This is what Gemini answered to the connection of Iain McGilchrist and Heidegger:
Iain McGilchrist views Martin Heidegger as one of the most important philosophical allies to his "Hemisphere Hypothesis." In both his seminal work The Master and His Emissary and the more recent The Matter with Things, McGilchrist uses Heidegger’s concepts to provide a philosophical framework for the neurological "take" each brain hemisphere has on the world.
To McGilchrist, Heidegger isn't just a philosopher; he is a visionary who diagnosed the "left-hemisphere takeover" of Western civilization long before we had the fMRI to prove it.
1. Gestell (Enframing) and the Left Hemisphere
The most significant connection McGilchrist makes is between Heidegger’s concept of Gestell (Enframing) and the Left Hemisphere (LH).
Heidegger's View: In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger argues that modern technology "enframes" reality, treating everything (nature, people, objects) as Standing Reserve (Bestand)—mere resources to be categorized, stored, and used.
McGilchrist’s Mapping: He argues this is the "signature" of the LH. The LH perceives the world as a collection of static, decontextualized "things" that can be manipulated. McGilchrist suggests that Heidegger’s critique of technology is actually a critique of the LH’s narrow, utilitarian way of attending to the world.
2. Being (Sein) vs. beings (Seiendes)
McGilchrist maps Heidegger’s famous "Ontological Difference" onto the brain:
The Right Hemisphere (RH) and Being: The RH is concerned with the "whole," the implicit, and the interconnected. This aligns with Heidegger’s Being (Sein)—the mysterious, underlying "is-ness" of the world that can never be fully grasped or "captured" by language.
The Left Hemisphere (LH) and beings: The LH focuses on beings (Seiendes)—individual, discrete objects that can be counted and manipulated. McGilchrist argues that our modern crisis stems from forgetting Being in favor of a world populated only by beings.
3. "Presencing" vs. "Re-presentation"
A core McGilchrist tenet is that the RH "presences" the world (it is in direct contact with reality), while the LH "re-presents" it (it creates a map or a model).
McGilchrist leans heavily on Heidegger’s concept of Aletheia (Truth as "unconcealment").
For the RH, truth is a process of opening up to what is there; for the LH, truth is merely "correctness" or the accuracy of its internal model. McGilchrist argues that we have traded Truth (as an encounter) for Correctness (as a data point).
4. The "Saving Power"
Heidegger famously quoted the poet Friedrich Hölderlin: "But where danger is, grows the saving power also." McGilchrist sees himself as providing the "saving power" by giving Heidegger’s abstract philosophy a biological and scientific grounding. He argues that by recognizing the neurological roots of our "enframed" world, we might finally listen to the RH (the Master) and put the LH (the Emissary) back in its proper, subordinate place.
A Note on Tone: McGilchrist occasionally acknowledges Heidegger’s notoriously dense prose and "difficult" personal history (his involvement with the Nazi party), but he maintains that Heidegger's insights into the nature of modern existence are unparalleled. He essentially views Heidegger as a "Right-Hemisphere genius" trying to speak to a "Left-Hemisphere world" in a language that the LH might actually understand.
The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
This video features Iain McGilchrist discussing how the two hemispheres of the brain create different versions of reality, echoing Heidegger's concerns about how we "attend" to the world.
To apply the above post to the discussion here: I think Heidegger applies left-hemisphere thinking (all that language) to discover right-hemisphere gap in the lived experience of the elites, but also the culture in general.
The question is how to bring both together for a complete picture. Ontology itself is a left-brain domain and warrants the way of the left brain. Actually being and living should be done in a Heideggerian way (which happens naturally if you remove all the modern toxins like social media and practice primal and modern rituals like sitting in front of a fire, hunting, praying, and meditating).
A practical example: For optimal training, you will go in the left-hemisphere to plan the schedule. But when you actually train (methods should allow that), you should focus on the present moment, be present and just focus on doing.
However, the analysis of the Zettelkasten and the Zettelkasten Method is a left-brain activity. (which ultimately should return to the right brain, but you'll have to read McGilchrist for that)
So: Heidegger makes that left-brain mistake of thinking that his ontology is absolute.
@Saschasaid:
Heidegger makes that left-brain mistake of thinking that his ontology is absolute.
He might not be the only one making an ontological mistake. :-)
I think that our thread carries an ontological mistake in its name. The question "What is the Ghost in the Box?" implies the existence of a Ghost in the Box.
Luhmann didn't claim the existence of a ghost. He asked a question. He talked about disappointed spectators. We don't know, why seeing "everything" was not enough for those spectators. We don't know, what they expected to see.
Another mistake can be found in the illustration. For some reason, this thread is illustrated with an image of a ghost/specter:
Is this a right-brain mistake? A need to see something, because the right brain can't process the absence of something?
