Ultimately there is nothing less than an
emptying out of meaning. The influential contemporary neuroscientist Michael
Gazzaniga has referred to the left hemisphere as ‘the interpreter’, the locus
of self-consciousness, of conscious volition, and of rationality, which since
the Enlightenment we have seen as being our defining qualities as human beings.
An interpreter is not an originator, however,
but a facilitator, and should be involved in mediating between parties. The
more we rely on the left hemisphere alone, the more self-conscious we become;
the intuitive, unconscious unspoken elements of experience are relatively
discounted, and the interpreter begins to interpret – itself.
The world it puts into
words for us is the world that words themselves (the left hemisphere’s building
blocks) have created. (McGilchrist
2009, kindle location 10450-10456)
