What is this?

Dr Iain McGilchrist discusses The Matter with Things 5,504

• vexed i think slightly dying question of the two hemispheres of the brain and interpreted much psychology and
• this difference between the hemispheres is very relevant to the
• what are we doing here and if the two hemispheres as i believe um and demonstrate i think uh
• attempt to demonstrate quite how badly wrong the left hemisphere is compared with what the right knows in
• almost everything but it catches the left hemisphere does the talking the right hemisphere hasn't got a voice but
• left hemisphere does the talking the right hemisphere hasn't got a voice but it understands very much more and all
• step forward by what i call the mentality of the left hemisphere the ability to control things the need to
• counter which is the rude way of referring to the left hemisphere absolutely right yes and one must
• think is somewhere in the left hemisphere of the brain and of course plato privileged the
• or spiritual by asking what we've done to the right hemisphere not enough of that you will also
• some more juice to um the right hemisphere which which is i suppose the more spiritual or holistic side isn't
• it's interesting that the right hemisphere seems to uh yes be
• experience is underwritten by the right hemisphere either the right frontal cortex or the right temporary parietal
• but it's also very true that the right hemisphere is more in touch with the body
• uh in a number of ways for example it is the right hemisphere that has what's called the body image which is not a
• kind of sensory modality it's also the right hemisphere that has more profuse connections between
• of looking at everything through the perspective of the two hemispheres is absolutely terrific but it's almost
• you're trying to exercise your your right hemisphere you're trying to you're trying to use the the broader and the
• trying to use the the broader and the rather neglected hemisphere in order to include everything but that means
• including everything including the left hemisphere is that about right well it is and um the simple thing to
• of course the brain is asymmetrical the right and left hemispheres are not symmetrical but there is also an
• their relationship it seems that the right hemisphere is aware of the need for the processing
• aware of the need for the processing that the left hemisphere carries out if you like on its behalf
• you like on its behalf but the left hemisphere cannot be aware seems not to be aware of what it is the
• seems not to be aware of what it is the right hemisphere knows so knowing less it thinks it knows more
• when this left uh spirit as it were the left hemisphere spirit um starts to
• i seem to be cheering for the right hemisphere it's partly because the right hemisphere actually does know more and
• hemisphere it's partly because the right hemisphere actually does know more and is more um likely to achieve the sort of
• by the thinking of the left hemispheres mechanistic power seeking control
• master in his emissary was more or less that the um right hemisphere is is bigger i mean has the bigger view
• is what you've just said and and and you know the left hemisphere is fine it does its job but it should see itself
• way of thinking of it is uh that the left hemisphere which actually is literally interested in tools and
• but it is in the it's true the left hemisphere is a bit like the right hemisphere's personal computer in a
• hemisphere is a bit like the right hemisphere's personal computer in a certain respect that the right
• certain respect that the right hemisphere understands much more of what we would call experience
• image about the relationship between the hemispheres and what that means is that the left hemisphere is effectively
• hemispheres and what that means is that the left hemisphere is effectively abstracted from the world in the way
• map and the terrain that the right hemisphere understands the terrain the left hemisphere mistakes its map of the
• hemisphere understands the terrain the left hemisphere mistakes its map of the terrain for the terrain itself and that
• absolutely simple a version of where the two hemispheres have their place well
• that beautiful day come only through the right hemisphere nothing comes only through one hemisphere everything is
• right hemisphere nothing comes only through one hemisphere everything is shared by the hemispheres and what i'm
• through one hemisphere everything is shared by the hemispheres and what i'm talking about is um
• first of all the difference between hemispheres and then science reason intuition and imagination
• nick would like to ask a question about the number of hemispheres uh you need to unmute yourself nick i
• divided into only two spheres or hemispheres and i i often thought perhaps there should be three four or
• think the brain is quite simply two hemispheres um it's it's not quite simply anything and it it has as many
• modes of being being brought forth from the world by that hemisphere so that would be
