3.3 A HYPOTHETICAL VIEW OF THE 'NEW PARADIGM MIND' (PART
III)
3.3.1 Theories of mind: Left-mind, Right-mind
Personality types
Much of psychology and creativity literature is concerned with
'personality types' as if certain kinds of persons are more suitable for being,
leaders, creators or to experience mysticism.
In m y experience, any model of personality types or thinking
types reflects simply an educational emphasis on certain preferences. In all
the models I have encountered, I found that I had preferred modes, which I
developed in priority, and then emphasised other modes, not inherent in m y
usual functioning. In the past 20 years, theories have appeared that link mind
and body (eg, Chopra, 1989, Damasio 1994, Sansonese, 1994). Others present 'the
mind' as 'two minds' (eg, Samples, 1976, Epstein 1998), or a multiple mind or
intelligence (Ornstein, 1986, Gardner, 1983), or, with body included, as
consciousness (the whole transpersonal field). And even the fields of
creativity and spirituality now recognise 'many ways' (eg,Arieti, 1976,
Ferrucci, 1990). Researchers interested in creativity now recognise that
creativity does not depend on a 'type' of personality but on certain
dispositions of the mind and personality (eg, Bohm, 1998, Harman et al., 1984,
Feldman et al, 1994), and that creativity belongs to the potential of any
person. With m y framework, 'personality types', rather than being fixed
definitions of people, could be seen as snapshot profiles of a person at a
certain point in time. This does not preclude personal preferences, which I am
studying in the context of what I call, for the time being, 'patterns' (see
Appendix 2.1)
Studying the mind's functions begins with the common
functions of our brain. Theories of mind are many; they come from the fields of
psychology, spirituality or transpersonal psychology, 'brain research'. A
number of them are summarised by Charles Hampden-Turner (1981), up to that
publication date. Some more recent ones are given by Gardner (1983), Ornstein
(1986), Epstein (1998), Laughlin (1990), Maturana (1987), Czikszentmihalyi
(1992). Most of these make comments in specific areas that can give me clues to
develop my own model, always in conjunction with my experiential study of my
own mind. Armed with the theoretical idea of an 'integrated New Paradigm mind',
there was an obvious direction for this 'integration'. The so-called
'left-brain mind' and 'right-brain mind', referring to the brain's hemispheres.
This distinction is now known to be simplistic, but I will use it because it is
an accepted way of communicating.
The attribution of specific functions to the two sides
of the brain has a long history that is retraced by Springer & Deutsch
(1981). It began with a statement by Paul Broca in 1864 localising the
language-related faculties in the left hemisphere (Springer & Deutsch,
1989, p.12). Split brain research developed this into the still popular notion
of cerebral dominance by the left hemisphere that directs behaviour, the right
one being subordinated to it (p.14). More recent research has shown that
"almost any human behaviour or higher mental functions, however, clearly
involves more than the actual specialties of either hemisphere and utilizes
what is common to both of them." (p.71). This will therefore
be the case a fortiori for higher creativity. The
notion of specialisation next led, in the general public, to a shift from
'dominance' to an interpretation in terms of 'thinking type' labelling such as
'analytical people' vs 'intuitive people' or 'right-brained people' vs
'left-brained people'. Philip Goldberg (1983, p.116) has warned that "in some
circles, brain orientation is threatening to replace astrological signs as the
personality label of choice" He says that specialists consider the popular
dichotomies attached to this area of knowledge as 'grossly oversimplified' and
'some are even flatly incorrect'. He quotes Springer & Deutsch
(1989):
"The left hemisphere tends to deal with rapid changes
in time and to analyze stimuli in terms of details and features, while the
right hemisphere deals with simultaneous relationships and with the more global
properties ofpatterns. And adds:
"This distinction, which is not universally accepted
(1983) is often interpreted by assigning to the left hemisphere the labels
'sequential' or 'linear ', and to the right hemisphere the terms 'simultaneous
', 'holisitc ' or 'nonlinear'." (p.116) In the case of intuition:
"All we can safely say at this point is that intuitive
experiences involve cognitive qualities that now seem to be associated with the
right hemisphere, which is not quite the same as saying it is a function of the
right hemisphere or that it resides in it."(p.117)
The same confusion also exists regarding creativity.
