This page = Connections I've spotted between Iain McGilchrist's hemisphere model and other models, written as if to someone else who has read McGilchrist's book, rather than attempting to explain the model itself. If you want a primer, there's:
Okay! Without further ado, what am I most excited about connecting McGilchrist's hemisphere model with?
There's an overarching theme to many of the things below that's like "if you want <outward mindset/awakening/complexity/etc> then more importantly than training yourself in those things is training the left hemisphere to get out of the way."
In particular, don't seek "the rules" for any of these things, as that's attempting to teach your left hemisphere how to be a right hemisphere, which does not work (speaking as someone who has tried for a few years to do so). That's like seeking the script for an improv show—nobody knows what it is.
Inward & Outward Mindset
Arbinger Institute has a model of two distinct ways-of-thinking/being/relating, one they call "inward mindset" and the other "outward mindset". From the inward mindset's perspective, other people get treated as obstacles, vehicles, or irrelevant.
Well, this is basically how the left hemisphere relates to everything! And that's okay; it's not made to be a relational, social creature. It doesn't track body language, facial expression, tone of voice, empathy, etc.
< tweet to rindzin linking it inward/outward mindset & 3 poisons >
Buddhism, awakening, enlightenment
> "Intellect itself needs to taste the manner in which it functions as a method of obscuring the nature of Mind."
< connection with spectrum of ecstasy >
already awake (dzogchen) = already have a right hemisphere
Tilopa's Six Words as instructions for the LH to shhh
System 1, System 2 & other confusions
Complexity, withness
< cynefin model >
The left hemisphere naturally prefers simple & complicated systems, where everything can be known (at least in principle) and where there's a right answer (at least in principle) about what should be done.
By contrast, the right hemisphere is naturally suited to working with complex systems.
Kegan Stages & developmental models
Artificial Intelligence & AI Safety
Psychology - "what if everyone had the same pathology, and we didn't notice because it was 'normal'?"
Various conditions, from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) to Depression, are known for a phenomenon called "splitting" which is pretty obvious what it is when called by its other names: black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking.
It's also literally reified as one of the "
three laws of thought" which are actually basically laws of logical, left hemisphere thought.
The entire left hemisphere mode of thinking is inherently categorical; it takes its categories as given, and everything as either member of a category or not a member of a category. This is fine, when this "either/or" is held within the "both/and" world of the right hemisphere, but when taken as all-there-is makes for rigid thinking in general
On page 406 of
The Master and his Emissary, McGilchrist cites neuroscience studies that indicate BPD and other conditions are linked to increased left hemisphere activation.
The wacky thing about the brain of course is that it's complexly intertwingled hardware & software. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which does not involve using drugs, can enable BPD patients to go from emotionally unregulated & suicidal to an ongoingly workable way of being. [this can be phrased better]
Cognitive Decoupling
Other stuff