The title was borrowed from a talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh, in which he said "Buddha and Māra were a couple of friends who need each other — like day and night, like flowers and garbage. We have "flowerness" in us; we have "garbageness" in us also. They look like enemies, but they can support each other. If you have understanding and wisdom, you will know how to handle both the flower and the garbage in you. The Buddha needs Māra in order to grow beautifully as a flower, and also Māra needs the Buddha, because Māra has a certain role to play ...Mara didn’t understand. Ananda also didn’t understand. But the Buddha, he understood."
This post begins with a review of a paper whose topic is that of two minds, from a Buddhist perspective. One of these is a mind that reifies personal selfhood, the sense of being a controlling agent, someone who should receive special care and deserves to flourish far beyond the status quo. Without any moderating influences, this can metastasize into a wish for "universal possession." The other mind is that of the Bodhisattva, concerned with care and transformation. There are many parallels here with McGilchrist's work on the neurological instantiation of two qualitatively asymmetric orientations to the world. But this paper goes still further, pursing a highly inclusive line of thought with implications for diverse (artificial) intelligences in an animate cosmos. In this way it challenges prevailing ideas of carbon chauvinism.
First some background...
The magical realism of animism and AI has been described by successive waves of techno-optimists. Preceding the current wave were writers like Kevin Kelly. Today's wave includes Anil Seth, who loved Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, and Michael Levin, who has written letters to our future AI progeny, recalling predecessors like Marvin Minsky and Hans Moravec. After reading the papers described here (which Levin tipped me off to) I was reminded of a sci-fi character, a “space whale” named Gomtuu, who shares an emotionally rich symbiotic relationship in order to truly flourish (like myrmecophytes, but for people). I must admit that when it comes to these highly speculative futures, one could describe as many that are optimistic as those that are more pessimistic. For another example, see David Grinspoon’s "Intelligence as a planetary scale process." These find lyrical expression in Richard Brautigan's poem "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace," for perhaps, as Lovecraft wrote, "we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity." The history of scholarship on this topic is very extensive, and has been recounted elsewhere, so I won't linger on it here. Suffice to say, it goes back before the origin of AI development.
In posthumanist circles this topic is everpresent (see N. Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, Bayo Akomolafe, etc.). However, although not always or even widely recognized, there are at least two significantly different views upon these topics. And the reason these views are not often recognized is that they are usually conflated, and the specific distinctions with reference to AI are left ambiguous. Very recently, Jonathan Rowson wrote about a conversation between Dougald Hine and Vanessa Andreotti regarding these same themes. And again, insufficient attention was given to that distinction. The paper described below appears to be among the more substantive attempts at disambiguation, running parallel to the hemispheric analysis of Iain McGilchrist. This offers, for at least the first time that I’m aware of, a way to clearly articulate a “right hemispheric path” for AI development in contrast to the "blind by design" path it is currently on, and following upon that distinction, integrate it into a “whole brain” approach to artificial life in general.
And now the paper
The main paper discussed here is Doctor et al.'s "Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence" (2022) in which the authors "review relevant concepts in basal cognition and Buddhist thought," and in the process incorporate the central concerns of axiology.
First the authors define care as a quality of attention that can be distinguished from a physical description, a distinction "between the goal-defined light cone and a mere behavioral space light cone. While the latter merely defines the space of possible states in which an agent can find itself (defined by its position, speed, temperature, etc.), the [goal-defined] light cone... rather characterizes the maximum extent of the goals and aspirations of an agent, or in other words, its capacity for Care. ...The central concept in this new frontier is Care: what do these systems [networks that process information in morphospace] spend energy to try to achieve—what do they care about?"
The authors then redefine agency in terms of "care," an orientation to the world. The utility of this becomes more clear later, when we consider cases in which caring is absent or prevented. The first implication they draw out is the inclusion of non-organic agencies. This is made explicit: "How do we relate to “artificial” beings? It seems clear that such decisions cannot be based on what the putative person is made of or how they came to exist. What can they be based on? One suggestion is that they can be based on Care. What we should be looking for, in terms of gauging what kind of relationship we can have with, and moral duty we need to exert toward, any being is the degree of Care they can exhibit, either at present or as a latent potential, with respect to the other beings around them." They write "intelligence can be understood in terms of Care and the remedying of stress. Our discussion can, in this regard, be seen as resonant with the enactivist tradition, which describes selves as precarious centers of concern, as patterned variations of different forms of experienced selfhood, ranging from the notions of minimal self to embodied, affective, and socially extended/participatory forms of situated selfhood." In a subsequent paper they add "AI can be seen to display care of its own, and is hence not a mere tool for the expression of human care. In this way, neither AIs nor humans should be considered autonomous and self-sufficient loops in the world. Instead, AI can be better understood as a companion for humans—a constituent participant in the continuous, collective dance..." This would conform to the panpsychist perspective of all matter as having "agentic thrust" or some minimal intelligence.
