pick up the slack. I have no idea how realistic this is o... See more
from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna
baja added 2mo ago
McGilchrist notes:

Only the right hemisphere has a whole body image; the left hemisphere sees the body as an assemblage of parts, and as if it were an object in space alongside other objects, rather than a mode of existence. ...For the right hemisphere, we live the body; whereas for the left, we live in it, rather as we drive a car.
from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna
baja added 2mo ago
McGilchrist brings up again and again that the right hemisphere is more deeply connected with the body than the left one, and that it specializes in broad, open awareness — so our obvious choices are open awareness meditation and somatic meditation .

The go-to options for learning about these are:

Reggie Ray

Loch Kelly

Judith Blackstone

My Somatic Reson
... See more
from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna
baja added 2mo ago
two modes of experience McGilchrist describes (one associated with the left hemisphere, the other with the right) match up pretty precisely with two modes of experience that have been described again and again elsewhere, from Taoism1 to John Keats' letters2 to Federico Campagna's philosophy3 to Proust — you can even see it in things like Finite &am... See more
from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna
baja added 2mo ago
"Mind" is a tool invented by the universe to see itself; but it can never see all of itself, for much the same reason that you can’t see your own back (without mirrors).“
from Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
baja added 2mo ago
The soul and the body have been designed to be a functioning team, much the way the conscious and subconscious mind function together. The body knows our oneness with everything because it feels it. The awakened heart longs to explore others, to nurture others, to experience our oneness with others, and this offers a clue to the truths that the hea
... See more
from Quantum Warrior | The Future of the Mind by John Kehoe
baja added 2mo ago
In Chapter 1, we discussed how each human has two “minds”—the Primitive Mind with its fiery flame and the Higher Mind with his orb of clarity and consciousness. So when humans band together, they can generate a double emergence phenomenon.
from A Game of Giants — Wait but Why by Tim Urban
baja added 2mo ago
Using McGilchrist’s terminology: for such an increasingly delusional, left hemisphere dominated mind everything turns into just another inanimate object: be it a beautiful 5000 year old tree, or a rich indigenous culture. Something which stands in the way of getting from point A to point B on the map (or standing in-between the selfish individual a... See more
from Meet The Mind-Virus: Wetiko
baja added 4mo ago

from Left-brain thinking will destroy civilisation by Iain McGilchrist

from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna

from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna

from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna

from Solving McGilchrist's Big Problem (or, fix right hemisphere imbalance with these 7 weird tricks?) by River Kenna

from Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson

from Quantum Warrior | The Future of the Mind by John Kehoe

from A Game of Giants — Wait but Why by Tim Urban

from Meet The Mind-Virus: Wetiko