The Divided Brain

The divided brain

Iain McGilchrist on "The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" with the fun of RSA Animates. Recent research in the structure of the brain updates and changes the old left-right understanding. Can we apply it in ways that reflect Einstein's insight that "the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant"?

The Divided Brain - Annenberg Learner

RSA Animate - The Divided Brain

The brain consists of two hemispheres, the left and the right, which are connected by a bundle of nerve fibres, the corpus callosum or the beam. In the 1960s, Roger Sperry discovered that if the beam is severed, not only does the human brain continue to function, but each of the hemispheres also has a certain level of consciousness. If the hemispheres of the brain are surgically separated, consciousness can be can be divided in a subtle and interesting way.

The Divided Brain Film

The Divided Brain / Iain McGilchrist — via Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain -- He argues that the distinctions between the two halves of our brain offer profound insights into why the world is the way it is. In his book The Master and his Emissary, he surveys the medical and psychiatric evidence to present a persuasive case that the fact that our brains have two hemispheres not only shapes how we perceive the world, but is actually a defining factor in human cultures.