Congratulations on keeping your well ordered analytical thoughts within the realm that they belong - the utility of such is vital for engineering and without this left hemisphere function we would not be as technologically advanced as we are. The problem, I suppose, is when such left hemisphere ways of being in the world is applied across the entire culture and everything becomes an engineering project and everyone one an object to be engineered.
This is excellent. I think of how government and pharma are enamored with developing other gene-based vaccines, convinced that they have "cracked the code" to solve and treat diseases. They have a left-hemisphere certainty that they know everything that needs to be understood to do this. They reject a priori any plea for caution as absurd and "anti-science." For those who are not immersed in this left-hemisphere bias, it is horrific.
Absolutely right, and when you start to get into genetics and all the associated biology we really are, still, just scratching the surface and don't know the knock on effects of any gene therapy. The ploy that "you are not an expert so you cannot comment" just doesn't wash - the 'expert' can be rather biased and myopic in a very narrow part of a narrow field, yet someone with a broader experience in the biological sciences may actually see the forest, not just the surface of the tree before the expert.
That is not to say that we need to know everything about everything before we can move ahead, but what it means is that we should move ahead with a great deal of humility - something the left hemisphere has no time for.
I have made this post available first to paid subscribers as this is a benefit of paying that I'd not, up to this point, utilised. It will be open to all subscribers in a few days. My intention is to honour those who have been financially supporting my work and to give them first opportunity to read and comment.
Regarding Big Government, as a continental European I'm somewhat more tolerant towards certain aspects of it such as state healthcare and pensions and the like. (Seeing this sort of thing in black and white terms seems to be pretty left-hemispherish itself; it all depends on the context of a country's culture, traditions, system etc.)
However, I think the Nanny State that seeks to "protect" everyone by minimizing abstract (future) risks is abhorrent, and here the left-hemisphere analysis seems spot-on. You really must live in an unhinged hyper-abstract world to seriously consider things such as: destroying nature to save the planet (renewable energy), destroying our heritage to save our culture (woke censorship), preventing disease by sucking out the life-blood of society (Rona), etc. The left hemisphere can do that sort of thing and thinks it's fine because it sees the logic in it, despite the obvious ridiculousness - just like McGilchrist's example in The Matter With Things where LH-dominant people deducted that porcupines climb trees because the Syllogism they were presented with was technically without error...
This is the same exact mechanism that has been exploited for centuries or millenia, previously called religion. The start of writing lead to a change in the mind and then belief in "records of history"
Pretty much ministry of truth, because those who are the victors write the history.
Congratulations on keeping your well ordered analytical thoughts within the realm that they belong - the utility of such is vital for engineering and without this left hemisphere function we would not be as technologically advanced as we are. The problem, I suppose, is when such left hemisphere ways of being in the world is applied across the entire culture and everything becomes an engineering project and everyone one an object to be engineered.
This is excellent. I think of how government and pharma are enamored with developing other gene-based vaccines, convinced that they have "cracked the code" to solve and treat diseases. They have a left-hemisphere certainty that they know everything that needs to be understood to do this. They reject a priori any plea for caution as absurd and "anti-science." For those who are not immersed in this left-hemisphere bias, it is horrific.
Absolutely right, and when you start to get into genetics and all the associated biology we really are, still, just scratching the surface and don't know the knock on effects of any gene therapy. The ploy that "you are not an expert so you cannot comment" just doesn't wash - the 'expert' can be rather biased and myopic in a very narrow part of a narrow field, yet someone with a broader experience in the biological sciences may actually see the forest, not just the surface of the tree before the expert.
That is not to say that we need to know everything about everything before we can move ahead, but what it means is that we should move ahead with a great deal of humility - something the left hemisphere has no time for.
Yeah, even genetics is one of those maps that they drew before they explored haha
https://viroliegy.com/2022/01/26/the-epistemological-crisis-in-genomics/
I have made this post available first to paid subscribers as this is a benefit of paying that I'd not, up to this point, utilised. It will be open to all subscribers in a few days. My intention is to honour those who have been financially supporting my work and to give them first opportunity to read and comment.
Regarding Big Government, as a continental European I'm somewhat more tolerant towards certain aspects of it such as state healthcare and pensions and the like. (Seeing this sort of thing in black and white terms seems to be pretty left-hemispherish itself; it all depends on the context of a country's culture, traditions, system etc.)
However, I think the Nanny State that seeks to "protect" everyone by minimizing abstract (future) risks is abhorrent, and here the left-hemisphere analysis seems spot-on. You really must live in an unhinged hyper-abstract world to seriously consider things such as: destroying nature to save the planet (renewable energy), destroying our heritage to save our culture (woke censorship), preventing disease by sucking out the life-blood of society (Rona), etc. The left hemisphere can do that sort of thing and thinks it's fine because it sees the logic in it, despite the obvious ridiculousness - just like McGilchrist's example in The Matter With Things where LH-dominant people deducted that porcupines climb trees because the Syllogism they were presented with was technically without error...
Very well said.
This is the same exact mechanism that has been exploited for centuries or millenia, previously called religion. The start of writing lead to a change in the mind and then belief in "records of history"
Pretty much ministry of truth, because those who are the victors write the history.
https://robnitro.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess?s=w