5. Opposing — But Not Equal — Forces

(The first six postings of the blog serve as an introductory set.)

My journey with Eastern philosophies and Buddhism began when I read Aldous Huxley’s book The Perennial Philosophy.  It took me a while to read it… seven years. It is an anthology, utilizing material from spiritual texts, the writings of saints, mystics and philosophers along with Huxley’s commentary. The basic premise of The Perennial Philosophy is that the individuals we regard as Holy, Awakened, or Enlightened all shared the same ineffable experience. However, when they attempted to convey that experience to others, it was changed and diminished by limits of language and the lack of any “real life” comparison. When I started reading the book, I was captivated by page two, but I quickly found that I had a love/hate relationship with the material.  Some days, and sometimes even for weeks, the words failed to resonate with me and the content made little sense.  Then I would enjoy a brief period where I was mesmerized by the text and would find it to be overflowing with truth and beauty.  However, a day or two later, I would read the same pages and feel no connection to it.  It wasn’t until I read Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things that I understood what was happening.

Limit Cases and Gestalt

The hemisphere hypothesis uses two important concepts in explaining the very different functions of the brain hemispheres. The first is “limit case,” a left hemisphere process that creates the details of our experiences.   The other is “Gestalt,” a right hemisphere process that combines and enfolds different experiences from a number of sources into a big picture.  These two functions operate as opposing drives in human consciousness; one dedicated to creating separation and the other to creating unity.  To accomplish this, they each create different contents of experience as well as different contexts for those experiences.

McGilchrist introduces the concept of “limit case” in his latter book, The Matter with Things. Limit cases are a simplified representations. The left hemisphere has the capability of reducing a phenomenon to a minimum without extinguishing it.  This process freezes the ever-changing flow of reality and converts it into static things and segments of time.  As a basic example, a single frame of a film is the limit case of the film.

When the left hemisphere started to evolve towards specialization, it began ignoring much of the input from the outside world. Instead, the left hemisphere began to ‘re-present’ what first ‘presences’ to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere’s attention takes in only a subset of right hemisphere’s flowing content, dividing up the big picture and removing the context. It then recontextualizes this static information in time and space. Context changes everything. The left hemisphere then analyzes this reconfigured content for possible uses and then lumps it into familiar categories, names, and concepts of its own creation. In the end, a limit case replaces properties of reality with a far less truthful – but far more useful — representation of the world.

This refashioning of content and context, however, serves a useful, temporary purpose – especially for individuals in a competitive environment. It simplifies the flow of reality into separate things, as well as concepts and ideas about their possible use.  In terms of survival of the fittest, this ability to quickly form limit cases provides enormous advantages – more “fitness.” Those who are familiar with the work of Donald  Hoffman will recognize how the concept of limit cases fits into his work on perception and evolutionary fitness.  Hoffman states that we do not perceive reality, but instead only see representations of content in a context that best serves our survival and reproductive needs.

Problems with Limit Cases

A little understood problem that this simplification creates for us is that the left hemisphere cannot accurately reconstruct reality from limit cases. It can only link its symbolic representations of reality together with time/space relationships that it creates.  Instead of awareness of an integrated flow of events, process and relations, it only sees the interactions of static parts. The left hemisphere’s view of the world lacks the complex interwoven relationships of the entire picture that is the true nature of “things.” These symbolic parts cannot recreate the original whole, only a distorted version of it.  The whole is always so much more than the combination of these parts. McGilchrist offers, “The linear mode of approach typical of the left hemisphere will not answer to the structure of nature.” And as Werner Erhard of EST training fame said, “What I recognized is that you can’t put it together. It’s already together, and what you have to do is experience it being together.”

There is another problem caused by the specialization of the left hemisphere that is also little noticed. In order to carry out new functions and increase its processing speed, it dropped the continuous awareness/mindfulness that is inherent in the right hemisphere.  In its place, it developed a focusing and intermittently willful attention.  When the left hemisphere is our base of operations, we forget that we are creating our world with the focus of our attention. We believe “things” are real.  I believe this is the source of Buddhism’s “three poisons:” nonawareness, clinging, and aversion.  Mindfulness puts the knower/creator back into experiencing. With practice, we become continuously mindful of the inherent emptiness of limit cases.

