{In Two Minds [continued (6)]}[12th August 1988]

[Redbook5:272-273][19880812:1704f]{In Two Minds [continued (6)]}[12th August 1988]

.1704

[continued]

So in this* respect, Ornstein’s analysis** turns out to be not quite correct (after all, whose is?). There is also a statement in his chapter*** – if I have got it right – that the right hemisphere corresponds to the unconscious and the left to the conscious [sic], in (for example) Freudian terms. The implication is**** that if you learn to develop your intuition, it will reveal its workings to you instead of producing them as if from nowhere.

I suspect that consciousness or awareness does not ‘reside’ in either hemisphere exclusively. I guess that when we think logically or sequentially each stage is apparent to us only because we restrict the process, by verbalising it,# to obtain greater control over each stage and thus a greater chance of accuracy.

The ‘holistic’ processes of the other hemisphere are not apparent to us because we do not have the language to understand them – at least, not in the sort of detail required to ensure accuracy in detailed, logical statements. For this reason, the ‘Intuitive’ side of things can produce conclusions which are inspirationally accurate – or absurdly inaccurate (So, of course, can logic, if it fails to start from an accurate statement of reality).

It seems quite possible that ‘the unconscious’ is a process of both hemispheres; it is simply where the spotlight of conscious awareness isn’t.#* With all the connections between the two hemispheres, not to mention the nature of dreams (which in my own experience and that of others can contain detailed linguistic, geometric and mathematical elements), I should be very surprised if unconscious ‘thought’ processes did not make use of both hemispheres.

*[See last previous entry]

**[in the first part of Chapter 3, ‘Two Sides of the Brain’, of Ornstein ‘The Psychology of Consciousness’, Jonathan Cape, 1975 (1972)];

see [Redbook5:269-273][19880812:1704]{In Two Minds}[12th August 1988]]

***[ibid, presumably]

****{Is it?}

#(or eg algebraicising it)

{It is surprising how often one comes across the assumption that everyone thinks in speech – among Scientists, rather than Artists.}

Before I became so involved with writing, many years ago, I used to think more & consciously in shapes, and in quailities, only verbalising them in order to express them – which I often found difficulty in doing, or doing quickly enough for conversation. <881102>

[Dyslexia in the family may be relevant here.]

#*[&/or maybe, contrariwise, one can define consciousness in the specialised sense of a sense of self, self-awareness, simply as that level of awareness which is unaware of its own constituent physical processes. (& see also [Redbook5:225][19880724:1443l]{The Sphere [continued (12)]}[24th July 1988], fn.) <20181212, amended 20190104>]

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