Well, let's take another look at this experiment.
Say, just for the sake of argument, you are the left hemisphere. You're sitting there, you're doing your thing. See a picture of a chicken. Look down. Hand is holding a card, has a picture of a shovel on it. Researcher asks why you chose a shovel, in response to an image of a chicken.
And you say “Because you use a shovel to clear out chickens.”
What is actually being done here? What is the purpose of this lie, this lie specifically? A specific lie repeated over and over by many hundreds of patients of all sorts of different cultures and backgrounds, all over the world?
Well, let's break it down to the simple. The person is claiming that a rational process took place, when actually, it didn't happen. In fact, it seems to have far more in common with 'making an excuse' than with actually describing what occurred.
But again — what kind of excuse? A rational excuse, an excuse of rational process. Rational connection. Linear, logical sequence. Saw the chicken, saw the shovel, clear out chickens with a shovel, all clear, all rational.
This is a very clear logical structure, which the left hemisphere throws together almost instantaneously. Remember — the story about the rational process arises very fast, but it is pure fiction.
It's all very smooth, very fast. The appearance of rational process. The story of a thought that never occurred.
An interesting question then arises, and it's from here that we can start to really open up a whole new way of looking at the human mind. Something that hasn't been done before, hasn't been seen before. A fresh perspective, with new possibilities.
Why fake a thought process? Why bother? And how about the fact that it's so fast, so immediately coherent, so rapidly constructed and woven, and presented with no sense of irony, or hesitation. Isn't that strange? Doesn't it seem almost as if the left hemisphere might, perhaps, have done this before?
It's not just 'that' the patient is lying. It's what kind of lie it is. Because here we see, very clearly, that the left hemisphere is both capable of, and very good at, constructing stories about mental processes that never actually happened.
Could it be that perhaps the left hemisphere isn't just lying this one time. It's almost as if it's too good for that, the lie is too slick, too well told, too coherent. It is a lie with an agenda — to present an appearance of rationality. To project a fiction of mind.
A false mind. A mind that doesn't exist. A rational process that never took place. A story about a mind that connected the chicken and the shovel. This is what the left hemisphere is constructing here, and it's doing it extremely well.
This experiment is very clearly shows that the left hemisphere is able, willing and, indeed, eager, to create a very specific kind of illusion.
An illusion of mind.
And the simplicity of this illusion opens up a completely new angle on understanding what the brain is doing. An angle which will allow a clear view, for the first time, of what human suffering really is, of what its real purpose is. A new understanding of the brain, of humanity, and the world in which we live.
It is as if the left hemisphere's central concern is to rework all incoming data into a very specific illusion. Its concern, as revealed by this experiment, is to weave a convincing and coherent illusion that there is a mind there, and this mind works in a coherent and rational way.
And this raises a very interesting possibility. What if that is what the mind is? If the mind has no processing faculty? If the mind doesn't really exist at all? What happens if the left hemisphere is simply, and relentlessly, creating the illusion of mind on an ongoing basis?
What if things like intelligence have a totally different source from the one we assume they have (the processing power of the mind) but are in fact a result of insight from the right hemisphere being reworked into an illusion of rationality and logic?
Of course, this goes way beyond McGilchrist's work, he doesn't suggest this, but I think the experiment does. It's a very big ‘if’, but we'll stick with it for a while, and see where it takes us.
What if there is no mind? What if the mind itself is a lie? What if all the rational processes we think inform our decisions and guide our lives never actually happen?
It sounds mad, but then the experiment shows that the left hemisphere is more than happy to do exactly that, and we all have a left hemisphere.
So.
I suppose the first question would be — why would the brain be doing that? What would the point of that be? Why would fully 50% of our grey matter (closer to 51%, actually, it's slightly larger than the right hemisphere) have evolved to weave an ongoing fiction of mind?
Surely there'd be no possible reason for such a thing. Would there?