Starting the Trip: The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World
At $150, I'm trusting the trip will be worth it.
A Lot of Thinkers Have Intuited that We Have Two Minds
McGilchrist deserves the credit for connecting neuroscience to the intuition
Examples of GKC's Right-Hemispheric Brain Overly Stifling His Left Hemisphere
A Work-in-Process
Tolkien’s Elves Embody McGilchrist’s Ideal Brain
I think Tolkien’s perfect proto-McGilchrist form is found in Rivendell and Lorien, the last kingdoms of the elves. The elves, I believe, display the proper relationship between the hemispheres, almost to perfection: the musical and poetic and playful nature of the right hemisphere served by the more mundane functions
An Overview of Each Hemisphere's Vision of Reality
If you want an overview of each hemisphere’s vision of reality, McGilchrist provides it at the beginning of The Matter with Things:
The left hemisphere’s vision of reality: The “world is composed of static, isolated, fragmentary elements that can be manipulated easily, are decontextualized, abstracted, detached, disembodied, mechanical,
The Master and His Emissary: Summary
By Jonathan Gaisman at The New Criterion
The Enlightenment Obsessed with Measurement: A Sure Sign of Left-Hemispheric Elephantiasis
💡"Numbers, which the left hemisphere feels familiar with and is excellent at manipulating . . .". McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary, p. 430.
"We take the measure of the world and ourselves a hundred times a day, with rulers and kitchen thermometers and bathroom scales and, everywhere, clocks. Scientists
Distributism is the Economic Sphere Revolt Against Modernity and Left-Hemispheric Hegemony
Unfortunately, it doesn't work in the modern world without big government, and big government is the celebration of the left hemisphere.
Still, it's worth pondering, just as I think it's worth pondering anarchism. Neither will be attained in my lifetime, but I think such
Why It's Rude to Stare
Staring is a special kind of vision, in itself predatory: left hemisphere attention gets locked onto its target.
The Matter with Things
On Working without Working. Or St. Terese's Little Way. Or Zen Work.
"There is no greater pleasure in ordinary life, so-called, than to see a bus-conductor, a teacher, anybody, really engrossed in his work, with no thought of its relative or absolute value, with no thought of its interest or profit to himself or others." R.H. Blyth, Zen in