Respectfully, I think your musings here are indeed missing McGilchrist's position.
> I do not think the left hemisphere is dedicated to logic and that the right hemisphere is dedicated to emotions
I'm confident McGilchrist would violently agree with you. I haven't read TMWT, but to quote from one of his earlier works, The Master and His Emissary (the first page of the preface):
> It is not _what_ each hemisphere does, but _how_ it does it that matters.
The pop-psych understanding of left brain = logic/male/language/etc. and right brain = emotions/female/symbols/etc. is not supported by science, and McGilchrist has painstakingly attempted to dispel this meme. I don't think you need to agree with his metaphysical views to understand his writing about lateralization of the brain. Based on the rest of your post, you might find his writing more thought-provoking than you think, so I'll just point encouragingly in the direction of the introduction to TMHE. That book is only 600 pages ;)
> Respectfully, I think your musings here are indeed missing McGilchrist's position.
I am very open to the possibility, this is why I mentioned it explicitly, so no worries!
> It is not _what_ each hemisphere does, but _how_ it does it that matters.
This does not seem like a violent agreement with me? I would still disagree with "both hemispheres do similar things, but the left hemisphere does things through logic while right hemisphere does things through intuition"
> McGilchrist has painstakingly attempted to dispel this meme
I'd be interested in any link to this, I could not find any with some basic searches
> That book is only 600 pages ;)
I read very quickly. Unfortunately, digesting content takes more time.
For me, digesting it involves taking notes, having discussions with people, reflecting on the notes and now more and more writing about it publicly.
I could read it for fun, but then it would be a very different approach
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant McGilchrist would agree logic vs. intuition is not a correct or helpful framing of how each hemisphere functions. He hesitates to make sweeping generalizations at this level, since they're often misinterpreted, but if I were to take a stab at it, I'd say the left hemisphere is more focused on the particular, breaking things apart, while the right hemisphere attends to the gestalt, grasping the whole.
That's the "how" of their differences. But when it comes to the "what" of logic, emotions, creativity, etc., both hemispheres contribute to most domains. In logical thinking, the left hemisphere may do more of linear processing while the right contributes more pattern recognition. In visual perception among animals, the left hemisphere's attention is more narrow/local, while the right remains broad and vigilant.
Respectfully, I think your musings here are indeed missing McGilchrist's position.
> I do not think the left hemisphere is dedicated to logic and that the right hemisphere is dedicated to emotions
I'm confident McGilchrist would violently agree with you. I haven't read TMWT, but to quote from one of his earlier works, The Master and His Emissary (the first page of the preface):
> It is not _what_ each hemisphere does, but _how_ it does it that matters.
The pop-psych understanding of left brain = logic/male/language/etc. and right brain = emotions/female/symbols/etc. is not supported by science, and McGilchrist has painstakingly attempted to dispel this meme. I don't think you need to agree with his metaphysical views to understand his writing about lateralization of the brain. Based on the rest of your post, you might find his writing more thought-provoking than you think, so I'll just point encouragingly in the direction of the introduction to TMHE. That book is only 600 pages ;)
I've been enjoying your writing. Cheers!
> Respectfully, I think your musings here are indeed missing McGilchrist's position.
I am very open to the possibility, this is why I mentioned it explicitly, so no worries!
> It is not _what_ each hemisphere does, but _how_ it does it that matters.
This does not seem like a violent agreement with me? I would still disagree with "both hemispheres do similar things, but the left hemisphere does things through logic while right hemisphere does things through intuition"
> McGilchrist has painstakingly attempted to dispel this meme
I'd be interested in any link to this, I could not find any with some basic searches
> That book is only 600 pages ;)
I read very quickly. Unfortunately, digesting content takes more time.
For me, digesting it involves taking notes, having discussions with people, reflecting on the notes and now more and more writing about it publicly.
I could read it for fun, but then it would be a very different approach
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant McGilchrist would agree logic vs. intuition is not a correct or helpful framing of how each hemisphere functions. He hesitates to make sweeping generalizations at this level, since they're often misinterpreted, but if I were to take a stab at it, I'd say the left hemisphere is more focused on the particular, breaking things apart, while the right hemisphere attends to the gestalt, grasping the whole.
That's the "how" of their differences. But when it comes to the "what" of logic, emotions, creativity, etc., both hemispheres contribute to most domains. In logical thinking, the left hemisphere may do more of linear processing while the right contributes more pattern recognition. In visual perception among animals, the left hemisphere's attention is more narrow/local, while the right remains broad and vigilant.
I discovered the introduction to TMHE is available on McGilchrist's web site. It's about 20 pages: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/The_Master_and_his_Emissary_by_McGilchrist.pdf