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Meta-thread of various threads (mostly mine) about Iain McGilchrist's brain hemisphere model! https://t.co/iZHEKsKnOF
(Note: there's lots of myths & bs about the brain hemispheres, but this new model seems pretty solid and better than a naive model that just says "all we know is that these functions are on the left and these are on the right")
Here's a thread that's deliberately designed to be a general summary & introduction: https://t.co/tVVfQu9zmB
Tweet-thread for an introduction to Iain McGilchrist's @divided_brain model about the profound difference between how each hemisphere attends to the world! (Note: there's lots of bs about 🧠 hemispheres; this new model seems pretty solid and better than a naive idk🤷 model)
Here's my first, where I intro'd the concept briefly and noted that a bunch of learning challenges get confusing because we try to teach our left hemisphere how to do things our right hemisphere already knows. Instead, LH needs to learn to let RH work. https://t.co/hfNhNk77sa
After watching this engaging convo between JP & IM about the latter's work on the @divided_brain, I have the sense that my top personal learning priority is shifting my internal locus to my right hemisphere. Suggestions for how to train this? https://t.co/9wZTW6ywE8
McGilchrist's model helped me understand why I have often tended to feel anger instead of grief, even though it feels better to feel the grief. https://t.co/EgOG6SS4Z9
@jonnym1ller posted a highlighted version of my 2017 ribbonfarm article about not-just-asking questions, which prompted me to reflect on the relationship between questions and the brain hemispheres https://t.co/HvFUGby9P9
@jonnym1ller @ribbonfarm Mmm, the first thing that comes to mind as I read your highlighted version is around this not-knowing piece. Definitely feels related to Iain McGilchrist's model of the brain hemispheres and how the left can't handle not-knowing while the right naturally does.
Here's a few tweets in response to @fortelabs saying that various things aren't things. There are no things! https://t.co/jMGUIVIKB3
@fortelabs @garybasin The thingness of reality is constructed in our minds (specifically, McGilchrist notes, in our left hemispheres) but that doesn't mean reality isn't real! Just that concepts aren't reality—which... isn't news, but experiencing the diff first-hand matters🤯 https://t.co/mAazgrsxBG
A short thread about language: https://t.co/brBwLMhmo6
Oh and of course this one today that basically concludes that tantric non-dual awareness enlightenment is basically synonymous with getting your left hemisphere to let your right hemisphere run the show. https://t.co/73SEHWJOK6
1/ Reading Spectrum of Ecstasy (thanks @QiaochuYuan & @Meaningness!) ...and the parallels between it and Iain McGilchrist's @divided_brain model are... like 100%? If it weren't for the fact that IM doesn't use the term "non-dual", these pages could literally from IM's book. https://t.co/ZMiAFSgIvx
@QiaochuYuan wrote a thread about different fictional magic concepts, that divide along hemispherical lines! (Also his thread links back to this meta-thread at the end, so we've got a nice loop going 🔄) https://t.co/NCErJ311Z7
Rereading the Young Wizards series and thinking about sorting fictional magic systems by how left hemisphere / right hemisphere they are. LH: explicit laws, fixed effects, magic a kind of physics / engineering. RH: implicit, unpredictable, magic an art, a living thing.
Me reflecting on another model of two ways of thinking ("aboutness" and "withness") that map almost perfectly onto the left & right hemispheres' unique worlds: https://t.co/PtReeYBapU
One model I've found myself dancing with over the past few years is called More than Cool Reason: "Withness-thinking or "systemic thinking" and "thinking *about* systems" Withness and aboutness are two very different modes of thinking! PDF: https://t.co/ZWL7is46ut https://t.co/EE81RQa4nc
Grokking the relationship between change & stasis. Cried a couple happy tears while writing this one: https://t.co/XLE4vtZyFM
Most other popular brain models blatantly ignore the hemisphere axis despite its obvious importance, so they have to add epicycles to correct the confused assumption. https://t.co/rnG0jPyZWW
Pitch for why McGilchrist's @divided_brain model matters: Lateralization is not just in humans but in mice & birds & fish, so there's gotta be SOMETHING going on there. If you try to understand the rest of the brain while ignoring hemispheres, you're going to be confused!