@Saschasaid:
Heidegger makes that left-brain mistake of thinking that his ontology is absolute.
He might not be the only one making an ontological mistake. :-)
I think that our thread carries an ontological mistake in its name. The question "What is the Ghost in the Box?" implies the existence of a Ghost in the Box.
No, it does not imply that because you can perfectly answer the question with "There is no ghost in the box."
Another mistake can be found in the illustration. For some reason, this thread is illustrated with an image of a ghost/specter:
AI said to @Sascha:
Iain McGilchrist views Martin Heidegger as one of the most important philosophical allies to his "Hemisphere Hypothesis." In both his seminal work The Master and His Emissary and the more recent The Matter with Things, McGilchrist uses Heidegger’s concepts to provide a philosophical framework for the neurological "take" each brain hemisphere has on the world.
I went and read through some parts of McGilchrist's both books. It is truly surprising how you can try to argue against Heidegger's philosophy using the work of someone who agrees with it in almost every significant aspect of it. I used Ctrl+F to go through all contexts where Heidegger is mentioned in both books and I never found a single claim that he "absolutized his ontology". On the contrary, McGilchrist quite often emphasizes how right the right hemisphere is and how it should be the Master of the left, how it deals with what truly is (and correctly sees that there is no single true reality, which is also Heidegger's position btw) while the left is more about "what to do", "how to manipulate", etc.
Unfortunately, McGilchrist's understanding of Heidegger's philosophy is in many respects superfluous and simplistic. Most notably, he clearly misunderstands what Heidegger meant by "language" (not the left-hemisphere words and grammar). He also claims that language, and not music, was most important for Heidegger (he may have spoken about language more often, but musical metafors weren't off the table either). And, to my greatest regret, McGilchirst has clearly not read Medard Boss and not heard of Heidegger's dealings with psychiatry. In his second book he writes:
Heidegger could not have known how clearly the connexion between time and being is demonstrated by the testimony of those who live with the devastating consequences of alienation from time [i.e. schizophrenics].
But Heidegger actually did know about this. Maybe not in 1926 when he wrote "Being and Time", but after meeting Boss in 1946 and later in 1950s and 1960s he certainly did. If you read Boss's books which Heidegger himself edited, you will find that what they wrote on the perception of time by schizophrenics very much corresponds to what McGilchrist writes about it in his books.
Sadly, McGilchrist does not embrace Heidegger's philosophy to the fullest and doesn't truly give up the subject-object difference, though he claims to do so. His use of language is quite sloppy and careless. For example, he often uses the word "world-picture" in his second book (both about LH and RH), though he cites Heidegger connecting this notion to the LH subject-object thinking in the first. The same goes for "consciousness", "mind", etc.
That being said, his books are a marvelous addition to Heidegger's philosophy which helps to understand it much more deeply and easily (although they themselves have to be interpreted through said philosophy in order to be fully understood). Seriously, thank you for this recommendation! I will certainly read more of these books later when I have time.
Still not going to continue the argument, though. I mean, come on, your AI told you that Being (das Sein) is a right-brain concern and then you go on to say that ontology is a left-brain domain. You can't be serious.
AI said to @Sascha:
Iain McGilchrist views Martin Heidegger as one of the most important philosophical allies to his "Hemisphere Hypothesis." In both his seminal work The Master and His Emissary and the more recent The Matter with Things, McGilchrist uses Heidegger’s concepts to provide a philosophical framework for the neurological "take" each brain hemisphere has on the world.
I went and read through some parts of McGilchrist's both books. It is truly surprising how you can try to argue against Heidegger's philosophy using the work of someone who agrees with it in almost every significant aspect of it. I used Ctrl+F to go through all contexts where Heidegger is mentioned in both books and I never found a single claim that he "absolutized his ontology". On the contrary, McGilchrist quite often emphasizes how right the right hemisphere is and how it should be the Master of the left, how it deals with what truly is (and correctly sees that there is no single true reality, which is also Heidegger's position btw) while the left is more about "what to do", "how to manipulate", etc.
Read at least one book first (and carefully) before you make such statements.
Still not going to continue the argument, though.
Make a decision whether you want to take part in this thread or not. Either take part in the discussion properly or don't at all. But do not throw in a bunch of discredits on some parts as you please.
I mean, come on, your AI told you that Being (das Sein) is a right-brain concern and then you go on to say that ontology is a left-brain domain.
