The Radical New Reality of Systems Science

Two Modes of Perceiving/Thinking for Two Dynamical Aspects of Reality

​

The Divided Brain and Two Ways of Attending to 'How Things Happen' -- Inclusive versus Exclusive

The basic distinction made between how our brain hemispheres influence our thinking involves 'how we attend to' phenomena. Our left hemisphere is said to promote a mode of awareness that separates things and events into exclusive 'parts' and sequences. That allows us to analyze details of composition and sequences of effects or influence. Our right hemisphere is said to promote a more inclusive or collective attention that 'takes in' many aspects and relationships 'as wholes.'

​

Left Hemisphere 'Point Focus' and Right Hemisphere 'Field Focus' Attending

This contrast can be considered in terms of how we literally see phenomena. The left hemisphere modality has a kind of 'point focus' that 'zeros in' on particularities. The right hemisphere mode can be regarded in terms of a 'field focus,' which 'spreads attention' over a larger complex of factors and interacting relationships. The contrast is something like perceiving then thinking a context as 'one thing after another' versus as 'everything all at once.'

​

 

Left Hemisphere Point-Specific Attention                             Right Hemisphere Full-Field Attention

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​​

​​

​

​

​

Left Hemisphere Conceptual Abstraction versus Right Hemisphere Experiential Immersion

By 'zooming in' to differentiate 'parts,' our Left hemisphere attention enables to 'take things apart,' then conceptually 'stand back' from phenomena, as if observing 'from outside.' That facilitates the formation of logically sequential thinking and abstract concepts. The right hemisphere's more inclusive attention tends to 'take us into' phenomena, as if immersing awareness in the 'wholeness' of a context in a 'direct experience.'

​

Our 'Stereoscopic' Bi-Hemispheric Awareness of Causal and Emergent Dynamics

Neuroscience indicates that the two hemisphere's cooperate in generating our overall attentional capacities and cognitive processing by communicating across a band of nerve fibers termed the corpus callosum. However, their interactions are described as being both cooperative and exclusive, in the sense that each can 'block' the other's influence at times. It is concluded that this interplay is essential to the generation of realistically adaptive cognition and behavior. From a systems science perspective, these two modes correlate with the dynamical contrast between sequential, predictably deterministic, causal phenomena and unpredictably emergent, interactively interdependent self-organizing ones. The left appears more suited to the causal type and the right more suited to attending the emergent type. Together these two modes provide us with a 'bi-dynamical' perspective on 'how things happen.'

​​

The Bi-dynamical Awareness of Bi-Hemispheric Attentional Modalities​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​

​​

​

​​

​

​​

​

The Evolutionary Logic of Bi-Hemispheric Cognition

Bi-hemispheric brain division and its associated attentional modes are a basic trait of animal brains. Natural selection evidently promoted this anatomical basis for animal cognition from the early stages of animal evolution. The systems science distinction between the dynamical 'ways things happen,' as causal versus emergent phenomena, suggests that animal survival depends upon an ability to adequately perceive, then somehow incorporate, both 'ways that things happen.' Creatures must necessarily identify and distinguish what things and events they might manipulate physically from those that are more unpredictable. That would include being able to notice when agency is manifesting 'as other creatures.' Both predator and prey species must be able to register and anticipate the role of unpredictably selective network behavior in their environments.

​​

Human use of Metaphoric Symbolism and Right Hemisphere Intelligence

When humans employ metaphoric symbolism to represent phenomena, the resulting images and notions often seem literally unrealistic, as if these are mistaken or delusional perceptions and interpretations. In reference to the differing attentional modes of our two brain hemispheres, and how these correlate with the contrast between sequentially deterministic causation and emergently interdependent self-organization, it appears likely that seemingly unrealistic symbolism could be appropriate to representing the 'technically magical' dynamics of emergent ordering. There are indications in the neuroscience that our right hemisphere mode of attending and thinking appears to associate with the generation of metaphoric symbolism. Thus, this mode of representing phenomena and concepts, associated with traditional mythologies as well as artistic and literary expression, appears to play an essential role in our inclusive right hemisphere inflected intelligence.

​​

\

The 'Dynamical Tenor' of Our Bi-hemispheric Intelligence

Given that we have two attentional modes, deriving from two brain hemispheres, and these promote awareness of the difference between sequentially deterministc causal dynamics relative to the concurrently interdependent ones of emergent ordering and agentic systems, we can contemplate the 'dynamical tenor' of how we engage the world through our intelligence. We can ask ourselves toward which mode of attending to then interpreting phenomena we might be biased.

​​

​Our two attentional modes promote distinctly different ways of dynamical thinking:

​

​​

​

​

​

​​

​

​​

​​

​

​​

Using Our Right Hemisphere 'Mind-ing' to Perceive Emergent Self-Organization and Network Agency

Neuroscience insights into how our brain hemispheres influence our perception, thus our conception of phenomena, illuminates the difficulty in appreciating the implications of complex systems science. Though systems science, as a reductive left hemisphere mode of 'mind-ing,' has generated evidence for a 'way things happen' that is not predictably deterministic and explicitly causal, that same mode of understanding cannot, by its fundamentally reductive orientation, fully appreciate the irreducible, unpredictably purposeful phenomena it has revealed. Only our right hemisphere modality could somehow conceive of the world as a paradoxically 'integrated whole,' composed by both predictably causal ordering and unpredictably emergent self-organizing system networks. So, the neuroscience provides an essential reference for any effort to shift our cultural worldview in ways that can fully incorporate the implications of systems science. We must find ways to promote and foreground the more inclusive, holistic perspective of our innate right brain attention.

​

A Next Worldview Shift from the Left Hemisphere Bias of Mechanistic Assumptions to the Interdependencies of the Right

From these references for bi-hemispheric influences on our perception and interpretation of phenomena, it appears evident that our mechanistically preoccupied modernist assumptions are left hemisphere biased. That is, we somehow have developed a 'cognitive habit' of devaluing the importance of our right hemisphere intelligence in our overall understanding. Systems science indicates that a more realistic worldview requires an overt effort to shift our cultural assumptions toward a right hemisphere bias.

​​

Promoting Right Hemisphere Understanding through Artistic and Mythological Symbolism

​

Brain science can assist in discerning what types of mental activities and experiences promote right hemisphere understanding. And research indicates that the metaphorical symbolism of artistic expressions, literature, and mythological traditions are potent stimulants to that inclusive manner of 'mind-ing' the world. By correlating such symbolism with the factual insights of complex systems and network science, we can begin to understand how it can actually serve to assist humans to 'see' more realistically, in an imaginal yet emotionally potent manner, the strange 'way that things happen' revealed by this new science. The scientific facts can be rendered more tangible by symbolism. Through that correlation we can also enhance our understanding of the implications of systems science for our worldview.

​

​​

Next Page in Introductory Sequence:

​

​New Reality of Symbolism

​

​For details on the relative science see the work of neuroscientist Ian McGilchrist by clicking here

​