Mine the Gap: The Key to True Objectivity
by Asa Boxer
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By exploring the troubled behaviours of new atheists in previous articles, I have called attention to real-world examples of what appears to be a psychological pathology. What I mean is that those afflicted by leftbrainitis exhibit a distinct pattern of reactiveness to criticism or to any speculation that upsets their worldview. Their behaviour under pressure is remarkably irrational, rude, and combative. Sadly, they seem incapable of philosophical dialogue—as though governed by a monological mind. Perhaps this phenomenon is a result of one side of the brain suppressing expression of the other, as suggested by neuroimaging researcher and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist.
If such an hypothesis is compelling, it’s because the behaviour pattern isn’t taught anywhere, yet presents consistently, as though the mechanism were hardwired and particular to the left brain. I’m referring to McGilchrist here. (If you haven’t read his book The Master and His Emissary yet, put it at the top of your reading list!) I trust you don’t mind me quoting from a previous article by way of explanation:
as McGilchrist explains, “the left hemisphere. . .is expert. . .at finding quite plausible, but bogus explanations for the evidence that does not fit its version of events.” Indeed not only is there something frightfully stupid about the left brain, it is also a liar and dissimulator with a love of authority.
Here’s more from McGilchrist (also quoted in the previous article):
It will be remembered from the experiments of Deglin and Kinsbourne that the left hemisphere would rather believe authority, ‘what it says on this piece of paper’, than the evidence of its own senses. And remember how it is willing to deny a paralysed limb, even when it is confronted with indisputable evidence? Ramachandran puts the problem with his customary vividness:
“In the most extreme cases, a patient will not only deny that the arm (or leg) is paralysed, but assert that the arm lying in the bed next to him, his own paralysed arm, doesn’t belong to him! There’s an unbridled willingness to accept absurd ideas.”
But when the damage is to the left hemisphere (and the sufferer is therefore depending on the right hemisphere), with paralysis on the body’s right side,
“they almost never experience denial. Why not? They are as disabled and frustrated as people with right hemisphere damage, and presumably there is as much ‘need’ for psychological defence, but in fact they are not only aware of the paralysis, but constantly talk about it . . . It is the vehemence of the denial - not a mere indifference to paralysis - that cries for an explanation.”
So I have little doubt that leftbrainitis is a thing. Arguably, however, the behaviour described by the limited tool kit I’ve written about was likely picked up by fans mimicking their atheist role models. Let’s also keep in mind that it’s hardly a set of phenomena unique to atheists. Religionists, Trotskyites, Urbanites, and hockey fans alike can be equally crusty in pretty much the same way. What we’re likely talking about are “habits of mind” of the sort J. S. Mill described in his memoirs (examined last week). Therefore, although likely true that a mix of both pathology and mimicry are at play, the botulism requires favourable conditions to flourish. In other words, the behaviour recommends itself only to a certain kind of mind—one that has made a habit of shutting off oxygen to its partner (the right brain).
Among the qualities missing in left-brain-heavy individuals is awareness of one’s inner world, that mental space which opens up from the dialogue between the analytical and the analogical minds. As a consequence of this suppression of the inner world, such individuals experience great trouble distancing themselves from any given claim. Since they cannot hold open the gap between their two minds, they must close on one answer and stand committed. Objectivity becomes impossible.
Indeed, true rationality requires reflection (cognitive mirroring). Rationality and objectivity require a state of being simultaneously of two minds—which is precisely where the suspension of commitment resides. . . in that gap which need never be closed. Consequently, monological minds have to be right at all costs. The ego is always cornered in such a scenario. A single-minded, psychological reality is a back-against-the-wall position: hence the aggression, the irrational outbursts, and calls for censorship. To monological minds, there is no need for dialogue because it’s all settled. And unsettling anything settled is cause for panic.
The monological, analytical mind—left to itself without its helpmate, the analogical mind—essentially cripples the soul. It engenders a blindness to alternatives and is thereby destructive to all forms of human interplay. To such minds, trivialities induce alarm and outbursts of insult, shout down, dehumanisation, physical violence, and war.
Fixing this problem requires training the imagination, exercising it, teaching folks to appreciate and explore the imagination and its various powers. It seems criminal to me that we fail to educate and develop our most defining attribute: the inner world, our instinct to dream, and to invent. . . novel ways of thinking and living, even whole new galaxies and universes. Think of what we lose!
Nikola Tesla (our latter-day Prometheus) used his imagination in exceptional ways, running electrical experiments in his mind and coming back days later to check on them. That sort of achievement should inspire us. If you read his autobiographical writings, you’ll find many references to the role played by Tesla’s imagination. I’ll leave you with a particularly striking passage:
For a while I gave myself up entirely to the intense enjoyment of picturing machines and devising new forms. It was a mental state of happiness about as complete as I have ever known in life. Ideas came in an uninterrupted stream and the only difficulty I had was to hold them fast. The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minutest marks and signs of wear. I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to the mind’s eye a more fascinating sight. When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots. In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name. (Tesla, Nikola. My Inventions and Other Writings. New York: Penguin Classics, 2011. p 43.)
Asa Boxer’s poetry has garnered several prizes and is included in various anthologies around the world. His books are The Mechanical Bird (Signal, 2007), Skullduggery (Signal, 2011), Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013), Etymologies (Anstruther Press, 2016), Field Notes from the Undead (Interludes Press, 2018) and The Narrow Cabinet: A Zombie Chronicle (Guernica, 2022). Boxer is also the founder and editor of analogy magazine.
Thank you for this, all of it, but especially the quote from Tesla, about whom I know nothing. Reading what he said about designing motors, I was reminded, for some reason, of both Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky. I read their biographies recently and was amazed to find that both said that, when a music idea came to them, it came in complete form. I think it was Tchaikovsky who said he imagined a composition as if it were a tree, from roots to tips of branches and leaves. What a thing, to have 2 hours or 3 of music in one's head, thought out, ready to write! For me, writing seems to go paragraph by paragraph. I remember having a student, many years ago, one of the very best, telling me that her papers came to her complete, as 5 or 10 pages, and all she had to do was write them. Also, thank you for suggesting an explanation for the decay of logic and discussion, and for relating it to the lack of an inner life. Reading, absorbing, thinking: things of the past, it seems, for many people. Great reading.