• increasing hegemony of the left hemisphere in western culture what have been some of the strategies that you've
• to a very large extent more typical of the right hemisphere than the left so that's one positive thing
• precisely the characteristics of in the case of fantasy the left hemisphere and in the case of imagination the right
• in the case of imagination the right hemisphere i imagine you could also say that imagination covers different areas
• mentioning the that one of the hemispheres getting out of control and going
• what's happening in the ukraine um and we actually see one hemisphere you know
• kind of balance where the two hemispheres are living um happily and in balance with each other
• language and this is known by the right hemisphere but the right hemisphere can't speak
• been the spoken language has been developed by the left hemisphere to deal with what it is mainly concerned with
• often contradictory but it's very very important and the left hemispheres simple
• one's back if one is trying to explain what it is the right hemisphere knows whereas it's money for old rape to
• whereas it's money for old rape to explain the left hemisphere's point of view
• these would be the powers of the of of the right hemisphere of course um absolutely i thought you would like a
• important ways of contacting the right hemispheres world one of the things about
• the difference between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere which echoes
• the world as it is and the world as it is mapped is that the right hemisphere is present with the world allows in fact
• newness and reality but what the left hemisphere sees a fraction of a second later is the
• judgment without monkey mind the left hemisphere chattering away about it and in fact in the book in um i think
• the um the world of the right hemisphere not that of the left so thank you for that
• come breaking the grip of the left hemisphere the right hemisphere would seem to be at a serious disadvantage
• seem to be at a serious disadvantage since the left hemisphere is as you have shown the great denier the great
• confabulator immune to what the right hemisphere is able to see as
• but over time over evolutionary time the right hemisphere seems to have found a way to
• cultivating awareness is precisely what the left hemisphere you show us that the left hemisphere is
• the left hemisphere you show us that the left hemisphere is good at keeping from happening
• making that very important point that the left hemisphere is a a denier and a confabulator by confabulation i mean
• partial distraction or dysfunction of either the right or the left hemisphere and one sees that they can deny
• where the obvious things are denied and we go singing the left hemisphere is always an optimist it's always seeing
• clear that as you are that the right hemisphere has been able to reassert itself as a master in a way my
• gloomy message in keeping with the right hemisphere is that the right hemisphere is is losing somewhat of its important
• again the left hemispheres they cleverly uh stigmatized this most significant and
• think it's it's touch and go whether the right hemisphere will succeed in in asserting itself because at the
• bit kind of flowery and airy fairy isn't it you know a bit too bright hemisphere the actual philosophy or the core of it
• couple of moments um is the language of the right hemisphere telepathy the right hemisphere doesn't
• is the language of the right hemisphere telepathy the right hemisphere doesn't speak is it language telepathy which
• telepathy the language of the right hemisphere because i don't think it is the language
• because i don't think it is the language of the right hemisphere but it may be that the right hemisphere is
• of the right hemisphere but it may be that the right hemisphere is is
• allowed permitted uh uh to exist through the right hemisphere in a way that left hemisphere makes impossible that is
• the right hemisphere in a way that left hemisphere makes impossible that is possible but i do think the right
• possible but i do think the right hemisphere does have language and its language is that of
• um narrative we know that the right hemisphere is much better at understanding the structure of a
• narrative and retelling it than the left hemisphere we know that the right hemisphere understands metaphor
• hemisphere we know that the right hemisphere understands metaphor and
• ambiguities it's much much better whereas the left hemisphere tends to go cut and dried it must mean this or that
• differences that we need to be aware of is that the left hemisphere is very much an either or merchant the right
• an either or merchant the right hemisphere of both and merchants and to that extent it's important that the
• to that extent it's important that the right hemisphere um controls this situation because it can then allow both
• either or and both and to have their day whereas if they left hemispheres in control it's got to be either either or

