[Whit Blauvelt]

Where the LH use of language is narrative, stories about what we’re doing, and the chat programs are good at predicting what might be said next based on statistics of what’s been said before in responses to similar prompts or questions, the RH use of language is poetry, more explicit use of the metaphors which anchor the meaning of all language.

The Matter with Things gives us a grand story in the first volume, and some resonant poetry in the second. Yet after the thesis and antithesis there’s not yet a third volume, a synthesis. If we’re going to survive the onslaught of computer-generated narratives now, more poetics is called for — but also some yet unaccomplished synthesis, where the two hemispheres, the two hands, craft futures worthy of our their capacities at their best.

How, then, may we go forward both to enhance poetics, and bring our two sides into a transcendent embrace?