@Timber_22 makes a direct connection between Tilopa's ancient meditation advice and the left hemisphere. (Link is to mid-convo... scroll up in that thread for a lot of other cool stuff) https://t.co/SGykfQuCir
@Timber_22 Long thread integrating 3+ other twitter conversations, connecting the hemispheres with the triune brain model (intellectual, emotional, physical) and talking about false dichotomies and the value of having models anyway. https://t.co/FpeDG37zSM
Aha, just saw this again, after @DougTataryn's BioEmotive retreat, and my perspective has shifted a bit. There's definitely something real to the triune brain model. Details can be debated but the prefrontal cortex does different stuff than the hippocampus & amygdala! 🧠 https://t.co/RWDkn8as4s
@Timber_22 An high-level initial exploration of the deep relevance of the brain hemispheres to: • current AI systems • prospects for AGI • AI Safety https://t.co/lrhksZkzoZ
@Timber_22 Didn't intend for this thread to talk about hemispheres, but that's where it ended up! https://t.co/O9U3qED1KQ
For some time, I've noticed an odd trigger of nihilistic thoughts: running out of something. Often toilet paper or toothpaste, sometimes peanut butter. It seems to produce "oh my fucking god how many times am I going to have to buy more of this!" 😳🙄😑☠️ https://t.co/6aeyzhrbH9
@Timber_22 Some excerpts on gesture. Second tweet is the real gem here, talking about how usually when people misspeak, their gesture is still accurate 😮 https://t.co/eBRyc8sGQ2
Interesting brain-hemisphere relations to gesture. Expressive gestures, revealing inner emotional states, tend to originate in the right hemisphere. Instrumental gestures, consciously engaged for a purpose, tend to originate in the left hemisphere. https://t.co/ri6mPI6CGF
@Timber_22 Buddhism! Of my threads, this one is maybe the clearest/simplest justification for why RH is Master & LH is Emissary (McGilchrist's book is titled The Master and his Emissary, a reference to a story from Nietzsche) https://t.co/aG12OfVcqx
@Timber_22 Short thread about both/and & either/or, faith & doubt. https://t.co/vMg1dcRHR5
@nosilverv doesn't explicitly talk about brain hemispheres here, but what he's saying is a very clear explanation of how the left hemisphere can't solve enlightenment the way it ordinarily solves problems. https://t.co/YnflF30M4L
🌶️ thread where I deconstruct the whole concept of Kegan stages, using McGilchrist's model. This idea has been bomping around my brain for a year... finally wrote it up decently: https://t.co/n9sEPjIbwG
Hot niche take: Kegan's stages are universal only because everyone is universally afflicted with a dysfunction related to left hemisphere fixation. In a culture where this wasn't so, there would still be developmental stages, but they'd be nearly unrecognizable as Kegan stages. https://t.co/5FTRWhWfQ8
A common thing that people try to map the brain hemispheres onto is masculinity & femininity, and some such mappings would be confusing & misleading, but others are remarkably resonant! Particularly the khandro-pawo dance from Vajrayana Buddhism: https://t.co/4Ft8IC5ysu
Had the same thought when I read this this morning! (ie Apr 9th, when I drafted most of thread) I'd heard left side of the body as feminine & right side as masculine, and since reading McGilchrist I no longer think this is spurious! (Flip L↔R for hemispheres bc contralateral) https://t.co/Mn14IZXCef https://t.co/OzdASV9W18
Apparently summarizing a very short book still produces a very long thread. This is the best introduction on twitter so far though, as far as I know! https://t.co/OeBkaTBzhy
Intro thread to Iain McGilchrist's work, based on his mini-book Ways of Attending: How our divided brain constructs the world. "Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience." https://t.co/eys00Sn2vl
A 3-tweet thread that connects McGilchrist's model to a vital distinction between • "individualism" (atomistic; fragmented; un-whole) • "individuation" (the necessity of any system maintaining both boundary with environment & negentropic openness) https://t.co/5UbiWNRaIr
Mostly this thread is about David Bohm's book On Dialogue, but it's very relevant in general, and partway through I point out that he's saying something really similar to McGilchrist, regarding thought that re-presents rather than attends to presence. https://t.co/V1ZZexTvHt
> On the whole, you could say that if you are defending your opinions, you are not serious. — David Bohm (page 48 of On Dialogue) This quote, I think, completely upends classic notions of what sincere, reality-oriented conversation looks like.
More [[hemisphere dharma]], this time zooming in on tanha: https://t.co/Lpi6K1rEmA
🤣🤣🤣 mood. Okay so this actually illustrates something important about "Tanha", the Pali word often translated as "desire" or attachment", in Buddhist contexts, but perhaps better as "grasping". The explosion below is the shattering of a grasped image about a specific person. https://t.co/VBIDtxC8jF
@Jeanvaljean689 tweeted some reflections on the counter-intuitive meanings of the word "counter-intuitive" 🙃 then summoned me to comment re McGilchrist. So this link is to halfway down; scroll up for context of what I'm replying to: https://t.co/p6RhCGYiRO
@Jeanvaljean689 @ablueaeshna @brandontoner Mmm, a few thoughts. I do think the word "intuitive" is playing multiple roles here. Someone once described Complice as "counter-intuitive until you learn how to use it then very intuitive", which... 🤔🤯 "intuitive" in this sense might map more onto System 1 than a hemisphere
@Jeanvaljean689 @m_ashcroft excitedly linking brain hemispheres to Alexander Technique this is gonna be big guys McGilchrist didn't really have any pragmatic advice, & "drawing on the right side of the brain" doesn't generalize enough https://t.co/ONFgxbe0PI
“It is the right frontal cortex that is responsible for inhibiting one’s immediate response, and hence for flexibility and set-shifting; as well as the power of inhibiting immediate response to environmental stimuli.” (The Master and His Emissary). Some thoughts…
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 I’m kinda buzzing, this feels potentially huge in my mind All the stuff that McGilchrist talks about how left hemisphere dominance is an issue basically everywhere and AT might be a kind of system level solution
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 If you read Alexander’s writing he is obviously way more excited and sees so much more scope for societal level impact than modern AT teachers seem to reflect and I think stuff is what he was pointing at, just without a century of neuroscience
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 Not a subtle title https://t.co/H9fldx4JCu
@m_ashcroft @Jeanvaljean689 that makes a lot of sense to me! I would be very interested to know... who else following Alexander's lineage is most plugged into this? (did he have a proper lineage? who did he teach, and who did they teach?)