Consciousness, Purpose, and Values - Dr. Iain McGilchrist 5,305

• brain literature on the differences between hemispheres and again i won't attempt to summarize that here except to
• with mechanism these are all aspects of the way in which the left hemisphere which is um preferentially serially and
• aspects of the kind of world that the left hemisphere enables us to encounter whereas the right hemisphere enables us
• left hemisphere enables us to encounter whereas the right hemisphere enables us to see a broader picture a syncretic or
• is that people with frontal brain damage people with right hemisphere damage
• deeply bound up with the right hemisphere in fact david hecht who's a
• are associated with activity in the right hemisphere and left hemisphere respectively and i wouldn't emerge from
• gestalt appreciation of the right hemisphere so um
• reduction of strategy the left hemisphere fails to make sense of value whether that be truth goodness or beauty
• hallmarks of its birth in the left hemisphere the real result is that values
• is itself a perfect expression of the left hemisphere mentality gone on the largest possible scale if the
• on the largest possible scale if the left hemisphere had to deify its own thinking it would be this cosmic or
• the sacred and i believe that in the right hemisphere these values serve one another in the direction that
• sheila intended but that in the left hemisphere they go in the reverse order as served up to us by people like
• overall take of the left hemisphere exactly that and the subtitle of my book

Asymmetry and Symmetry - Dr Iain McGilchrist 5,144

• different i think the way of putting this is that the left hemisphere is very much a matter of either or it's it's one
• instantly to to a take um but the right hemisphere which ramachandra and great neuroscientists
• else and so the normal fruitful take of the right hemisphere is not either or but both and it could be this and
• understands that the the opposites may cohere whereas the left hemisphere it just doesn't compute i mean opposites
• world is and how we can relate especially if the two hemispheres give us different versions of reality which
• part of the brain which is the left hemisphere starts to dominate and therefore restricts
• open receptivity to the nature of reality which the right hemisphere is good at by interfering with its own
• the world which is what the left hemisphere that i mean one of my sound bites is you know the relationship
• bites is you know the relationship between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere is like that between a
• between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere is like that between a map and the world that is mapped and one
• language truth and music in the master in his hemisphere so it definitely accelerates this
• certain things will happen so it's part of the role of the left hemisphere which is just simply manipulation not
• the abstraction is drawn secondary by the left hemisphere imperfectly there is a place for perfection

What's the Way Forward? | Dr. Iain McGilchrist & Jonathan Pageau 4,924

• look like if we only listen to the sort of things our left hemisphere can tell us and very few people have failed to
• new book that matter with things that the right hemisphere sees a much more veritable picture of the world takes in
• theory of things which is available to the left hemisphere um
• being aware of all that the right hemisphere can see that the left hemisphere rules out
• hemisphere can see that the left hemisphere rules out but to be more specific
• would come to us if we could attend both with the right and the left hemispheres one in which the coincidence of

Iain McGilchrist and Michael Levin in conversation 4,667

• evidence about this that the left hemisphere tends to fragment the flow of time into this this this this this now
• what what i think is that the left hemisphere tends to say i am just this here and i and the world have to be
• and schizophrenia is very much like a condition of less hemisphere overdrive with the right hemisphere
• condition of less hemisphere overdrive with the right hemisphere attenuating now the important thing
• attenuating now the important thing about the right hemisphere is is that that which produces continuity and sees
• the whole and for the right hemisphere a fragment is never just a bit and a hole made up
• things that we can know so um with the right hemisphere at work it seems obvious that i am continuous with
• two things people who have right hemisphere brain damage and people who have schizophrenia so in in the matter
• chapter nine on the parallels between right hemisphere brain damage and the phenomenology of schizophrenia is
• um and i'm not saying that this is anything to do with the two hemispheres but it is nonetheless
• um experimentally verifiable that by suppressing one hemisphere at a time you can produce different aspects of
• um and we do know that the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere do you have different values and
• because it is the fundamental difference between the two hemispheres and this is not something
• very well-known fact that the left and right hemispheres pay attention to the world in different ways
• its attention is broad open sustained everything the left hemisphere attention isn't and completely uncommitted as to
• integrate the fragments the fragments come from the left hemisphere's attention now if you if you think that
• of viewing the world as the right hemisphere will see it and what i've undertaken to show is that the left
• undertaken to show is that the left hemisphere is more prone to delusion more mistaken less reliable than the
• more mistaken less reliable than the right hemisphere now if that is the case and i can then somebody to try and
• looking at this paradox is that's the way that the left hemisphere take would be and the other way of looking at it is
• be and the other way of looking at it is this is the way the right hemisphere would be so for example according to the
• would be so for example according to the left hemisphere achilles cannot overtake the tortoise it's just impossible but
• because we've espoused the left hemisphere's way of looking at it when we look at it from the right hemispheres
• hemisphere's way of looking at it when we look at it from the right hemispheres way of looking at it there isn't a
• yeah and from my point of view it is not part of the left hemispheres evolution that it should be looking for
• with things um it whereas the right hemisphere is actually interested in purpose in