The second implication of a caring orientation is the Buddhist awareness "that there is no singular and enduring individual that must survive and prevail [which] serves to undermine self-seeking action at the expense of others and their environment. Therefore, the evolving of intelligence that is aware of no-self — or if we want, intelligence that is no-self-aware — is also held to be intrinsically wholesome and associated with concern for the happiness and well-being of others. This claim—that simply understanding the irreality of enduring, singular agents can be a catalyst for ethically informed intelligence—is especially noticeable in Great Vehicle (Skt. Mahāyāna) currents of Buddhist view and practice that develop the idea of the Bodhisattva. ...the drive of a Bodhisattva is two-fold: as affectionate care... and as insight into things as they are... care and insight, are seen as standing in a dynamic relationship and are not separate in essence. Hence, as a model of intelligence, the Bodhisattva principle may be subsumed under the slogan, “intelligence as care”. In this way the authors establish that care is bound up with an awareness of impermanence and depends upon having insight into reality.
Having understood agency as care, which is in turn predicated upon an awareness of an ever-changing cosmos, we now know that earlier definitions of agency such as "the ability to control causal chains that lead to the achievement of predefined goals" are incomplete. And "the individual that may be assumed to exist as a singular, enduring, and controlling self" is fundamentally illusory. These are the sort of representation that McGilchrist's emissary is captivated by. They are described as "dream images, mirages, and other such traditional examples of illusion." What are the implications of holding such illusions? "From the perspective of a mind that in this way reifies personal selfhood, the very sense of being a subject of experience and a controlling agent of actions naturally and unquestionably implies that one is thus also someone who should receive special care and deserves to flourish far beyond the status quo."
We can now describe the implications of this contrasting orientation toward the world, which is based upon delusional premises such as these, where caring is absent or prevented. The authors write "The paths and end states of the wish for universal destruction or universal possession are easy to conceive of when compared to the Bodhisattva’s endless path of endless discoveries... If the Māra drive is in that way pure and all-encompassing evil, the Bodhisattva state is then universal benevolent engagement. How to compare such a pair of intelligences, both other-dependent and other-directed rather than “selfish” in the usual sense? Is one more powerful than the other, or do they scale up the same way in terms of the light cone model? Let us at this point simply note that the Māra drive seems reducible to a wish to maintain the status quo (“sentient beings suffer, and they shall keep doing so!”) whereas the Bodhisattva is committed to infinite transformation. If that is correct, the intelligence of the Bodhisattva’s care should again display decidedly superior features according to the light cone model, because a static wish to maintain what is—even if it is on a universal scale—entails far less measurement and modification than an open-ended pursuit of transformation wherever its potential is encountered."
McGilchrist's hemisphere hypothesis also posits two opposing orientations to the world that are qualitatively asymmetric. But it goes a step further in describing what a healthy relationship between them would look like (this has been explored by Buddhists as well, as noted above). The authors then speculate on what implications all this may have for the future of axiological design and diverse intelligences. Can we "create only beings with large, outward-facing compassion capacity, and at the same time enlarge our own agency and intelligence by acting on the Bodhisattva vow? ...Strategies that focus on implementing the Bodhisattva vow are a path for enabling a profound shift from the [explicit] scope of current AIs and their many limitations [to a] commitment to seemingly unachievable goals [of care]... However, progress along this path is as essential for our personal efforts toward personal growth as for the development of synthetic beings that will exert life-positive effects on society and the biosphere." In their subsequent paper they write "a natural way for humans to build technology must involve the development of a caring relationship with technology."
This concludes the main points of the paper. However there is also a discussion of some of the finer points. For example, why do "cognitive systems emerge according to this formalism from a hypothesized drive to reduce stress?" Where does the stress come from that there should be a drive to reduce it in the first place? This may be an ontological primitive, a coincidentia oppositorum of illusion/awakening, or Mara/Bodhi, each being part of a cosmic dance, in the same way that the Kabbalistic myth of the creation of the world posits a cosmic cycle of fracture/repair, and the Christian concept of kenosis does the same. All these cosmodicies point to a metaphysics of qualitatively asymmetric coinciding opposites. And cognitive divisions of the sort described here merely recapitulate them. The authors write "salient features of light cone formalism align well with traditional features ascribed to Bodhisattva cognition, so an attempt at delineating the latter in terms of the former seems both possible and potentially illuminating." To which I would only add that this extension also aligns well with McGilchrist's work in neurology.
