Apprehending Emergent Ordering and Agentic Systems -- thus 'Spiritual Animation' --

Requires a 'Divided Mind'

 

If human survival requires an ability to perceive both deterministically causal and unpredictably emergent phenomena, as well as the agentic properties of complex adaptive systems, then we must have evolved such contrasting capacities. This page summarizes how insights from neuroscience indicate that our two brain hemispheres provide different modes of attending to, thus thinking about, these fundamentally different modes of order creation. In effect, we have a divided brain that facilitates two cognitive approaches to apprehending this 'bi-dynamical' aspect of reality, including the agency of complex systems -- that then enables representing such agentic phenomena as 'spiritual animation.'

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In essence, the two hemispheres of our physically divided brain facilitate two modes of deploying our attention, which promote two ways of understanding two 'ways that things happen.' The left hemisphere associates with reductively differentiating separate things and events, then specifying progressive sequences. That mode promotes a mechanistic understanding. The right associates with inclusively relating numerous things and events in holistic sets of interdependent relationships. This mode promotes capacity to comprehend the interdependent dynamics of emergent ordering and the agentic properties of complex systems that those dynamics can generate. Both modes of attending to phenomena, then mentally forming concepts about therm, are required for an adaptively realistic worldview.

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One Brain, Two Hemispheres, Two Modes of Attention

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How do We Become Conscious or Aware of Phenomena?

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To 'be Conscious of' Something Requires Awareness, Awareness Requires Attending

​The terms conscious and consciousness derive from the Latin conscire, translated as 'be aware.' That is a compound of com, for 'with' of 'thoroughly,' and scire, for 'to know.' This is also the root of the word science.  The word know derives from Old English cnawan, translated as 'perceive what is identical,' or 'be able to distinguish,' and tocnawan, meaning 'understand as fact or truth,' apparently used in contrast for belief, or 'to believe.' From these references, to be conscious involves a capacity to 'know thoroughly' by distinguishing 'one thing from another' and 'what is actual from what is not.'

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To know thusly requires 'making sense' or meaning from some form of data or other references. It is an of interpretation accomplished by the activity of cognitive networks that associate mental references (memories, concepts, feelings) and data derived from our senses. This activity of our mental system requires awareness of both these 'internal' and 'external' references. The term awareness derives from the OId English gewaer, meaning 'watchful' or 'vigilant.' To be 'watchful' requires attention. Attention is generally understood as the 'action of directing awareness' to some specific context, event, action. or subject. The word derives from the Latin attendere, literally translated as 'to stretch toward.' To 'be attentive,' then, is to 'stretch' or 'extend' our awareness 'toward' some phenomena -- for the purpose of 'knowing it in/as consciousness,' or 'mind.' The usages of the term mind seem to encompass most of these meanings, as 'that which feels, wills, thinks,' or manifests 'intellect,' therefore, 'consciousness.' Thus, we might say, 'to know consciously by distinguishing factually in mind, requires attentional direction of awareness.' That being the case, what we direct our attention toward, and how, will have considerable effect upon how we 'know' in/as mind. Or, how we 'mind the world' derives from how we attend to it.

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Attending to How We Attend -- Relative to What There is to Attend To

We speak of being 'more or less' attentive. When one 'misses,' or fails to become aware of, an event, factor, or concept, which is then noticed later, it is easy to conclude one has been 'inattentive' -- one simply was not 'paying enough attention.' Such assumptions suggest that attending is the act of 'focusing awareness' upon one factor after another. Thus, to be more effectively aware, one must move the 'focus' of attention across all the factors of an event or context -- as in preparing to hit a baseball or reading a paragraph of words. To be accurately aware, attention must 'scan' in an appropriate sequence. It is evident that we can both 'slacken' or 'heighten' our attentional awareness. But  if we 'turn our attention' to how we attend, what about this initiating act of conscousness can we become more aware of? is there more than one 'kind' of attention? Is it always 'more or less' a matter of focus upon specific events or factors in a sequence?

 

One way to approach these questions is by 'attending to' what sorts of phenomena we need to become aware of if we are to have  a relatively realistic understanding of self and world. The 'bi-dynamical' worldview of complex systems science, in which some events are causally linear (one thing after another) while others are concurrently interactive and interdependent (everything effecting everything all at once) indicates there are distinctly different types of phenomena which such we need to be aware of. That poses a problem for strictly sequential attentional focus. These dependent versus interdependent dynamics are fundamentally different as 'ways that things happen.'  It is easy to conceive of shifting our 'focus' of attention from one factor to another, in order to track sequences of cause and effect. But how can one effectively attend to the interactive dynamics of complex systems in a way that 'makes us aware of' their concurrent interdependencies? That would seem to require 'deploying' attention across multiple factors and events simultaneously. In that case, we would need two different ways of attending, one suitable for each type of dynamical phenomena, if we were to reveal 'the way the world actually works' to our awareness.

