The Divided Brain

[Geof Nanto]

I occasionally use the terms ‘left-brain function’ and ‘right-brain function’ in my posts –  for instance, in this recent one –  with emphasis on the importance of right-brain function for spiritual wholeness. Of course, I’m familiar with the research that shows we use both hemispheres for just about everything but my usage follows the more detailed work of Iain Gilchrist. His research, published as The Master and his Emissary, focuses on what each hemisphere does best……   

 

“In one [the left hemisphere], because of the narrow focus, you're looking at things that you think are fixed and certain and isolated. And then the idea is you build the world up from little building blocks of things that are certain, putting one next to the other like building a wall. And that's a world that is mechanical and lifeless and linear in which you know for certain what you're dealing with, it doesn't change or shift, and that's helpful. It's a bit like a map of the world. The world is changing and moving all the time and it's got all kinds of complexity in it. But the map is simple and fixed, and it's useful because it's simple, because it leaves most of reality out. So that is the left hemisphere's world.

 

The right hemisphere's world, at the same time is completely different. It is one in which there are no little fixed points, there are only massively interconnected complex systems. And the things that are in those systems are really useful heuristics ways of looking at it that help us, but they're not strictly separable from anything else. So you've got in that hemisphere a world in which things are interconnected, are not ever certain but ambiguous and have a number of meaning around them, in which things flow and change, and that is a much truer picture of the world.

 

If you like, to compare them, you could think of the left hemisphere's world is a bit like what Newtonian mechanics told us the world was like; fixed objects that hit one another and cause things and so on. But the right hemisphere's view is more like what we now know from quantum mechanics, that it is uncertain, unstable, constantly changing and flowing, but much, much richer, this reality, although it's harder to grasp.”

 

(Extract from a recent interview with him on the Australian radio program All in the Mind.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/the-divided-brain/8895804 )

 

According to Iain and many other people (including me), we are living in a world dominated by the left-brain’s representation (re-presentation) of reality.  Hence, for those of us who are looking for the wholeness of direct connection, fostering right-brain function is vital. Interestingly, that exactly what many ancient teachings show us. For instance, the Daodejing gives a comprehensive ‘right-brain’ worldview. 
 

[Geof Nanto]

Continued…

 

These are not different ways of thinking about the world, they are different ways of experiencing the world. Hence the saying, familiar to those of us on a path of wholeness, that words can only ever be like the finger pointing to the moon. For me, the most effective ways to foster right-hemisphere experience are qigong, meditation, silence and – most importantly – spending considerable periods alone in areas where the natural environment is still strong.  Left-brain function is so pervasive these days that it permeates the whole atmosphere of our cities and extends right through the inhabited countryside.   

 

BTW Strong left-brain function is necessary to prosper in academia and in business! (And to a lesser extent, to effectively interact on this forum.) It’s also essential to cut through all the crap in spiritual circles  - and in society in general.   

[liminal_luke]

Hi Yueya,

 

Your posts made me think of something Konchug Uma said several years back about a form called Quan Yin Magnetic Qigong...

 

The purpose of red phoenix is to generate a cool downward flow of energy like water, and the purpose of KYMQ is to synchronize the hemispheres of the brain in order to fuse them into a "whole brain" (my choice of words not LaoXie's) by increasing activity across the corpus callosum and, what i experience as phaselocking the wavelengths of the hemispheres into one wavelength of brain activity. It also aims to awaken the "one sense" (LaoXie's choice of words) as opposed to the five (or six) senses that we commonly think of.

 

This got me thinking that if there are these two ways of thinking/being in the world and there`s this possibility of strengthening the connection between them so they somehow integrate...well...what would that integration look like?  Is there a third brain that`s neither right nor left but emerges from the integration of the two?  Just thought I`d mention it as a possibility in case it might mean something to you.

 

LL

[Aletheia]

Yes, but electronic media mimics right-brain functions, as such they (telegraph, radio, TV, internet) create externalized right-brain type environments which we've been inhabiting for almost 200 years now. Hence the shift away from Newtonian physics and the breakdown of realist type artworks etc.

 

Nietzsche's aphoristic type knowledge and Picasso's cubism also reflect the shift in sensory arrangements caused by the new media. Transsexual identity flux is another more comical example of the affects electronic media have on the psyche lol.

 

The affects are total and run right across every institution in fact, but what's really funny is academia has bet the house on left-brain axiomatic principles being true. All that means is the world is drifting away from them at increasing speeds, everything is becoming weirder and weirder for all those morons because media are not created equal. There's a logic to the new media which so far has accelerated reality successively away from mechanised thinking patterns.

 

Honestly I post in philosophy forums and all they can do is ban me even when I spell things out for them using philosophy from the Western tradition. If they actually realised the truth of reality they'd very likely go insane, not that they aren't absolutely insane already tbh.

 

 

[Aletheia]

So postmodernism is a type of nondualism really. Just with a very heavy dose of madness because everyone genuinely refuses to believe it.

[Aletheia]

 

 

[Geof Nanto]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

Hi Yueya,

 

Your posts made me think of something Konchug Uma said several years back about a form called Quan Yin Magnetic Qigong...

 

The purpose of red phoenix is to generate a cool downward flow of energy like water, and the purpose of KYMQ is to synchronize the hemispheres of the brain in order to fuse them into a "whole brain" (my choice of words not LaoXie's) by increasing activity across the corpus callosum and, what i experience as phaselocking the wavelengths of the hemispheres into one wavelength of brain activity. It also aims to awaken the "one sense" (LaoXie's choice of words) as opposed to the five (or six) senses that we commonly think of.

