2024-04-22
22 分钟“It seems to me that we face very grave crises indeed and that, if we are to survive, we need not just a few new measures, but a complete change of heart and mind.” Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World There seems to be […]
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It seems to me that we face very grave crises indeed and that if we are to survive, we need not just a few new measures, but a complete change of heart and mind.
There seems to be a sickness that has spread throughout society and it has infected most people with a mindset that is not suitable for individual or social flourishing.
In this video we explore a fascinating hypothesis put forth by the psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher Ian McGilchrist that can help account for the sickness of the modern age.
This hypothesis suggests that most people rely too heavily on one side of the brain, which is leading to a peculiar worldview and a pathological way of being that is characterized by stubbornness, a lack of empathy, a desire for power and an overall disconnection from reality.
Brains and minds are living constantly, adapting interconnected systems, writes McGilchrist, and they are conscious.
A brain disease or mental illness then is a change in a persons whole way of being in the world.
To understand the mental pathology that has infected society, we must begin with a basic understanding of the structure of the human brain or specifically its bipartite nature.
The word bipartite means involving or made up of two entities.
The human brain is bipartite as it is divided into two asymmetrical hemispheres, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.
This asymmetrical division is not unique to humans, but is found in every neuronal system of every known creature, stretching back to the beginning of evolutionary history.
Why is this?
What purpose does it serve?
Or as McGilchrist asks, why are the two cerebral hemispheres asymmetrical?
Do they really differ in any important sense?
If so, in what way?
Common in popular culture is the idea that the two hemispheres differ in what they do.
For example, it is often said that the left hemisphere is the locus of logic, analytic thought, language and reason, while the right hemisphere is the locus of emotions, creativity, intuition and artistic ability.
But as McGilchrist notes, just about everything that is said about the hemispheres in pop psychology is wrong because it rests on beliefs about what the hemispheres do, not about how they approach it.