Gestalt

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Gestalt is something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts. The right hemisphere specializes in creating an integrated collage, or Gestalt, from the simultaneous input of many sources.  This allows input from our five senses to be combined and then integrated with our emotions and memory, as well as with the mental content produced by our left hemisphere.  This process allows the left hemisphere’s  creative content to be enfolded back into the big picture, enhancing it.

This Gestalt provides a continually present, continuously changing awareness that we subconsciously monitor for feelings of resonance.  This can explain our gut feelings, our intuitions, and things we know are true without being able to explain why. This resonance is also the source of our enjoyment of music, art, humor, poems, sex, love, metaphors, myths and religion.

We have all had new Gestalt moments, such as when we suddenly understand something we were struggling to make sense of, or when we suddenly find ourselves able to perform a task without thinking about it. This occurs when a new whole or a wider view suddenly resonates or “gels” at a new level in our mind.  At the end of Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk you can hear a sudden, stunning silence when the entire audience experiences a new Gestalt.

Hemisphere Differences

McGilchrist summarizes the basic differences between the hemispheres over several pages in The Matter with Things, so this quick summary might be considered a disservice, as all limit cases are to some degree.  If I had to reduce the differences to one sentence, it would be this:  The right hemisphere is where we connect and synthesize, while the left hemisphere is where we separate and analyze.

The different hemispheres have different relationships with their content.  Right hemisphere experience is always here, always becoming. Its content is always unique, a flow and an ever-changing web of connections. The open, receptive awareness of the right hemisphere is always integrating new content and is driven to combine, unify and resonate on different levels.

The narrowing focus of the left hemisphere divides and separates what is received from the right. Left hemisphere experience is the arising and passing away of mental events. Like the right hand which it controls, the left hemisphere grasps things. It simplifies its content, stops the flow, and breaks the web of connections. It analyzes the content for possible uses and reshapes it for its needs. It creates a hall of mirrors, only seeing its own work as the truth. Confident in its abilities, it then refashions the world using the pieces and a context it has created. As today’s metacrisis makes clear, this approach to the world is failing us all. Our left hemisphere unmakes our world of truth, beauty and goodness. This is likely the source of the suffering or dissatisfaction (samsara) which Buddhism addresses. This also describes the biblical ‘fall from grace’ and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

When seeking truth, McGilchrist concludes that the most positive action the left hemisphere can take is to know when to stop. It cannot think or logically reason its way to the truth by itself. It must “turn back the sword” and let the right hemisphere do its silent work. This is perhaps the singular wisest use of free will. Few realize it, but we having been hearing the best advice for our left hemisphere on the radio since 1970. Let It Be.

Unequal Partners in Creation

The hemispheres must work together, as opposites fulfilling each other, but they must not be considered equals. While the left hemisphere can quickly grasp things and ideas and arrive at simple truths, only the right hemisphere can synthesize paradoxes and arrive at wide and deeply resonating truths. McGilchrist demonstrates that right hemisphere is a more reliable guide to reality, whether we approach it through science, reason, intuition or imagination. The depth and scope of the implicit content of the right hemisphere is far greater than the explicit content of the left. The right hemisphere is where our individual creative consciousness meets the collective unconsciousness/creative cosmos as a whole. Perhaps the least appreciated and most underutilized capability we have as human beings is to tap into the wisdom and creative power of our right hemispheres.

The hemisphere hypothesis offers many new insights into how our brain hemispheres function together as opposing forces — to create new experiences and ultimately higher forms of consciousness.  While we do have some conscious control over our left hemisphere processes, we likely cannot directly control these powerful right hemisphere processes. (Perhaps this is a role for vestibular stimulation or psychedelics.) For now, we can only create conditions for the right hemisphere to become more active and involved in our lives. We can learn to quiet the left hemisphere with meditation and be open to wider views and deeper resonances through the appreciation of nature, community, art, music, and the sacred literatures. We must stay longer in the quiet fertile night of open contemplation.  We require the union of division and union. I believe integrating these insights into our meditation practices can help us progress faster — and with fewer frustrations — such as those I experienced when I first read The Perennial Philosophy.