14/09/2024
Yes, it’s been some time since I last posted, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been fully engaged with life and meditative practice. So far this year, I’ve swum over 700 miles in Lake Windermere, my local lake. During those cold swims, which are part of my healing process for a fractured spine, I’ve had moments of deep thought—and sometimes, no thought at all—simply being absorbed in nature’s flow.
I’ve also been progressing steadily on my PhD in Metaphysics and Meditation. Below is a glimpse of what I’ve been working on—a brief abstract and a CODA summary from a study on the mental models we adopt to understand the world and how they shift toward machine-mindedness. You may find the CODA particularly thought-provoking, as it raises an important question.
There are around 18,000 words between these two sections, but that would be too much to impose on anyone, whether you choose to read this or not. However, these sections reflect on a world that may seem all too familiar—and perhaps, a world we might want to steer clear of.
Abstract ...
Mental models are crucial because they shape how we perceive, interpret, and engage with the world. Understanding mental models takes on added significance in the context of a burgeoning mental health and meaning crisis, as well as Iain McGilchrist's Divided Brain Hypothesis. McGilchrist argues that the brain’s hemispheres offer two distinct ways of experiencing reality: the right hemisphere sees the world holistically and comprehends what it sees in context and relationship, while the left hemisphere focuses on details, abstraction, and its drive to apprehend, grasp and control. A reading of his works cautions that the reach of the left hemisphere is now exceeding its grasp, leading to an imbalance in how we engage with the world.
To encapsulate the profound essence of Iain McGilchrist’s entire body of work, a task not easily accomplished, one might say that if the goal were to strip people of meaning and joy, it could be done by severing their connection to nature, alienating them from one another, and distancing them from any sense of spirituality, sacredness, or the capacity for wonderment and awe. In the shallows of such a world, devoid of depth and flow, reduced to a flatland of experience, the richness of existence is impoverished.
The question arises: is the mental health and meaning crisis an expression of this loss?
The mental models we adopt, whether flexible, intuitive, grounded in lived embodied experience or rigid, analytical, and disconnected from context, are deeply influenced by which hemisphere predominates. In a world increasingly driven by left-hemisphere thinking, our mental models risk becoming fragmented, reducing the complexity of life to narrow mechanistic views. By becoming aware of how these models are formed, we can cultivate a more balanced perspective, integrating both hemispheres to create richer, more nuanced ways of understanding and interacting with the world.
Iain McGilchrist’s Divided Brain Hypothesis offers a compelling framework for understanding how the human brain’s hemispheric asymmetry shapes perception, thought, and culture. The right hemisphere (the "Master") is associated with holistic, context-sensitive, and relational thinking, while the left hemisphere (the "Emissary") favours abstraction, analysis, and categorisation.
This study explores mental models and the elicitation of mental models, internal representations of reality, in the light of McGilchrist’s theory. It proposes that mental models aligned with the right hemisphere tend to be integrative, dynamic, and grounded in lived experience. In contrast, left-hemisphere-driven models are more reductionist and fragmented and characterised by machine-mindedness.
This study synthesises cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy to examine how individuals use and construct mental models, shaping their engagement with the world.
The study also explores how the dominance of left-hemisphere models in modern society has contributed to the mechanisation of thought, the narrowing of perception, and the diminishing depth of understanding. It suggests that fostering right-hemisphere mental models through practices that emphasise embodied and contextual understanding can enhance cognitive flexibility and encourage a richer, deeper, more meaningful engagement with reality.
By eliciting and analysing mental models in individuals, we seek to better understand the balance, or imbalance, between the two hemispheres in contemporary thinking. An imbalance and impoverished thinking that Iain McGilchrist powerfully articulates underwrites the current mental health and meaning crisis. Ultimately, this study highlights the potential for recalibrating mental models to foster a more holistic and integrated perception of the world, in line with McGilchrist’s call for rebalancing the brain’s divided attentional stances and recovering meaning in life and existence.
CODA: Reflective Summary ...
Suppose we live in a world that reflects and favours Iain McGilchrist’s vision of the left hemisphere’s ways of attending to it; the external projection of this is a world progressively populated by the machine mental model and machine-mindedness.
What would that look like?
If we were unfortunate enough to find ourselves in such a world, the first thing we'd likely notice is the loss of the broader perspective as we obsess over trivial details while missing the larger picture. What truly matters is understanding the whole of what is unfolding.
In this world, wisdom, which is difficult to quantify and impart, would be overlooked in favour of measurable attributes like intelligence or, more likely, data and information-handling skills. These intangible qualities, which arise from life experiences and personal growth through hardship, would be sidelined as they are too personal and resistant to measurement. Instead, algorithms would manage everything, and professions such as doctors, teachers, and lawyers would be deskilled, reduced to following rulebooks. This would be done to pursue certainty and control, as the left hemisphere thrives on power and dominance. Its drive is to grasp and control, and if it cannot do so, it becomes anxious and paranoid, traits often associated with an overactive left hemisphere, as seen in schizophrenia.
