![]() Peter Rajsinghis a political scientist at New York University. Jurg Kesserlingis Head of the Department of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation at Rehabilitation Centre at Valens, Switzerland. Jonathan Rowsonis a philosopher, author and chess grandmaster. Michael Gazzaniga is a neuroscientist at University of California, Santa Barbara. Onur Gunturkun is a neuroscientist at Ruhr University Buchum. John Cleeseis a comedian, actor, and former member of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Rowan Williamsis a former Archbishop of Canterbury. "Einstein said that the rational mind is a faithful servant, but the intuitive mind is a precious gift, and we live in a world that has honoured the servant but has forgotten the gift." Reaction to McGilchrist's ideas range from enthusiastic or intrigued to dubious or dismissive, but his theories are getting traction - most notably his contention that the most intractable problems of the modern world, from climate change to political polarization, result in large part from an imbalance between the left and right brains. Einstein said that the rational mind is a faithful servant, but the intuitive mind is a precious gift, and we live in a world that has honoured the servant but has forgotten the gift. It's the right brain that understands context and the big picture - our relationships with others and how we fit into a complex, non-linear world in which everything is connected. But McGilchrist says the left brain doesn't understand relationships. It's enabled us to become wealthy, but it's also meant that we've lost the means to understand the world, to make sense of it, to feel satisfaction and fulfilment through our place in the world." The left brain pays sharply focused attention to detail and sorts and organizes people and things into neat, orderly categories. " treats the world as a simple resource to be exploited. Two ways of thinking that are both needed, but are fundamentally at the same time incompatible." "The left hemisphere's goal is to enable us to manipulate things, whereas the goal of the right hemisphere is to relate to things and understand them as a whole. They have different values," said McGilchrist in The Divided Brain, a television documentary adapted for IDEASand now streaming on CBC Gem. "The two hemispheres have styles - takes, if you like, on the world. That, in turn, shapes the world we live in. How we interpret and experience the world depends on whether those two brains are working in balance, or whether one is dominant or damaged. The right and left brains perform the same basic functions, but in very different ways. ![]() The right hemisphere, meanwhile, is where our more creative, artistic, and intuitive lives reside.Ä«ut Scottish psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues evidence shows the right and left hemispheres actually amount to two brains. The conventional wisdom has been that the left hemisphere is the seat of logic, language, and advanced cognition - the things we need to make a living and make a life in our day-to-day lives. Science has long known that the human brain has a left and right hemisphere. *Originally published on October 22, 2021.
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