McGilchrist:
Clearly we have to inhabit the world of immediate bodily experience, the actual terrain in which we live, and where our engagement with the world takes place alongside out fellow human beings, and we need to inhabit it fully. Yet at the same time we need to rise above the the landscape in which we move, so that we can see what one might call the territory. To understand the landscape we need both to go out into the felt, lived world of experience as far as possible, along what one might think of the horizontal axis, but also rise above it, on the vertical axis.[21][#mcgilchrist2009]
and further
To live headlong, at ground level, without being able to pause (stand outside the immediate push of time) and rise (in space) is to be like and animal; yet to float off up into the air is not to live at all -- just to be a detached observing eye. One needs to bring what one has learned from ones's ascent back into the world where life is going on, and incorporate it in such a way that it enriches experience and enables more of whatever it is that 'discloses itself' to us (in Heidegger's phrase) to do just that. But it is only on the ground that will do so, not up in the air.[21/22][#mcgilchrist2009]
Being in the world is different from thinking about being in the world. Ontology is thinking about being in the world
@Zettelkasten101 said:
[…] [person X's] AI told [person X] that Being (das Sein) is a right-brain concern and then [person X] go[es] on to say that ontology is a left-brain domain.
I share your sense of astonishment about the apparent contradiction.
So I followed Sascha's lead and prompted my AI. Here's one of the answers (emphasis mine):
McGilchrist does not usually offer a textbook-style definition of “ontology”; instead he does ontology by describing the kind of being the world has depending on which hemisphere’s mode of attention is dominant.
Ontology, for him, is about what sort of reality is disclosed: a living, emergent field of relations (right hemisphere) versus a decontextualized array of objects and representations (left hemisphere).
He tends to treat the right-hemisphere mode as ontologically prior: experience should originate there, be elaborated by the left, and then “return” to the right for a higher-level synthesis; in that sense, the “world” of the right hemisphere is more fundamentally real.
So McGilchrist’s “definition” in practice is: ontology is the study of the kind of being a world has as it is disclosed in different modes of attention, with the right hemisphere’s world given logical and ontological primacy.
Let's compare it to what
Sascha said:
Being in the world is different from thinking about being in the world. Ontology is thinking about being in the world.
McGilchrist seems to say the opposite. If I understand him correctly, he says that we can not think about being the world without being in the world.
Using the language of right brain and left brain, I wonder:
How can we have an ontological discussion about the existence of "the ghost in the box" without involving our right brains?
I know what I would do, if I wanted to include the right brain:
I'd show it an image of a ghost.
I'd ask it to make connections: what does "the ghost in the box" remind you of?
I'd talk about visual arts like mangas and movies.
So I'm curious how the ontology experts would handle it. How would you make "the ghost in the box" a left-brain-only subject of ontology?
Sascha said:
Being in the world is different from thinking about being in the world. Ontology is thinking about being in the world.
McGilchrist seems to say the opposite. If I understand him correctly, he says that we can not think about being the world without being in the world.
Both statements are perfectly compatible. The precondition for something is different from this thing.
How can we have an ontological discussion about the existence of "the ghost in the box" without involving our right brains?
You can't. You can't also have an ontological discussion without a vagal tone. That doesn't mean that ontology is an activity of the autonomous nervous system.
Comments
Okay, I guess ending this argument is up to me after all, so yeah, I'm not answering this. Peace.
This is what Gemini answered to the connection of Iain McGilchrist and Heidegger:
Iain McGilchrist views Martin Heidegger as one of the most important philosophical allies to his "Hemisphere Hypothesis." In both his seminal work The Master and His Emissary and the more recent The Matter with Things, McGilchrist uses Heidegger’s concepts to provide a philosophical framework for the neurological "take" each brain hemisphere has on the world.
To McGilchrist, Heidegger isn't just a philosopher; he is a visionary who diagnosed the "left-hemisphere takeover" of Western civilization long before we had the fMRI to prove it.
1. Gestell (Enframing) and the Left Hemisphere
The most significant connection McGilchrist makes is between Heidegger’s concept of Gestell (Enframing) and the Left Hemisphere (LH).
2. Being (Sein) vs. beings (Seiendes)
McGilchrist maps Heidegger’s famous "Ontological Difference" onto the brain:
3. "Presencing" vs. "Re-presentation"
A core McGilchrist tenet is that the RH "presences" the world (it is in direct contact with reality), while the LH "re-presents" it (it creates a map or a model).
4. The "Saving Power"
Heidegger famously quoted the poet Friedrich Hölderlin: "But where danger is, grows the saving power also." McGilchrist sees himself as providing the "saving power" by giving Heidegger’s abstract philosophy a biological and scientific grounding. He argues that by recognizing the neurological roots of our "enframed" world, we might finally listen to the RH (the Master) and put the LH (the Emissary) back in its proper, subordinate place.
The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning
This video features Iain McGilchrist discussing how the two hemispheres of the brain create different versions of reality, echoing Heidegger's concerns about how we "attend" to the world.
http://googleusercontent.com/youtube_content/0
I am a Zettler
To apply the above post to the discussion here: I think Heidegger applies left-hemisphere thinking (all that language) to discover right-hemisphere gap in the lived experience of the elites, but also the culture in general.