With this in mind, and remembering to not be too literal in these matters, we
can still use a simplified framework that distinguishes between 'left-mind' and
'right-mind' (not '-brain'). Some of these qualities are functions as
neuro-science understands the term (eg, language related representation and
spatial, imaginal representation), others have a more experiential tint
associated with 'mind' rather than 'brain'. Deikman (1974) took this
experiential point of view in reviewing a number of writings on the 'two
minds', which all propose that "consciousness is experienced in two modes
characterized by different and complementary ways of orienting toward the
world, each serving different functions".
The term 'mind' in 'left/right-mind', rather than
'-brain', reminds me to not attach literal localisation to the statements, and
refers to experiential aspects as well as functional aspects in the brain.
Table 8 summarises some of the most well-known characteristics generally
associated with the two 'minds', but skips the popular and often erroneous
distinction given in magazines.
Table 8: Some attributes of Left-mind and Right-mind,
as gathered from the literature
LEFT MIND RIGHT MIND
Mind:
Intellectual - rational 'Experiential'
Analytical Analogical - metaphoric -
simultaneous
Linear, sequential, causal Non-linear,
holistic
Aristotelian logic of either/or Complex logics (fuzzy,
water, mutual...)
Se(f:
ixed boundaries of 'I' Soft boundaries
ixed, separate sense of self Collective, relational sense
of self
Psychological meaning Existential - spiritual
meaning
Ideas (formulated) Images, symbols, myth
In short, the 'left mind' is language based,
dualistic, analytic. It functions on a cause-effect view of life that is
reactive to an environment seen as separate. The 'right mind' functions on a
holistic, connected mode that is fundamentally 'ecological' and ethical in
nature because the underlying view of life is that we are not separate from the
world (a systemic view), so everything we do matters.
Another set of dyads can be found in Samples (1976,
p.15) who reproduces a table compiled b y Robert Ornstein (1986). These dyads
of characteristics are derived from experiential ground, and so relative to two
modes of knowing rather than directly to brain hemispheres, (Table 3.4.2 in
Appendix 3.4) and are presented with the name of the thinker who proposed it.
'Rational mind' is his label for the left-mind, and 'metaphoric mind' is his
label for 'right-mind'. I personally prefer the terms 'analogy' to 'metaphor'
because it does not limit connections to a pictorial or story-telling form. Yet
another set of dyads (Table 3.4.3 in Appendix 3.4), of a psychological nature,
is presented by Epstein (1998).
My first guessing at the existence of these two ways
came to me years ago, when I spent a year in Canada and learned English. I
decided then that I wanted to live in an Anglo-Saxon country because that
language allowed me to use what I called 'global' thinking, as opposed to
'analytical' thinking, a French specialty. I saw Anglo-Saxons as also more
oriented toward relating to others than the individualistic French. Both felt
necessary for my balance. Balance and integration were what I had begun
practicing since my teenage years, through what I call 'nexialist' * thinking.
I derived my present understanding of the two 'minds' from more recent
experience as well, rather in the same way as Susan Schneier discovered after a
month-long seminar at the Esalen Institute. She says:
"I suddenly experienced a shift in my awareness from a
predominantly verbal, linear, rational, and every-day mode, experienced
primarily in my head, to a high-imagery, holistic, pattern-oriented, and
intuitive mode of experiencing located in my whole body. As my consciousness
shifted, so did my experience of the world." (Schneier, 1989)
Her experience shifted from a 'profane', separative
one, located in time and space, to a 'sacred' one, sensitive to energy fields,
poetry and suffused with meaning. My own change was made of several shifts I
operated thanks to my 'conscious experiencing' method. It led me to the same
changes in experience, and to deeper 'meaning', but rather than calling it
'sacred' or 'spiritual', I prefer to call it 'higher', in reference to the
unrealised potential of the human body-mind. There was also less emphasis on
imagery and personal myth, which often felt like a 'side-track', a 'storying'
of some more essential pattern, and more on integration of the former ways and
on the new ways of perceiving and experiencing.