 

This got me thinking that if there are these two ways of thinking/being in the world and there`s this possibility of strengthening the connection between them so they somehow integrate...well...what would that integration look like?  Is there a third brain that`s neither right nor left but emerges from the integration of the two?  Just thought I`d mention it as a possibility in case it might mean something to you.

 

LL

 

Cheya once mentioned that Carlos Castaneda talked about the left and right brain hemispheres and that the corpus callosum was the "Sorcerer's Crossing" which had to be developed to become a person of power/sorcerer/enlightened. 

 

And I seem to remember McGilchrist making a reference to it used similarly in the Upanishads. He also says that communication across the corpus callosum favours the left hemisphere, and inhibits the right hemisphere. Hence it’s very easy to go into left-brain mode and difficult to escape from. I can vouch for that!

 

But working directly with the corpus callosum it’s not something I’m in any way familiar with from my own practice. I’m a natural process kind of person; I just work on my overall connection to Dao in the ways I’ve previously mentioned and leave the rest up to nature. It may be slow but it’s thorough and makes for an enjoyable journey. I don’t like to do anything that seems like forcing internal processes to happen in predetermined ways.  But I too would be interested to learn more of other member’s experience with this......a very important subject for me. 

[Aletheia]

When the San tribe enter 1st nature they shape-shift too in much the same way gender flux slips through the cracks of fixed categories from the perspectives of the watching media. But the San are bathed in spiritual light while we (my multi-egoic pomo personalities and you) are bathed in electronic light.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Geof Nanto]

Hi Aletheia

 

I know nothing of Judith Butler other than she's a respected gender theorist. This is perhaps something for a separate topic? I'm about to turn off my computer for the day....will read more tomorrow.  

 

Yueya

[Aletheia]

3 minutes ago, Yueya said:

Hi Aletheia

 

I know nothing of Judith Butler other than she's a respected gender theorist. This is perhaps something for a separate topic? I'm about to turn off my computer for the day....will read more tomorrow.  

 

Yueya

 

It's not a problem. I don't expect to post about these things without people getting triggered. I don't respect Judith Butler, I'm a radical feminist. Although it's not something you'll find me marching in the streets trying to promote or impose through force and violence via political or moral means, the way transsexuals go about their business.

 

 

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Aletheia said:

 

 I'm a radical feminist. 

 

 

I have no problem with that as long as you don't have a penis.

 

[Aletheia]

11 hours ago, Aletheia said:

When the San tribe enter 1st nature they shape-shift too in much the same way gender flux slips through the cracks of fixed categories from the perspectives of the watching media.

 

The "watching media" are stand-ins for spiritual wisdom -- the android meme -- or the globe theatre whose population are previous media forms -- oral, literacy, analogue media, electronic, digital etc.

 

Quote

Bob refers to as the Android Meme, which he defines as “…the ability of human-invented technology…to acquire the intimacy of speech and intuition.” In other words, the Android Meme is technology that has the qualities of "being alive". The Android Meme wants to join with us in an unholy alliance of archetypal technology and human organism. Imagine the scene in Matrix: Revolutions when the robots (Bob calls people that behave like robots organic robotoids) form a talking head that asks Neo what he truly wants. The face is not human but instead a combination of all these shapeshifting robots speaking for the Architect.

 

Similarly, the Android Meme is a cacophony of all media, all technology and all ideas of particular times, anthropomorphized, trying to make itself human...

 

 

https://theandroidmeme.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/bob-dobbs-anamorphic-fractal.html

 

Media are both formal cause and hidden archetypal grounds which then open up metaphysical horizons to capture people's souls. Left-brain thinking is phonetic literacy as holographic virtual image.

 

So there are two holographic universes at play at the same time. The original holographic universe which qigong masters talk about and the technologically conceived matrix which pretty much everyone else's thinking is circumscribed by.

 

Okay. I'm not really awake at the moment and probably no one is interested in the above. I'm going to meditate for a bit then go to the supermarket and then come back and copy out something from Ever-Present Origin because I realised the quote drew posted by Chuang-tzu is the same quote Gebser is using and Gebser appears to be saying that that is what is essential for humans rather than thinking we're progressing towards a more sophisticated type of spiritual awareness.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Aletheia]

5 hours ago, Marblehead said:

I have no problem with that as long as you don't have a penis.

 

 

But are you a real man? Most men in today's world are actually "secret" homosexuals walking around inside their mobilised closets. I put "secret" is quotes because real men are not fooled by such performances.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Aletheia

[Chang]

9 minutes ago, Aletheia said:

 

But are you a real man? Most men in today's world are actually "secret" homosexuals walking around inside their mobilised diaphanous closets. I put "secret" is quotes because real men are not fooled by such performances.

 

When married to my first wife I had a gay Brother in Law. A nice chap but his homosexuality set the scene for his whole life. A Lanscape Architect, he was a "Gay" Landscape Architect. If taking a walk he was a "Gay" man taking a walk, watching a play he was a "Gay" playgoer. You get the picture. He firmly believed that all men were, at heart, homosexuals and at Christmas and birthday I would be presented with various items of gay literature and propaganda. I must say that his sister, my wife, was very supportive of him.

 

But going back to your post I must agree that we are all actors and our life is a performance - some better than others. William Shakespeare would agree.

 

       " All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. "

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, Aletheia said:

 

But are you a real man? Most men in today's world are actually "secret" homosexuals walking around inside their mobilised closets. I put "secret" is quotes because real men are not fooled by such performances.

Yes, I am a real man.  Ask your mother.

 

Sorry, but you set me up for that.

 

I'm at an age such that sex is no longer an instinct.  

 

So yeah, maybe a lot of men have excessive Yin.

 

I think a lot of women play the drama game too.  Playing the sex game and then acting offended when some guy hits on them.