The question is how to bring both together for a complete picture. Ontology itself is a left-brain domain and warrants the way of the left brain. Actually being and living should be done in a Heideggerian way (which happens naturally if you remove all the modern toxins like social media and practice primal and modern rituals like sitting in front of a fire, hunting, praying, and meditating).
A practical example: For optimal training, you will go in the left-hemisphere to plan the schedule. But when you actually train (methods should allow that), you should focus on the present moment, be present and just focus on doing.
However, the analysis of the Zettelkasten and the Zettelkasten Method is a left-brain activity. (which ultimately should return to the right brain, but you'll have to read McGilchrist for that)
So: Heidegger makes that left-brain mistake of thinking that his ontology is absolute.
I am a Zettler
He might not be the only one making an ontological mistake. :-)
I think that our thread carries an ontological mistake in its name. The question "What is the Ghost in the Box?" implies the existence of a Ghost in the Box.
Luhmann didn't claim the existence of a ghost. He asked a question. He talked about disappointed spectators. We don't know, why seeing "everything" was not enough for those spectators. We don't know, what they expected to see.
Another mistake can be found in the illustration. For some reason, this thread is illustrated with an image of a ghost/specter:
Is this a right-brain mistake? A need to see something, because the right brain can't process the absence of something?
No, it does not imply that because you can perfectly answer the question with "There is no ghost in the box."
How is this a mistake?
I am a Zettler
I went and read through some parts of McGilchrist's both books. It is truly surprising how you can try to argue against Heidegger's philosophy using the work of someone who agrees with it in almost every significant aspect of it. I used Ctrl+F to go through all contexts where Heidegger is mentioned in both books and I never found a single claim that he "absolutized his ontology". On the contrary, McGilchrist quite often emphasizes how right the right hemisphere is and how it should be the Master of the left, how it deals with what truly is (and correctly sees that there is no single true reality, which is also Heidegger's position btw) while the left is more about "what to do", "how to manipulate", etc.
Unfortunately, McGilchrist's understanding of Heidegger's philosophy is in many respects superfluous and simplistic. Most notably, he clearly misunderstands what Heidegger meant by "language" (not the left-hemisphere words and grammar). He also claims that language, and not music, was most important for Heidegger (he may have spoken about language more often, but musical metafors weren't off the table either). And, to my greatest regret, McGilchirst has clearly not read Medard Boss and not heard of Heidegger's dealings with psychiatry. In his second book he writes:
But Heidegger actually did know about this. Maybe not in 1926 when he wrote "Being and Time", but after meeting Boss in 1946 and later in 1950s and 1960s he certainly did. If you read Boss's books which Heidegger himself edited, you will find that what they wrote on the perception of time by schizophrenics very much corresponds to what McGilchrist writes about it in his books.
Sadly, McGilchrist does not embrace Heidegger's philosophy to the fullest and doesn't truly give up the subject-object difference, though he claims to do so. His use of language is quite sloppy and careless. For example, he often uses the word "world-picture" in his second book (both about LH and RH), though he cites Heidegger connecting this notion to the LH subject-object thinking in the first. The same goes for "consciousness", "mind", etc.
That being said, his books are a marvelous addition to Heidegger's philosophy which helps to understand it much more deeply and easily (although they themselves have to be interpreted through said philosophy in order to be fully understood). Seriously, thank you for this recommendation! I will certainly read more of these books later when I have time.
Still not going to continue the argument, though. I mean, come on, your AI told you that Being (das Sein) is a right-brain concern and then you go on to say that ontology is a left-brain domain. You can't be serious.
Correction: 1949 (and 1947 was when they started to exchange letters).
Read at least one book first (and carefully) before you make such statements.
Make a decision whether you want to take part in this thread or not. Either take part in the discussion properly or don't at all. But do not throw in a bunch of discredits on some parts as you please.
McGilchrist:
and further
Being in the world is different from thinking about being in the world. Ontology is thinking about being in the world
Watch your tone.
I am a Zettler
I share your sense of astonishment about the apparent contradiction.
So I followed Sascha's lead and prompted my AI. Here's one of the answers (emphasis mine):
Let's compare it to what
McGilchrist seems to say the opposite. If I understand him correctly, he says that we can not think about being the world without being in the world.
Using the language of right brain and left brain, I wonder:
How can we have an ontological discussion about the existence of "the ghost in the box" without involving our right brains?
I know what I would do, if I wanted to include the right brain:
So I'm curious how the ontology experts would handle it. How would you make "the ghost in the box" a left-brain-only subject of ontology?
Both statements are perfectly compatible. The precondition for something is different from this thing.
You can't. You can't also have an ontological discussion without a vagal tone. That doesn't mean that ontology is an activity of the autonomous nervous system.
I am a Zettler