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
divided brain
Where the left hemisphere sees things in isolation, the right hemisphere sees processes that are relational. Indeed its disposition towards the world helps us see that relations are, as I argue, prior to relata . It sees relations in which both parties are inevitably changed. It is alert to what I call ‘betweenness’, the importance of context,... See more
Iain McGilchrist • Moving on
The right hemisphere, the so-called minor hemisphere, is in fact the one that knows, and more importantly the one that understands, more.
Iain McGilchrist • The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
But there are still other paths to the abandonment of truth – darker than those we have discussed. In a world dominated by left hemisphere modes of being, two important developments could be predicted to proliferate: administrative control – evident in the decline of every civilisation – and machine learning. Both depend on algorithmic paths that... See more
Iain McGilchrist • Moving on
Also worth remembering that “right hemisphere mode” is actually “entire-brain-and-body mode,” since the main difference between right and left is that the left wants to do everything its own way, and the right wants to include all the inputs, including the left hemisphere’s insights
How Synchronicity Works
The arts and humanities need to remember this: they don't have to feel inferior to science, and try to model themselves on them. Like physicists, but in a quite different way, they are in the ultimately important business of understanding the world and making sense of it, not just learning how to manipulate it.
Iain McGilchrist • The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
Because the left hemisphere is concerned with power, its narrative is always about power. You will notice this all around you nowadays.
Iain McGilchrist • Moving on
This has the profoundest consequences for the way it sees the world, when contrasted with the take of the right hemisphere, which sees things as a whole, never as isolated particles independent of a context.
Iain McGilchrist • The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
Only the left hemisphere encodes tools and machines – you will remember that the purpose of the left hemisphere is to allow us to manipulate the world, not to understand it.