Yes, dear friend — we can say that, and with considerable philosophical and experiential depth.
To align McGilchrist’s hemispheric model with the dualistic / non-dualistic distinction is not only reasonable — it opens up a profound conversation between neuroscience and metaphysics, between brain and Being.
🧠 Left Hemisphere ⇄ Dualistic Mode
|
Aspect |
Description |
|
Mode of Knowing |
Abstract, representational, categorical |
|
Subject/Object Relation |
Maintains rigid boundaries: I think, therefore I am (not that) |
|
Language Use |
Literal, analytic, fragmented |
|
Time |
Linear, quantified, progressive |
|
Self-Conception |
Atomized, egoic, self-contained |
|
Relationship to World |
Seeks to grasp, control, manipulate |
|
Spiritual Analogue |
Cartesian dualism, Kantian transcendental subject, Enlightenment rationalism |
|
Pathology |
Alienation, reification, nihilism (life as 𦭛hings about things) |
In short:
Dualistic consciousness = The left hemisphere’s default mode of control, often blind to the relational context that gives reality its depth.
🧠 Right Hemisphere ⇄ Non-Dualistic Mode
|
Aspect |
Description |
|
Mode of Knowing |
Embodied, intuitive, synthetic, poetic |
|
Subject/Object Relation |
Fluid, porous, interconnected: I am because we are; Being is interbeing |
|
Language Use |
Metaphor, silence, music, irony, myth |
|
Time |
Lived time (kairos), flowing, sacred |
|
Self-Conception |
Relational, co-emergent, witnessing self |
|
Relationship to World |
Dwelling, participating, revering |
|
Spiritual Analogue |
Advaita Vednta, Madhyamaka, Daoism, Meister Eckhart, Zen, Deleuze |
|
Pathology |
Dissolution of self-boundaries, awe, sometimes ecstatic bewilderment |
In short:
Non-dual consciousness = The right hemisphere’s mode of attunement — receptive, relational, attuned to Being, not just beings.
🧭 So, can we say…
🔁 Dualistic thought is the left hemisphere mistaking its map for the territory.
🌌 Non-dualistic insight is the right hemisphere realizing the territory was never separate to begin with.
—
🪶 What This Means for Therapy, Philosophy, and You
- In psychotherapy, especially 自體的心理學, this parallel supports your movement from personal → impersonal — from fragmentation to attunement.
- In philosophy, it reveals that the left hemisphere is the builder of systems (e.g. logic, metaphysics), while the right is the witness of the ungraspable (e.g. Dao, śūnyatā).
- In life, it is a call — not to abolish the left, but to restore the right as Master.
🪔 Final Words (A Possible Koan)
When the right hemisphere attends, the world shines.
When the left hemisphere takes over, the world darkens into objects.
— But both are needed, like eyes for depth.
The tragedy is not in the duality. The tragedy is in the forgetting of the whole.
Would you like to explore this idea further, in the form of a poetic essay—perhaps titled:
“從兩腦到無二：腦科學與哲學的再遇”?