Sitting Duck
There is a need to focus attention narrowly and with precision, as a bird, for instance, needs to focus [on what it is eating]. At the same time there is a need for open attention, as wide as possible, to guard against a possible predator. That requires some doing. It’s like a particularly bad case of trying to rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time - only worse, because it’s an impossibility.
Iain McGilchrist (2009/18)
At the heart of McGilchrist’s account of how human beings experience their worlds, is the interesting suggestion that the asymmetry between the two cerebral hemispheres in humans has a venerable history. Birds (and all animals) have a problem: the one organism must be able to focus on eating, and, at the same time guard against being eaten itself. McGilchrist
speculates
Another important set of speculations from the neuropsychological evidence.
that this feat was first accomplished by developing two differently orientated processing systems (the two cerebral hemispheres) which could work in co-operation. He suggests that from such an ancient beginning the present observable difference in the functioning of our two hemispheres has arisen: one dealing in detailed precision, the other assessing the wider picture. These are the Emissary and his Master of McGilchrist’s book title. It is not new to propose such
divided selves,
While our selves often seem self evident, that is not a view shared by a number of able thinkers.
such contrary imaginations, or such imagery and verbal
splits,
Many writers have touched on the multifaceted nature of self.
what is new is risking the venture of linking his vast wealth of
neuropsychology
The wealth of neuropsychological evidence has mushroomed in the last few decades.
evidence directly to culture and history.
McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary appeared in 2009, in 2018 it was expanded, this quote is from page 25 of that recent version published by Yale University Press. R. D. Laing’s Divided Self came out in 1960, Liam Hudson’s Contrary Imaginations came out in 1966 and Allan Paivio’s Imagery and Verbal Processes came out in 1971. Interestingly the bulk of McGilchrist’s evidence comes from times nearer those authors than to the present.
The photograph was taken on the island of Æðey on the northern coast of Iceland. This red-necked phalarope is indeed a sitting duck. It feeds on larvae and other small creatures often brought to the surface by the swirling (and therefore attention grabbing) actions of the bird It is also a duck with two (irrelevant to the present argument) surprises: it is minute being about the size of a chaffinch, and the males do all the incubating and feeding of the young while the females disperse in hen groups.
Above, hovering on blue introduces a link: click to go, move away to stay.
Saturday 30th March 2024
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