Iain McGilchrist in Dialogue at the PCC Forum 4,584

• the rich clinical and neuroscientific literature that supports the hemisphere hypothesis and i want to get into that
• current state of um the art as regards the hemisphere hypothesis
• um uh the the way that you have uh unpacked the high the hemisphere hypothesis and just give us a sense for
• um what the general's feeling is among neuroscientists about this hemisphere division it is it is well needless to
• was it not something like can you give us the elevator pitch on the hemisphere hypothesis i think that was what you
• profoundly divided in fact the main connection between the two hemispheres the corpus callosum
• effect is to tell very often the other hemisphere i'm dealing with this you keep out of it so something very
• um all creatures seem to have this division of the hemispheres in which one in our case the left
• detail solely for the purpose of getting and the right hemisphere pays a quite opposite attention which is broad
• is a philosophical concern if it's true that each hemisphere pays different attention it's going to see
• it's a bureaucrat stream effectively the right hemisphere meanwhile it gives rise to a world in which nothing is ever
• often in public discourse these days we favor the one the left hemisphere one because it's very easy to articulate in
• also involves articulating the implicit the right hemisphere alone understands implicit meaning such as in metaphor in
• poetry in jokes whereas the left hemisphere understands the explicit and doesn't get what is not made explicit so
• ontology i wanted to start by looking at the ways these hemispheres work fantastic that's exactly what i was
• quite as familiar with your uh your work yet a sense for this hemisphere division and how it might affect our our
• uh into uh the cultivation of the left hemisphere uh basically where childhood up until the time that schooling begins
• up until the time that schooling begins is obviously more of a right hemisphere type of world where there's a lot of
• whatnot in this rush to to cultivate the left hemisphere um
• modern west has been captured by the left hemisphere by its view of of reality and and what's important
• seeming detour uh into the left hemispheres alienating in clockwork universe or was it just a mistake
• which i think speak volumes of what happens when the right hemisphere is damaged and the individual has to rely
• damaged and the individual has to rely only on the left hemisphere and um the the the overall outcome of this is that
• the the overall outcome of this is that the right hemisphere is less in touch with reality is its
• um are due to damage to the right hemisphere not to the left um
• intelligence but interestingly the right hemisphere is also more cognitive intelligence good old-fashioned iq and
• and everything else that we used to say were just one hemisphere or the other all that forget it that's all rubbish
• language the understanding of language depends highly on the right hemisphere of the expression on the left
• manipulate tools to make machines and so on so the left hemisphere has a huge attraction to us as the means of getting
• lowest level of max shayla's pyramid that the left hemisphere accesses which is utility and pleasure and everything
• us special as human beings and elevators are due to the right hemisphere and its alone seems to appreciate them fully so
• civilization starts only to attend to what the left hemisphere says and then the second part of my first book
• the second part of my first book um the master and his hemisphere i look at european history since the ancient
• out your mind any idea that the left hemisphere does science and maths and so on and the right hemisphere does
• hemisphere does science and maths and so on and the right hemisphere does um i don't know paintings and things
• like this isn't like this at all the right hemisphere has involved extraordinarily importantly and
• control everything which is really the left hemisphere's way of thinking about things and it's leading us i think into
• go oh well you know it the right hemisphere will have its day if humanity survives this next crash which is an
• open question it will take some time for the right hemisphere to be bringing back any kind of a civilization
• uh bring the hemisphere hypothesis to bear on our social and cultural situation
• what you've done in your work is show very clearly that both hemispheres are uh involved in everything but in
• more generally there's been a bit of a left hemisphere takeover at least among some scientists although as you point
• been captured a bit by the left hemisphere can you can you speak to that yes i mean first i should just say
• and i i think that like everything else science has its left hemisphere aspects and its right hemisphere aspects it's
• science has its left hemisphere aspects and its right hemisphere aspects it's right hemisphere aspects are those in