 

​Causally dependent, sequential phenomena are not the same as concurrently interdependent ones:

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A Divided Brain and Two Modes of Attending

​Evolution's Adaptation for Attending to Bi-Dynamical Phenomena

Neuroscience offers insight into how the evolution of animals adapted to this conundrum of attending to both sequential and concurrent phenomena, as well as their predictable versus emergent properties. It appears that the need to focus attention on very specific events, while also being aware of a larger set of interacting factors in the surrounding environment, favored the evolution of a bilateralized brain -- a brain literally divided into right and left hemispheres. That structural differentiation has been associated with two contrasting types of cognitive attention. ​Though both the right and left hemispheres of our brains have been shown to contribute to most cognitive functions, evidence indicates they have distinctly different influences on how we 'attend to,' or 'take in,' phenomena. 

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Left versus Right Hemisphere Attentional Modalities

Research indicates that the left brain hemisphere promotes a more exclusive or narrowly focused mode of attending, which assists in isolating particular factors in our awareness, assisting in tracking sequential dynamics. In contrast, the right brain hemisphere associates with a more diffuse attention that can 'take in' more concurrent and diverse factors 'all at once,' or more inclusively. The left mode in effect emphasizes 'seeing' parts and actions in progressive changes. The right one favors 'taking in' multiple elements, factors, and interactions as 'complete wholes.' Given that a bi-lateralized brain is typical of animals, it appears that its two ways of attending to phenomena were a kind of 'evolutionary necessity' for their survival as autonomous agents.

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The contrasting modes of attention promoted by our two brain hemispheres provides us with 'attentional diversity':​

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One Brain but Two Minds for 'Two Ways Things Happen'

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The Holistic 'Double-Minding' of Our Attentional Diversity

​When we consider that our consciousness derives from both the exclusive and inclusive attentional modalities of our two brain hemispheres, it becomes evident that we are in some sense 'of two minds.' Somehow, we know and understand through both a more reductive attending and a more 'all embracing' one. Just how our one brain generates a relatively coordinated state of consciousness from this attentional contrast is indicated by neuroscience. Right and left hemispheres are connected by a band of nerve fibers termed the "corpus callosum." These connections between the two provide communicating links that assist in regulating the interplay of the two attentional modalities. By alternatively cooperating and 'blocking' each other, the two hemispheres facilitate a usually 'seamless' experience of awareness that integrates exclusive particularities and inclusive interdependencies. Both can be concurrently active yet one can 'take the lead.' Thus, we can consider our awareness as a kind of reflexive 'double-minding' of phenomena.

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Right-Left-Right Hemispheric 'Processing' and Maintaining a Holistic Awareness

​However, neuroscience also indicates that the bi-lateralized brain evolved with a general propensity for how it processes the data 'flowing in' from perceptions. That tendency was a right to left and back to right manner. That is, its 'first take' would tend to be through right hemisphere inclusive attention that would then be investigated by the left hemisphere's more narrowly focused attention to provide more detailed information, which then would be re-integrated back into a right hemisphere inclusive perspective. This view of how the hemisphere's evolved to function suggests that the inclusive modality of the right can be elaborated by the left, but that the right is essential to an adaptive 'overall' awareness of 'how things happen' by maintaining a more inclusive relational or holistic awareness.

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If so, any influences that restrict this right-left-right movement of attention and subsequent interpretation will ...

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Consciousnerss as Wide Boundary 'Big Picture' versus Narrow Boundary 'Detail Definition'

Considering 'consciousness' as the 'mental holding' of a state of awareness, the orientations of our two hemispheres can be understood as different modes of being 'mindful' about 'what is' and 'how it is happening.' These contrasting 'states of mind-ing' are then likely to profoundly influence how our various cognitive functions, how we think and feel, will interpret and respond to what we are 'attending to.' Obviously, both ways of mind-ing are useful, as is the ability to discern when which is more relevant to accurate understanding of what is happening and how. One cannot know what specifics to analyze withing a larger context without left hemisphere attention, nor the significance of details without right hemisphere attention. Thus, capacity to deploy both in relation to each other is crucial to survival. ​

 

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The Adaptive Purposefulness of Attentional Diversity

​A basic example of how these two attentional modes prove adaptive for animal survival is found in both prey and predator species. Each must maintain awareness of very specific, localized events, while also having awareness of the 'bigger picture' in a surrounding environment. A prey animal must track a predator with an accutely narrow focus upon its every move, and vise versa. But each must also attend to multiple, potentially interacting factors around them. Without the larger perspective, they cannot anticipate the potential maneuvers of each other as one stalks and the other seeks to flee. Thus, the purpose of attentional diversity is to correlate both very localized phenomena with more a dispersed set of potentially interacting factors.

