The right hemisphere is designed to be the master over the left. However, with the prevailing scientism narrative, the left hemisphere has usurped the master.
In the West, left hemisphere-dominant thinking has had a profound impact on all of us. We have become very good at seeing the parts but have completely lost sight of the whole.
In the first of his podcast series, Kingsnorth interviewed Iain McGilchrist, a British psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher, literary scholar and the author of ‘The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World‘, and more recently the epic ‘The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.’
During the podcast, the two men discussed the left-right brain distinction and what it means, ask whether the Western world is mentally ill, talk about the importance of the Four Ps (past, people, place and prayer), and look at how we can begin to free ourselves from thinking and seeing like machines.
McGilchrist began by explaining that the brain is structured as two hemispheres, two almost entirely separate masses. Research on brain hemisphere differences has been ongoing for 30 years, but some research has been “fairly crude” and most of the conclusions about the hemisphere differences were “entirely wrong,” he said.
Previous misconceptions about hemisphere differences, such as the left hemisphere being rational and linguistic and the right hemisphere being “airy-fairy” and uninterested in language, have been proven wrong, as both hemispheres are involved in reason, language, emotions, and visual-spatial understanding.
The two brain hemispheres have different attention styles. So, the correct approach to understanding hemisphere differences is to ask how they attend to the world, McGilchrist said.
The left hemisphere pays attention to a tiny part of the environment to grasp and manipulate it. The left hemisphere’s attention style is focused on particularising and detailed attention on a minute detail, allowing it to grab and get what it wants.
The brain’s asymmetrical structure and hemisphere differences are not unique to humans, as many animals have similarly divided and asymmetrical brains, with one hemisphere focused on grabbing and getting....<<<Read More>>>...
