The contextual versus abstract distinction is illustrated by the different use of symbols by each hemisphere. In one sense of the word, a symbol such as the rose is the focus or centre of an endless network of connotations which ramify through our physical and mental, personal and cultural, experience in life, literature and art: the strength of the symbol is in direct proportion to the power it has to convey an array of implicit meanings, which need to remain implicit to be powerful. In this it is like a joke that has several layers of meaning – explaining them destroys its power. The other
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This appears to link thos book's apparent later half's arguments wit JBP's ideas of moral meaning being communicated increasingly abstractly (and explicity) through time. I.e. From ceremony and myth, through laws (both list form and paragraph) and drama to philosophy and psychology; mirrored in historically increasing decerence tp the left over the right neural hemisphere .