In this scenario, we would witness a growing paranoia and a need for everything to be tightly controlled, leading to an explosion of bureaucracy filled with rigid procedures, analysis, and categorisations. The individual would be lost in this inflexible system, a hallmark of the left hemisphere's approach. There would also be a division between mind and matter: the mind would become ethereal, disconnected from the body, and life would no longer seen as embodied, while matter, in all its complexity, would be reduced to something lifeless and bare: a flatland.
Paradoxically, materialists, who value matter above all else, undervalue its richness and profundity. Even if one believed that only matter exists, it has still given rise to incredible creations, from Bach to the Mona Lisa, the sirens of whales, and the murmuration of birds in the winter sky. Matter is far more remarkable than we often realise, yet the Cartesian divide between mind and matter has deepened this misunderstanding.
This world would also be characterised by factionalism, black-and-white thinking, and a loss of nuance. People would struggle to recognise that even good things can have a cost and that what appears negative may conceal hidden value. Instead of embracing the complexity of thought enabled by the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere would demand simplistic judgments: "This is good", or “This is bad", “You are wrong”, or “I am right”, and “You are with me” or “You are against me”. Anger, disgust, and intolerance would dominate, as anger is the most strongly lateralised emotion and resides in the left hemisphere. Contrary to old misconceptions, the left hemisphere, not the right, is the seat of these destructive emotions.
In such a world, we would lose a sense of spatial depth and perspective. Music, for instance, would be reduced to rhythm alone, as the left hemisphere struggles with melody and harmony, which are more dependent on the right hemisphere. Life’s flow would be seen as nothing more than a series of discrete motions, and an overwhelming set of small, petty rules would strangle life. We would become mere spectators in the world rather than active participants, a mindset proudly espoused by Descartes. A kind of misplaced optimism would accompany this.
When asked to describe itself, the left hemisphere paints an unrealistically rosy picture, starkly contrasting how others perceive it. On the other hand, the right hemisphere is more realistic, though sometimes overly modest. This imbalance can become so extreme that after a stroke affecting the right hemisphere, a person may deny paralysis in their left arm and even insist that the immobile limb belongs to someone else. The left hemisphere refuses to accept responsibility, always seeking to blame others.
A significant problem is this refusal to grow up and take responsibility. People are quick to blame others for their shortcomings. This mindset is miserable, as true maturity involves recognising that our actions have consequences for ourselves and others. In a society, we owe something to one another and must contribute.
Threatened by excessive bureaucracy, this world is increasingly supported by artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making.
Remember, our minds are shaped not only by neural pathways but also by neurochemistry. In a world lacking depth, flow, and meaning, devoid of connection to community, nature, and the spiritual, however one defines it, our minds become driven by the pursuit of dopaminergic and serotonergic hits. With the left hemisphere dominating, we become adrift in an unnatural world, increasingly reliant on short-term, repetitive rewards that fulfil our need for control. People turn to bite-sized snippets of information, briefly satisfying their cravings, but driven by biological imperatives to seek more, they quickly forget and chase further hits. The phenomenon of 'doom scrolling' would become a common vocabulary to capture this addiction aptly.
However, the left hemisphere, blinded by its narrow focus and ability for denial, fails to recognise this destructive cycle, persisting in pursuing new yet eerily similar forms of gratification. In this world, the left hemisphere believes it controls the addiction when, in truth, the addiction has complete control. In response, it doubles down on its machine-like mentality, succumbing to a hubristic belief reminiscent of Greek Tragedy in its portrayal of the overreach of power, crafting technologies that promise greater control. Yet, the tragedy lies in the overlooked reality: the more control it seeks, the more the world is reduced, dominated by increasingly rigid systems, even minor details. Mental health, anxiety, and a meaning crisis would become the outward expression of this inward dynamic.
It may seem hyperbolic, perhaps even polemical, and overly simplistic, but is this different from the world we are moving toward, or maybe already living in, where the richness of human experience is diminished, reduced to mere data points and rigid systems of control?
In that case, the pressing question is: What will become of our ability to live with meaning, connect deeply with others, and embrace the complexity and fullness of existence and life?
However, this study addresses a more specific question: Can mental models help us identify the meta-models shaping the perception of reality in a cohort? Furthermore, given Iain McGilchrist’s argument that left hemispheric strategies are increasingly populating the world, is it feasible to mitigate their effects through meditative practices rooted in a philosophical framework inspired by Iain McGilchrist's bicameral brain hypothesis? Can this be demonstrated through changes in mental models?
Mental models, which reveal how individuals perceive, reason, and interact with the world, provide a valuable means of exploring meditators' evolving mindsets. Despite certain caveats, this approach offers insight into how meditative pedagogy, enriched by a deep understanding of McGilchrist’s hypothesis, might influence shifts in individual and group meta-models over time. These shifts may reflect a movement from the left hemisphere’s more analytical and fragmented approach to the world toward the right hemisphere’s holistic and relational mode of awareness.
The photo is where I swim out from ...
You can find me there, or I have a minor presence on Insight Timer.