• and its right hemisphere aspects it's right hemisphere aspects are those in which it thinks flexibly
• um uh jairus and sulcus but in any case in the right hemisphere um and
• similarly of course one could say about reason that it has its left hemisphere and its right hemisphere aspect its left
• reason that it has its left hemisphere and its right hemisphere aspect its left hemisphere aspects of trying to make it
• and its right hemisphere aspect its left hemisphere aspects of trying to make it equal
• interests at heart said to me don't go into researching hemisphere difference you know nobody will take you seriously
• and understand that as the right hemisphere indeed sees things that things are interconnected uncertain
• whatever paper you put in it that is the left hemisphere's idea of purpose utility but i'm not saying that purpose
• opposed to that that is the left hemisphere's idea of a god a technician an engineer who accepts a machine going
• but it seems to me that um you know perhaps this left hemisphere way of of compartmentalizing uh the
• everything didn't have um its left hemisphere version and it's right hemisphere version in fact it
• um its left hemisphere version and it's right hemisphere version in fact it follows from what i've been saying that
• this must be the case and you would expect the left hemisphere take on religion to aggrandize the
• essence doing exactly all those things they're right hemisphere they are they must be understood in places if reduced
• and of course it would be very odd if atheism wasn't also left hemisphere and right hemisphere so the right hemisphere
• atheism wasn't also left hemisphere and right hemisphere so the right hemisphere atheists who i think are enormously
• fierce and atheists it's between left hemisphere fundamentalist atheists and theists on the one hand who really it's
• to you right but it's a kind of left hemisphere all theology is a kind of left hemisphere way of trying to
• hemisphere all theology is a kind of left hemisphere way of trying to articulate right hemisphere intuitions
• left hemisphere way of trying to articulate right hemisphere intuitions um but you also discuss um process
• two-yin uh captured by the left hemisphere and um obviously it's a metaphor but i'm
• so when we say captured by the left hemisphere i think it's important to realize we're speaking metonymically to
• this phrase captured by the less hemisphere that people can forget that the situation is actually a lot more
• that the what is embodied in the left hemisphere and then the right everyone likes to think
• they don't pre-exist and get instantiated in those hemispheres what has worked out is a division of labor if
• interfere with the negate the process that is going on in the other hemisphere so they are a project of their own
• so much to capture but captured by the left hemisphere so it's just whenever i see okay yes standing in for something
• but there is no question about it that the left hemisphere does adopt pretty much all the things i'm talking about
• are going on at this moment in that present in their left hemisphere of course that would be wrong that would be
• interestingly in some respects it is more uh left hemisphere orientated than in westerners and that's why i wanted to
• mentioned the vowels and one of the reasons that the left hemisphere is thought to be better at hearing human
• machine-like sounds whereas the vowels are better right hemisphere um appreciate it so i found that a
• is that you don't know that necessarily the left hemisphere of somebody who is brought up in the japanese culture is
• and therefore when you see the right hemisphere of a schizophrenic subject activated you don't know whether that is
• activated you don't know whether that is as it were their right hemisphere or something that's a hybrid or something
• something that's a hybrid or something more like a left hemisphere so the difficulty of going too far out with
• um grasp or capture by the left hemisphere where we see them in our own field in
• differences um from hemisphere to hemisphere all right is that even being studied in
• they differ the man is using the right hemisphere and the left the woman is using the left hemisphere now don't
• hemisphere and the left the woman is using the left hemisphere now don't shoot the messenger i'm simply telling
• answer about the oriental brain that maybe a woman's left hemisphere is not so left hemispheric if you like and
• there's some evidence that there's more overlap between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere in women than there
• overlap between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere in women than there is in men so that they're more
• damage you can compensate more easily by using the other hemisphere because it's already as it were primed to go
• and this is because the brain is more specialized so their right hemisphere is more right hemispheric and their left is

