We once thought each hemisphere of the brain handled a different part of our personality. In this view, the Left Hemisphere (LH) handled our intellect: logic, reasoning, rationality. The Right Hemisphere (RH) handled our creative pursuits: art, metaphor, fantasy. Science proved this wrong—both hemispheres form every thought and perform every action. So we threw out the baby with the bathwater. We decided there were no differences between the hemispheres.
Binary thinking like both of these views, it turns out, is the exact way the LH sees the world. It turns out, the two hemispheres differ in how they attend to the world. The RH sees a unified continuum. The LH sees static, mechanical pieces divorced from depth, time, and motion. It deals in absolutes, like Jedi.
The RH controls our body's left side, the LH our right. Most language and labelling is handled in the LH. Language like the right and leftwings, using “right” to mean correct, calling witchcraft the “lefthand path”, and using "s…
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