We’ll continue our look at the work of Iain McGilchrist and his work on the left and right side of the brain. Perhaps an effective way of looking at the role of the brain hemispheres is to examine the four ways of knowing which McGilchrist i(2020) identifies-
Scientific- the production of propositions, fact, and hypothesis
Reasoning- the use of logic to arrive at assumptions, hypothesis, and conclusions
Intuition- the sometimes difficult to explain sense that something is relevant
Imagination- projecting ideas and insights into the future which can generate action
In the Western world we place a premium on scientific knowing and the use of reason to navigate our daily lives, produce strategies and develop the future. However, this has come at the expense of imagination and intuition (McGilchrist, 2019,2020).
Our imagination and intuition are the results of our interaction with the world formally and informally (Thompson, 2014). Intuition and imagination draw upon our tacit experience and as a result are difficult to codify. There importance lies in that these types of knowing attend to the world by noticing subtle differences which could be relevant and imagining what these subtle differences could become. Sometimes things are grab our attention and strike us as relevant in ways in which we cannot explain. However, this attention turns out to have merit. See Klein (2015) for excellent practice-based examples.
Since intuition and imagination are difficult to codify, they have tended to be dismissed as biased and unreliable. The subjective nature of experience has resulted in a schism between our experience of the world and scientific knowledge (Varela et al, 2016, Whitehead, 1920, McGilchrist, 2019).
This has led to a greater reliance on procedures and processes drawn from science and reason. The negative side to this condition is that we lower our vigilance and fail to notice subtle changes and nuance. Perhaps worse, there is a tendency in the West to not trust our intuition and imagination, to explain it away.
The above is life attended to largely through the left hemisphere of the brain, grasping for external answers and procedures to guide us in complex and ambiguous situations (Varela et al, 2016). If we apply only procedural and propositional knowledge (drawn from science and reason) then we tend to place our experience into preconceived boxes and become disconnected from our intuitions.
My colleague Professor Dr Vanessa Webb is currently writing a series of articles taking a critical look at Evidence Based Medicine. The topic provides an excellent example to illustrate the above points. If guidelines on which medicinetreatment to apply to which conditions are overly rigid or enforced in a rigid culture, then a doctor would only attend to the patient through the left hemisphere, through science and reason. On surface value, this sounds an appropriate approach.
What happens when the doctor’s intuition runs contrary to the guidelines? How does the doctor integrate their right hemisphere into the scenario, and attend to the patient differently? The doctor may observe that although the symptoms match up perfectly to a specific condition, and a corresponding course of treatment, they “feel” that something is just “not quite right”. These intuitions are the product of the doctor’s direct experience, not a pre-given process. If the culture in which they practice is rigid, they may explain away these “feelings” and dismiss them as subjective and irrational. As a result, they may have missed something vital at the expense of being scientific and applying evidence-based practice.
Imagination fits within this observation as an act which can be added to the process of diagnosing and prescribing for a patient. Once the procedures have been followed to arrive at a diagnosis (a left-brain activity) this analysis can be retuned to the right brain to imagine what else it could potentially be. The asking of questions- could I have missed something? How could I be wrong? What could I not be seeing? Is actively using the imagination to move beyond a limited way of attending (McGilchrist, 2019).
As hopefully the above example illustrates, integrating all types of knowing into a fully embodied experience, where intuition and imagination is not dismissed as irrational or purely subjective, is essential. As McGilchrist (2019) argues, reason and science are vital parts of human experience, but they must work in partnership with intuition and imagination to generate insights and push our understanding forwards. It is perhaps worth closing with questions that return to our example- Why would a doctor wish to attend to a fellow human being in such a limited way? What constrains a doctor to act in such a way?
Reading
McGilchrist, I. (2018). Ways of attending: How our divided brain constructs the world. Oxon, UK: Routledge
Thompson, E (2014) Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Harvard University Press
Klein, G. (2015). A naturalistic decision making perspective on intuitive decision making. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 4(3), 164-168.
Klein, G (2014) Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights. Public Affairs.
Whitehead, A (1920) The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
F. J. Varela, Thompson, E. Rosch, E (2016) The Embodied Mind Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press.