Schneier's article, 'The imagery in movement method: a
process tool bridging psychotherapy and transpersonal
* Nexialism' is a term coined years ago, by A. E. Van
Vogt, a science-fiction writer influenced by A. Korzybski. In my understanding,
it is a way of thinking in which on extracts the essential (nexus) or most
innovative ideas from a number of different fields (plurality). One then makes
'lateral' connections between them, and comes up with creative, original
concepts, understandings or solutions. A 'nexialist' takes nothing for granted
or for impossible. I now feel this represents the intellectual side of the kind
of multi-dimensional, intuitive and experiential knowing the New Paradigm
develops in the mind in the first shift, toward complexity. It shifts back and
forth between complexity and the simplicity of 'nexus' ideas. The second shift
is required to go further.
inquiry', describes a psychological tool for inquiring
into one's multi-dimensional inner experience and for transformation. I prefer
'thought' tools of the kind Jean Houston favours. Schneier uses two expressions
that fit my understanding: the shift involves new 'ways of knowing' and of
'relating to the world', ways that are unknown to the 'normal' adult before the
shift. However, she also limits the creative results to ideas, fantasies and
personal myths, not taking it to its largest meaning: co-creating the actual
physical reality and life circumstances -creation-.
3.3.2 The second 'shift'
The general impression I gathered from this literature
review is that a balance is necessary. The right mind, if unbalanced with the
left mind, may fall into emotionally driven, magical and mythical worldviews
and superstitious behaviours (a tendency that appears among 'New Agers'). The
left mind, if unbalanced by the right mind, may become ungrounded, dichotomist,
and selfish, either grandiose and self-gratifying, or stuck in powerlessness (a
very general condition in our society). This fits my experience. As I have
explained in chapters 1 and 2, the full shift involves a first movement from
linear, fixed, separated thinking to 'connected', complex thinking and
experience, but also a second, crucial shift, not acknowledged clearly, a
paradoxical synthesis that integrates the two synergistically into an emergent
new functioning. This shift can happen in various dimensions of experience. In
my case, it happened in my thinking processes, as a first step. The New
Paradigm mind approach integrates these two ways of thinking and has for a main
feature the development of a sense of inner power. One no longer is victim of
life or of one's own psychology, but acquires a sense of 'being part of the
game', of having an active and meaningful role to play in the world. One
acquires an ability to be comfortable with 'not knowing' in the determinist
ways the conventional ego knows, although there is still 'knowing', but of a
different sort.
`Spirituality', for the Westerner of present times,
then becomes the way we have to make sense to ourselves of the life experience
and the phenomena we experience 'in the mind' during this process of
integration. It is a convenient lump label for what is mysterious to us (see 'A
social ecological view of spirituality' in Appendix 3.1). Using the 'New
Paradigm' framework I developed, the integration, applied to mind would be what
I present in Figure 11.
3.3.3 A more complete picture of the 'integrated New
Paradigm mind'
But what does it 'feel' like to develop such a mind?
Let's turn to the general public literature for this (and this also takes into
account my own experience) to brush a more complete, intuitive portrait. This
represents part of what I want to validate or invalidate through my
inquiry.
The New Paradigm mind seems to seems be a kind of
'creator mind' (the function that interests me here). Adding spiritual meaning,
I could almost say that the 'possible human being' that functions with a
'creator mind' is 'made in the image of God the Creator'. This 'Higher Self' is
a fractal image of the typical image of divinity, within the person.
Experientially it feels 'divine' because its capabilities are so extraordinary
compared to our normal experience. They include a number of recognised 'powers'
and apparently the power of 'creating our
local reality. It is also most probably only a first
stage toward even more extraordinary 'states' of consciousness, which are not
my focus here. It seems to be a way for us to make better use of our brains, of
intuition and creativity, and of the body in an integration fashion. It seems
to offer new ways to become better adapted to the world we live in and
contribute to creating it in ethical, ecological, sustainable, caring
ways.
The emergent, mu(ti- dimensiona(,
comp(ex-simp(e
Brain-mind-se(f:
(Left-mind) (Right-mind)
"Creator Mind"
Some characteristics of the 'New Paradigm
Mind':
C'Transrational'
(rational and analogical/imaginal at the same
time, with a systemic logic)
CMulti-dimensional experience includes conventional
thoughts (left + right), 5 senses,
inner kinaesthetic feeling-sensing, 'empathy' (as energy,
with related psychological emotions), inner psychological experience,,
etc.
(including conventionally defined 'experience' +
non-ordinary meaningful experiences)
C'whole-brain' learning 'Direct knowing',
intuition
CMulti-dimensional 'thinking' is holistically:
unformulated 'thoughts', ideas and images ('thought-forms')
Analytic and analogic/metaphorical at the same time, in
multi-dimensional experiencing: +This allows a 'similarising'
in the mind of the vision to be created in the world.