Dr Iain McGilchrist - Understanding the human brain 3,845

• in the difference between the hemispheres a toxic topic that i was advised not to
• the world who has so thoroughly researched hemisphere differences over decades um
• does each part of the brain do oh the left hemisphere does reason and language and the right hemisphere does
• left hemisphere does reason and language and the right hemisphere does imagination and painting pretty pictures
• i i although i heard almost nothing about the right hemisphere um in medical school um it apparently was there just
• school um it apparently was there just to prop up the left hemisphere which did everything um
• um right second thing why are the two hemispheres like asymmetrical in the same way and
• grabbing and getting and it's not very bright i mean the left hemisphere contrary to what one was taught it's not
• particularly intelligent the the right hemisphere is actually more responsible for the element we measure
• intelligence i mean the ideas got out there that yes okay the right hemisphere might be good at emotional and social
• you know so and that comes from the right hemisphere i mean we know that very definitely it's it's related to the
• of pop law happens to be correct the right hemisphere is much more important in contributing to creativity
• um but you see the difference between the hemispheres one of the many is that
• is that the left hemisphere starts with a its own purpose to get
• its mind in a very abstract way but the right hemisphere sees the complexity of the world the fact that things are
• interconnected not atomistic as they seem to the left hemisphere that they're always moving flowing and changing not
• rigid and separate like slices as they are in the left hemisphere that they're animate that they contain implicit
• animate that they contain implicit meaning not as the right left hemisphere only understands explicit meaning and so
• can't understand poems so what does this mean and whereas the right hemisphere is picking up all of this richness
• dynamic animate picture of the world that of the right hemisphere and you've got a schema a map a theory about how
• the world should be according to what's going on in the left hemisphere and and that's a very important contrast in the
• that we are moving further and further into a left hemisphere-dominated world but it's now become extraordinary how
• start with the right hemisphere and left hemisphere working maximally fruitfully
• with the right hemisphere and left hemisphere working maximally fruitfully together the left hemisphere always
• hemisphere working maximally fruitfully together the left hemisphere always being under the
• wherever one wants to put it of the right hemisphere because the right hemisphere in the title of that book is
• right hemisphere because the right hemisphere in the title of that book is the master the left hemisphere is just
• hemisphere in the title of that book is the master the left hemisphere is just an emissary who goes about and does
• very much so the left left hemisphere um thinks it knows everything and thinks it knows
• knows everything and thinks it knows better than the right hemisphere but i can tell you in every way it's
• that deals with language the right hemisphere does as well but the left hemisphere deals with the ways in which
• hemisphere does as well but the left hemisphere deals with the ways in which we can target things with language make
• and this is part of it uh the left hemisphere makes you stupid but rich and most people are so addicted
• which is much more like the right hemisphere's picture the broad one the rich embodied one the animate one
• the way of thinking of the right hemisphere which is not jumping in and chattering about things all the time but
• i you know i'm somewhere on that spectrum i'm rather left hemisphere dominant
• things are whole and after our left hemispheres got hold of them and started analyzing it produces parts but let's
• definitely that the important parts of dreaming are from the right hemisphere which one would imagine would be the
• i don't think it would be better if you all had a left hemisphere stroke there's nothing wrong with the left hemisphere
• all had a left hemisphere stroke there's nothing wrong with the left hemisphere it's a it's a very useful servant
• so the right hemisphere understands this it also is the hemisphere of both and after
• the right hemisphere understands this it also is the hemisphere of both and after all it's the one that
• needs both whereas the the left hemisphere doesn't know it's it's either or
• fed up with this what i have shown them to be this left hemisphere world i think a lot of people you know they're hungry
• yes they do and uh their right hemisphere is uh as it is with us more more social
• connected to other creatures and the left hemisphere is more targeted towards prediction to to to catch things

Reflections on Iain McGilchrist's The Matter with Things - Pari Center Anniversary event 3,776

