The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

When we are plugged into all three dimensions—the environment, the body, and time—the brain tries to integrate their varied frequencies and wave patterns. That takes up an enormous amount of processor time and space.

Contemporary neuroscience identifies a particular part of the brain, sometimes called “the interpreter,” as the source of the familiar internal narrative that gives us our sense of self. Two prominent neuroscientists have recently characterized the quirky, undependable quality of the tale told by the interpreter. Antonio Damasio describes it this w

Much of our capacity to ‘use’ the world depends, not on an attempt to open ourselves as much as possible to apprehending whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves, but instead on apprehending whatever I have brought into being for myself, my representation of it. This is the remit of the left hemisphere, and would appear to require a selectiv

prefrontal cortex. For example, the side of this region is crucial for how we pay attention; it enables us to put things in the “front of our mind” and hold them in awareness. The middle portion of the prefrontal area, the part damaged in Barbara, coordinates an astonishing number of essential skills, including regulating the body, attuning to othe