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 It’s a good question. There are three main AT lineages based in the first three teachers Alexander trained. They’re quite different in their ways, some more postural than others (mine isn’t at all). I’m actually now considering how I can find the others, so to speak
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 I need to find a way to communicate this stuff to the existing profession in a way that doesn’t trigger some kind of immune response. I know, for example, that some AT professional bodies reserve the right to remove your teaching certificate if you move too far from what’s okay
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 I do plan to go back to the source now and sort of retrace the lineages. Read Alexander’s books again and as much material as I can of each of the three ‘lineage’ teachers’ work to see how they interpreted it
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 I think the core of the problem is this. Alexander figured this stuff out through years of tedious trial and error and self experimentation (no teacher) A lesson is that a teacher isn’t required. But he also discovered he could teach with hands to convey stuff faster
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 That’s great and useful but means that people he taught went through a hands on training experience I *suspect* that at each stage of teaching there is risk of finger/moon conflation, hence we end up with apparent nonsense like “Alexander Technique is posture improvement”
@Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 Hence my intention is to deconflate the finger and the moon and go back to first principles, with a modern perspective on how things work and making linkages with other traditions as far as I can to fill in any gaps
@m_ashcroft @Malcolm_Ocean @Jeanvaljean689 Ok yeah something clicked in me last week about the interplay between what I've been calling Contracted and Expanded Awareness, governed by Left and Right brain I figured it was connected to AT but this seems like a smoking gun
@Jeanvaljean689 @m_ashcroft Dharma and neuroscience. Also this book is potentially a very good candidate for "how to shift locus to RH", and meanwhile the thread raises the question of wtf that even means. https://t.co/nBkLZEHDRS
Yoooo @m_ashcroft, Loch Kelly's book "The Way of Effortless Mindfulness" is an AT handbook disguised as dharma. It features many little "glimpse" exercises for accessing an expanded nondual awareness state. Here's the first one: https://t.co/KpcYuWcHZ7
Short thread by @m_ashcroft talking about connections between Alexander Technique and brain hemispheres. Expanding awareness & flow! https://t.co/9TBi2U0q6q
The more I read about the hemispheric model of the brain, the more difficult I find it to talk or even think about Alexander Technique *without* referencing the different ways the left and right hemispheres attend to the world. It’s an exciting and I think novel line of inquiry.
Long thread weaving McGilchrist with Christopher Alexander and architecture more generally, plus IFS and dignity-supportive user interfaces. https://t.co/8eYzZxz6uP
some quick connections while listening to a podcast: https://t.co/I1yKNLbTd9
loving concept of "modal confusion": 1. try to solve being mode with having mode (objectification, eg trying to get love by *having* sex) 2. try to solve having mode with being mode (spiritual bypassing = "too heavenly to be any earthly good") (@vervaeke_john➔@JimRuttShow pt2)
an illustration I made to explain the difference between “i do what i want gosh” and “i am submitted to the immutable will of the divine” https://t.co/C2CnjXhcQu
thread on secure attachment as key for right hemisphere development https://t.co/YvQkqJNniA
I'm probably one of the main people this thread says it's subtweet-critiquing, but I figured it worth including this in the meta-thread anyway because @aphercotropist has good thoughts and it's worth having dissenting voices not just hype. https://t.co/523MJUFUhp
@aphercotropist Short thread pointing out that modern app-based dating is fucked because of modal confusion: developing relationships is about opening to something larger, not about assessing based on flat details. https://t.co/PvrtjvVDYf
rereading The Master and his Emissary, I realized that everything I wrote about dating problems sums up to: dating is fucked because people are trying to date in a LEFT-BRAINED way (wonder what @Malcolm_Ocean and other McGilchrist fans will think of this) https://t.co/VrdcK132tB
@aphercotropist another thread connecting vajrayana buddhism and hemispheres! along with other stuff about the origin of self-consciousness — how DID we become identified with our mental contents? when and why and how did that happen? https://t.co/1dvL4be3DR