Mental Duality
Mental Duality
Everyone is familiar with the famous Rubin face-vase drawing, a black and white print in which one can simultaneously perceive faces by focusing on the black ink or a vase by focusing on the white. If I announce that this is a picture of a vase, am I right? However you announce you see a picture of two faces, are you right? Who’s right? Are we both right? Or are we both wrong? Is it right and wrong; good and evil? I believe neurobiological research, as well as personal anecdotal study; have demonstrated that dichotomous thinking, (mental duality) is an appropriate expectation for developing brains. However an evolved adult brain has developed the ability (free will) to reconcile their emotional reactivity with reality to understand that there are very few absolutes in life. The picture is both face and vase. You and I may only see one figure; however that does not mean the other does not exist. To see the truth one must integrate the entire picture, black and white, good and evil.
In studying Roger Sperry and A.L. Wigan’s work on mental duality, Roland Puccetti believed there were two people inside each human organism. By saying there were two people; Puccetti believed there were two minds with separate streams of consciousness that were therefore capable of separate volitions, or courses of action. Puccetti was attempting through science to justify dichotomous thinking, and therefore indirectly justify dichotomous concepts of good and evil. Critics of Puccetti often pointed to an introspective argument to counter his ideas. This argument was based on someone looking within oneself and realizing they had only one mind because they did not feel two streams of consciousness or separate volitions. This was based on the idea that at one exact point in time, a person seemed capable of realizing and reacting to only one stream of thought. Likewise, there was also a behavior-based argument to reject Puccetti’s hypothesis. This
Everyone is familiar with the famous Rubin face-vase drawing, a black and white print in which one can simultaneously perceive faces by focusing on the black ink or a vase by focusing on the white. If I announce that this is a picture of a vase, am I right? However you announce you see a picture of two faces, are you right? Who’s right? Are we both right? Or are we both wrong? Is it right and wrong; good and evil? I believe neurobiological research, as well as personal anecdotal study; have demonstrated that dichotomous thinking, (mental duality) is an appropriate expectation for developing brains. However an evolved adult brain has developed the ability (free will) to reconcile their emotional reactivity with reality to understand that there are very few absolutes in life. The picture is both face and vase. You and I may only see one figure; however that does not mean the other does not exist. To see the truth one must integrate the entire picture, black and white, good and evil.
In studying Roger Sperry and A.L. Wigan’s work on mental duality, Roland Puccetti believed there were two people inside each human organism. By saying there were two people; Puccetti believed there were two minds with separate streams of consciousness that were therefore capable of separate volitions, or courses of action. Puccetti was attempting through science to justify dichotomous thinking, and therefore indirectly justify dichotomous concepts of good and evil. Critics of Puccetti often pointed to an introspective argument to counter his ideas. This argument was based on someone looking within oneself and realizing they had only one mind because they did not feel two streams of consciousness or separate volitions. This was based on the idea that at one exact point in time, a person seemed capable of realizing and reacting to only one stream of thought. Likewise, there was also a behavior-based argument to reject Puccetti’s hypothesis. This