• the different patterns of attention of the two brain hemispheres how they give rise phenomenologically to different
• is very much the the sort of imagery that the left hemisphere uses to understand things
• hypothesis because you're speaking about the the right hemisphere perceiving uniqueness as something sort of precious
• uniqueness as something sort of precious whereas a lot of hemisphere tends to reduce down to some generalization
• um it's difficult for the right hemisphere to explain something to the left hemisphere
• hemisphere to explain something to the left hemisphere when it when it doesn't want to
• can actually mobilize some sort of left hemisphere-like argument to make that case or is that
• um and what we know about the right hemisphere and this is in part one that i i won't go to uh on your advice
• world perceiving them and rightly judging them the left hemisphere is inferior to the right so um the right
• value has been taken by the left hemisphere as well prove it it must be of utility right and then you get what
• value section does come up in part one of the master in his hemisphere as well so i have given it a fair old airing in
• actually know is how the right and left hemisphere operates ladder or something sorry it's a kind of you mentioned
• um if you like comfortable to the left hemisphere trained mind that says okay well if you want to call this assemblage
• won't come and get you out of bed in your you know in your left hemisphere um apartment somewhere that was the fire i
• um i mean i was trained to think that the right hemisphere didn't do very much and was silent
• and was silent night same sort of left hemisphere era that that told me the list of the
• and i i now want to make sure that my left hemisphere so you've gone you've lost we've lost
• i just want to make sure that my left hemisphere isn't being selective in some of the
• um you know driven by the left hemisphere i think and so the the the what the recommendation from this person
• that if you uh speaking to a hardened left hemisphere person what questions would you ask try and open the door
• mainstream view that really the rate hemisphere is not very important and so on so and if i were able to
• have access to my brains brain hemispheres and i accept that you differentiate this
• polarity which is in the world to our two hemispheres but what you called the spiritual or the wisdom tradition has
• describe so beautifully and carefully as the right hemisphere functions as the heart and we know now that it is
• well this differentiation of the two hemispheres but i'm interested how can we
• school not only did i hear almost nothing about the right hemisphere or anything interesting about the
• anything interesting about the asymmetries of the two hemispheres but i also
• the problematic tendencies of the left hemisphere if you don't if you don't know why i cannot help you because if i
• that resounds today that the right hemisphere was the sort of creative fluffy one that it came across as
• fend off people who say overall the hemisphere thing has all been exploded it's all it's not true you know and and
• then they all they say the left hemisphere is all just rational and logical and linguistic and the right etc
• discovered tendencies of the left hemisphere hence the 30 years i've spent working on this
• succumbed at the political level to an encourage let hemisphere style view of citizens and the world so i'm wondering
• clearly there's a relation relationship between the left hemisphere and power for example and clearly there's a sort
• right that is by the right here i mean the right hemisphere not the right wing that would when you look through those

Imagination and the novelist's art - Iain McGilchrist and Salley Vickers 3,583

• experiences that on hola rather reductionists left hemisphere dominated culture would
• twice um once in a rather left hemisphere way and once in a much more right hemisphere
• um once in a rather left hemisphere way and once in a much more right hemisphere congruent way
• of view if you like or the takes on the world of the left hemisphere and of the right hemisphere and i unpack a passage
• world of the left hemisphere and of the right hemisphere and i unpack a passage from rabbi herschel
• in this way you enter the left hemisphere world in which everything becomes two-dimensional it lacks depth

Dr Iain McGilchrist - Brain Hemispheres, The Sacred & Divine, Meaning & More 3,398