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​'Two Minds' for Perceiving the 'Two Ways Things Happen,' Using One Brain

​From the perspective of systems science, this contrasting diversity of attentional modalities appears relevant to differentiating what events are more specifically causal, thus predictable, and those that are more complexly interdependent, thus emergently unpredictable. Animals must, in some manner, maintain a form of consciousness that can 'navigate' in a world manifesting thorugh both these dynamical aspects, or 'ways that things happen.' The inclusive right hemisphere mode orients overall awareness to a field of complex factors so that the reductively specific and exclusive left hemisphere mode can 'zero in' on sequentially causal events ones. The that awareness can be correlated with the right's more inclusive view. One brain with two such hemispheres appears to be an 'evolutionary necessity.'

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​Survival requires the ability to identify and differentiate specific events and causal sequences

from collectively interacting factors and their unpredictably emergent properties:

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Rational Differentiation and Intuitive Incorporation as Aspects of Attention and Awareness​

Our left hemisphere attentional mode is essential for identifying discrete elements of an event or thing, then forming a rational description that represents how those elements or parts 'fit together' in some logical manner. Such rational differentiation and self-consistent reasoning require 'dissociating' parts of phenomena so that these can be examined in a logical way. This mode of analysis is effectively reductive in that it 'reduces' a phenomena to a logical explanation which seems conclusive to our awareness. That results in a sense of phenomena as 'nothing but' an abstract description and explanation. The more inclusive right hemisphere inflected attentional mode is not suited to this manner of explanation. Rather, it fosters a more intuitive 'take' on the overall character of a phenomena. It enables us to 'incorporate' the elements or parts of a phenomena as a 'relational field' within our awareness. This mode of attending presents phenomena to our awareness as an interactive 'totality' that is intrinsically 'something more than its parts.'

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Ways of Attending Influence Awareness, Thinking, and Feeling​

Because our one brain manages to coordinate these two ways of attending, so that our overall awareness is a result of their constant interplay, we tend not to be overtly conscious that we constantly switch between them, or in some regard, employ both simultaneously.   Nonetheless, it appears that how one thinks or feels will be effected depending upon which attentional mode is more prominent at any given moment. That is, the world can 'appear' to, or in, our consciousness quite differently through the framing of one mode versus the other. These two different modes of attention will necessarily influence how we interpret phenomena and chose to respond. That means our thinking can be biased toward either the reductively exclusive perspective of the left, or the inclusive one of the right hemisphere. Similarly, we can experience or 'feel' phenomena more as separate parts and events isolated from others, or as an inclusive continuum of interacting elements.

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Right Hemisphere Attention and Thinking Complex Network Dynamics

 

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Right Hemisphere Inclusive Attention and Perception of Interdependent Complex System Dynamics

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The Problem of Perceiving Interdependent Interactions and Agentic System Behaviors

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Right Hemisphere Relational Field Association and an Archetypal Understanding of Networks

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Right Hemisphere Attention and Symbolic Representation

 

Associative Intuition and The Imagination of 'Dynamical Likeness'

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Cognitive Symbol Formation as Dynamical Modeling

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​Right Hemisphere Attention and Awareness of  'Agency at Work in the World'

 

How to Know 'What is Alive' and 'What Might It Do?'

​Utilitarian left and relational right

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Right Hemisphere Attention, Apprehension of 'Aliveness,' and a 'Spiritual Sensibility'

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Numinous Experience as Right Hemisphere Intuition of Agentic System Behaviors

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'Spiritual Symbolism' as Right Hemisphere Biased Representation of Agentic System Properties

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'Spiritual Practice' as Foregrounding Right Hemisphere Network Awareness of Complexity and Agentic Networks

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The Adaptive Purpose of 'Spiritual Senseibility'

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​Left Hemisphere Cultural Bias and the Constriction of 'Spiritual Awareness'

Modern technological emphasis on left hemisphere attention and thinking restricts right hemisphere attending to the agentic properties of living systems.​

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From the perspective of systems science, as well as some researchers in the neuroscience of cognitive functions, our modern society manifests an 'attentional difficiency.'  Our preoccupation with reductive left hemisphere attending debilitates our ability to perceive, thus conceive and think, through our right hemisphere modality. That would tend to diminish our capacity to comprehend the dynamical complexity of complex adaptive systems and their agentic behaviors. Consequently, our capacity to experience such systems as self-asserting, thus effectively 'spiritually self-animating, thus as 'numinous phenomena,' is greatly obstructed. 

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This attentional deficiency can also be approached through the contemporary psychological concept of "attentional deficit disorder." This clinical diagnosis is used to indicate that a person has difficulty maintaining consistent attentional focus and continuity. Instead, attention tends to 'divert' from sequential tracking or intended goals. That this condition is considered to be increasing over time, and is commonly treated by pharmacological drugs, prompts an interesting question. Could such behavior actually be a reaction or resistance in the mind to the effects of our left hemisphere dominated cultural worldview? Is it, perhaps, a symptom of right hemispheric attentional repression?

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For Extensive Information on Brain Hemisphere Roles in Our Thinking see 

Work of Ian McGilchrist

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