S.K.King calls 'grokking' this mental 'identification' to
the object (creating the thought form to be actualised)
Acting is creating
Causal + systemic, at the same time = a-causal /
co-creation / potential of the present
situation: not a linear 'causality'
but a logic of becoming as a choice between possibilities
Multiple selves as constructs used for various purposes
+ a core self or 'I' as Witness
~ Fixed + Soft boundaries of self = expandable boundaries
and sense of self, but capacity to hold a fixed boundary at a certain
time.
CMeaning: 'Higher Mind' or 'Spirit/ God / Light
etc.
[it is possible that personal preferences toward the
mental or the perceptual may influence the meaning and the actual
experience]
Figure 11: The 'emergent' New Paradigm Mind
A tentative view of the emergent multi-dimensional,
'complex-singular 'BodyMindSelf'.
(When the body is taken into account,
'brain-mind-self' becomes 'BodyMindSelf'.)
Psychologically, it synthesises or unifies the
personality. As I understand it, the integrated higher mind builds on the
uniqueness and talents of individuality, which it develops through a strong and
authentic personality (that is, at least in the Western culture). Moreover, it
also reintegrates the ancient, holistic oneness or connectedness, the empathic
sensitivity to energies, and the sensitivity to present-moment reality. (The
latter being important since, according to Robert Fritz (1984), we have to
maintain a 'creative tension' between the present state of affairs and the
vision to be actualised). The creator mind is characterised by a
non-determinist uncertainty, in various forms including serendipitous
processes, mystery of the unknown (not knowable as certainties by either parts
of mind separately), but with a certainty of purpose, that the outcome will be
beneficial. It also has a logic not only of complexity (from right-mind) but
also of singularity (left-mind): it is able to resolve the apparent paradox of
these.
I view 'New Paradigm mind' as a synergistic
integration of left and right-minds, and so as more than the sum of the two. It
makes use of both right- and left-minds at the same time, in more than a
coordinated way: in a 'whole brain', 'integrated' or 'emergent manner. It is
able to hold many trains of thought or domains of awareness at the same time:
Houston has called this 'multi-tracking. This integration of 'thought' is
doubled with a synthesis of personality and is said to be correlated with a
connecting of the two hemisphere of the brain. (There is some brain research
literature to be reviewed here). To access the 'reserves' of our brains
(Krippner, 1996), a number of exercises are taught to help this 'brain
synchrony', such as eye movements or bodily movements (eg. Houston, 1982, and
the NeuroLinguistic Programming field). Other methods using sound and
meditation are also used (eg. 'Contemporary High-Tech Meditation' of the S
ynchronicity Foundation). Few of these findings are published academically, it
seems. Many of these techniques have close similarity to many practices
advocated in spiritual traditions (eg,Gurdjeff), some of them
ancient.
Experientially, reaching the critical point that
provokes the 'shift into high gear', the 'emergence', feels like... a
'brain-fry' (see EE#5 in Appendix 3.3). This critical point is reached when the
difficulty to cope with complexity consciously in the sequential way of the
left-mind becomes too great. A shift is required, to use unconscious, holistic
processes to cope. Operating in that mode often feels like being 'accelerated'
(Kun, 1993), or 'quickened' (Wilde, 1988) (see also EE# 6,in Appendix 3.3). It
also gives a clear sense that 'this reality' is only a 'map' but 'not the
territory' (Korzybski, 1933), and so can be changed and 'created'. It gives a
clear realisation of the inter-subjective and 'co-arising' nature of reality,
and gives access to many possible realities that can all find 'inter-subjective
validation' (for example Casteneda, 1968, in anthropological appendix). This
mode of mind can be used in many ways, including 'intellectual thought' of the
higher 'discriminatory kind (as opposed to the conventional left-mind
understanding in our culture) (see EE#7in Appendix 3.3).
More and more people seem to be undergoing this kind
of shift, experiencing it in a multitude of individual ways, with a multitude
of spiritual or other meanings, as attests the number of stories now being
published on 'Awakening' experiences. This process of shift in the individual
seems mirrored globally in our society: there is an opportunity for a
fundamental transformation of our whole society (Bouchon, 1997b) as many
writers have
pointed out, some say even for the whole of humanity, and
this is apparent also at smaller scales, in human organisations and communities
(Bouchon, 1998d).
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