• um that if i'm right in saying that the two hemispheres of the brain
• book if each hemisphere gives us a different world
• your work together because you mentioned the two hemispheres um of the brain and i'm sure this is
• for a simplistic term this divided brain um about you know the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere
• um about you know the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere and when i was uh kind of told about the
• audience i guess the case that you make about these two hemispheres in the last book and obviously your new book is the
• differences between the brain hemispheres are rubbish and it's all pop science and it's been exploded years ago
• there are no important differences between the hemispheres any neurologist will tell you that it matters very much
• if there's damage or to one hemisphere in a certain place it'll be quite different for the person
• mirror image placed in the other hemisphere so obviously doing quite different things that's for sure
• brain called the corpus callosum which unites the two hemispheres but only two percent of neurons actually cross
• percent of neurons actually cross uh that link and the two hemispheres are asymmetrical as well why is that and not
• nutshell it's not about the what it's about the how so both hemispheres deal with language in fact both hemispheres
• about the how so both hemispheres deal with language in fact both hemispheres are
• appreciation of emotions and both hemispheres are involved in visual spatial
• tasks both hemispheres do
• why is there a difference between the two hemispheres in the way in which they pay attention and why is the same
• fine one hemisphere the left hemisphere does that but if that's all the brain was
• accept is the reality but the right hemisphere meanwhile is seeing something completely different
• very important area of meaning there in the right hemisphere so one that is continually changing
• and that's the one that belongs to the right hemisphere which has no speech so the difference between speech and
• language they both contribute to language the right hemisphere contributes some of the most important
• right-handers 97 of us have speech only in the left hemisphere and it's much easier for the speech that the left
• easier for the speech that the left hemisphere has evolved to reflect what the left hemisphere knows which is
• hemisphere has evolved to reflect what the left hemisphere knows which is simple linear structures whereas what
• simple linear structures whereas what the right hemisphere sees a com complex a whole which is
• which is actually one of the things the left hemisphere loves is a clear-cut black and white is it this or is it that
• black and white is it this or is it that whereas the right hemisphere says well maybe it's a bit of both um it can be
• maybe it's a bit of both um it can be both and whereas the left hemisphere is only either or and so i think that being
• of black and white tendencies the right hemisphere they can have kind of more gray area
• the neuroanatomist uh jill taylor who suffered uh a left hemisphere um stroke and then i know that in her
• and there's no doubt about this um the right hemisphere is more in touch with reality for one thing
• pages is about when you compare the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere which of them is more vertical which of
• the reality and the answer is the right hemisphere pretty much all delusions and hallucinations certainly the gross ones
• hallucinations certainly the gross ones come from damage to the right hemisphere not from damage to the left hemisphere
• come from damage to the right hemisphere not from damage to the left hemisphere so it's our anchor in reality but it's
• perhaps a dementia that largely affects their left hemisphere so that the right hemisphere
• their left hemisphere so that the right hemisphere comes to the fore
• they describe the where the left hemisphere is preserved but the right hemisphere's
• the where the left hemisphere is preserved but the right hemisphere's damage they describe that the person's
• differences between the campus of the left hemisphere and of the right i know that uh carl young uh
• ego i guess you could perhaps link that to the left hemisphere from the ego to self which i guess perhaps in your
• self which i guess perhaps in your uh argument is the right hemisphere was the meaning of life
• either balance the contributions of the left and right hemisphere which is the perfect situation
• um overwhelmed by it seems always the left hemispheres take eventually um
• as it were not listening at all to the right hemisphere um and and this is a very impoverished
• the world that is mapped the right hemisphere as a way experiences the world as it's happening the left
• world as it's happening the left hemisphere is busy creating a map and
• characterization of how the world seems in the left hemisphere simple schematic abstracted and how it
• simple schematic abstracted and how it seems in the right hemisphere complex living and interconnected
• is the case is that we've ceased to listen to what the right hemisphere can tell us or to believe in the sort of
• picture of the world that the right hemisphere can bring into being for us and this is what happens to people in
• most important topics this is typical of the left hemisphere extreme black and white no subtlety
• if in fact i was right that the left hemisphere view had taken over and there's about four or five pages of this
• would love to kind of just wrap up this i guess this hemisphere hypothesis um what i say hypothesis i mean you have
• that you've used uh based on the hemisphere hypothesis that we can use that our audience can
• because the the resonant depth of the left hemisphere is power it's control and the only value that we now seem to
• music as a whole it's a new experience the right hemisphere takes it in as it does all new experiences and then you
• go from the explicit world of the left hemisphere back into the implicit world of the left of the right hemisphere
• hemisphere back into the implicit world of the left of the right hemisphere where it um if you like nourishes and
• and in each case interestingly it's the left hemisphere sorry it's
• it's not the left it's the right hemisphere that is the more important one
• so the split is not where i emphasize between the left hemisphere and science on the one hand and the right hemisphere
• between the left hemisphere and science on the one hand and the right hemisphere in the humanities on the other it's
• workaday science and times tables in the left hemisphere but great mathematical insights solving the problems of science
• insights solving the problems of science requires the right hemisphere to be the one that's more active
• mentioned but perhaps ought to is that the left hemisphere is a very good servant but a very poor master in other
• the one that needs to be in charge is the right hemisphere it can direct the left hemisphere to do certain procedures
• the right hemisphere it can direct the left hemisphere to do certain procedures that are very familiar to it and it can
• on but once the situation is complex or new in any way the right hemisphere needs to set to work and say
• hang on i'm looking at this you know and the left hemisphere needs to actually take its lead from the right
• actually take its lead from the right hemisphere but we now live in a word world in which as einstein reportedly
• an awful lot on reason and science isn't that rather left hemisphere of you no it's not
• thinking very well and are completely under the sway of the left hemisphere is people who just outright fundamentalist
• fundamentalism is the dogma of the left hemisphere getting away from that leading a much more subtle nuanced