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Symbiogenesis: Mutualism-Parasitism Continuum |
"What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the west?" - The Gateless Gate, case no. 37
"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." - Luke 12:48
"Love is a pure attention to the existence of the Other." - Louis Lavelle
Hannah Arendt wrote of what she called ‘the future man’ that he seemed possessed by ‘a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself’. Her observation prompts the question: Why would someone want to exchange what is given for what is made and can be controlled? Is this a consequence of an inversion in our preferred ways of attending and thinking? The answer becomes clear when we consider how we tend to respond when Plotinus asks us "But we - who are we?" Often enough today, a response that one may encounter is that we, as individuals that display "agency", derive this agency from our "ability to control causal chains that lead to the achievement of predefined goals." This appears to favor the mode of attention of the left hemisphere. In contrast to this response, one could provide a different view of agency, as being the capacity to care about that which cannot be explicitly controlled, involving an outward orientation to the world that focuses on our relationship with others. This is the opposing mode of attention foregrounded here. That connection between who we imagine ourselves to be, how we attend to the world as it is revealed to us, and the sort of lives we live is very profound.
Religious avatars/ archetypal figures, be they Jesus or Buddha, Mary or Guanyin, may be analogous to the way in which both mind and matter could be described as two "phases" of the same underlying prima materia. Atman is Brahman. Tat Tvam Asi. The contemporary postmodern understanding is only willing to go as far as this simple statement of equivalence. But there is much more going on here. And we must follow and go there. Importantly, these figures highlight an axiological or qualitative asymmetry, a moral and ethical component, such that they display love before hate, truth before lies, and compassion before neglect, denial, and indifference. They exhibit a courage of conviction, a very deep responsibility for their actions, a responsiveness to this sense of value and purpose, all the way to the extent that they come to embody these relational values at any and all cost to themselves and their transitory identities. This exceptional commitment to the hard work of ethical engagement with the world, without any recourse, is what characterizes their agency. As Bhikkhu Bodhi, one of Buddhism’s leading activists and scholars, wrote: "I’m not a moral absolutist. I don’t believe that anyone is perfect, that any position is flawless, but I do believe we have to draw clear moral distinctions, that we do have to reject the kind of limp ethical non-dualism favored by many Western Buddhists in favor of a clear ethical discernment that can grasp the moral dimensions embedded in a particular situation: the ability to see which side tends toward goodness and which side means danger."
We would be driven mad if we tried to conform our lives to the standard set by these avatars. But conformation isn't the point. Rather, we must recognize the difference that they draw our attention to... That much we can do. In broad strokes, these are the hemispheric differences highlighted by McGilchrist. And though the correspondence isn't complete, there's another comparision that can highlight what is being gestured to here. In Jungian terms, if Buddha is the "persona," then Mara is the "shadow" that we must neither fully indulge, nor completely ignore, an ever present companion within us. It seems to be that the heterodox philosophies and religions of today, the “minor” interpretations, are those that emphasize this best. Thich Nhat Hanh told of how the Buddha embraced Mara. In the Book of Job, Satan is in the presence of God in heaven, even participating in a heavenly council. And recall that John Arthur Gibson, former chief of the Seneca nation of the North American Iroquois confederation, told of how Taronhiawagon (He Grasps The Sky With Both Hands) never lets Tawiscara (Flint) drift too far from his awareness. There is no finalism, no resolution, but a fragile peace where the definite and infinite coincide... "He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars." (Blake) "The stars throw well. One can help them." (Eiseley)
There is that important question to consider regarding the relationship between the light cone of possible states and the light cone of care: do these display the characteristics of a paradoxically coinciding, mutually entailing asymmetry? According to McGilchrist's "neural parallax theory", they would need to do so in order to sustain a generative Hericlitean tension. We could modify Loren Eiseley's short story The Star Thrower to illustrate a three part pattern of oscillation involving presence, static re-presentation, and dynamic asymmetric integration:
"The stars," the Buddha said, "throw well. One can help them."
"I do not collect," Māra said uncomfortably, the wind beating at his garments. "Neither the living nor the dead. I gave it up a long time ago. Death is the only successful collector."
Later, on a point of land, a bodhisattva found the star thrower... and spoke once briefly. "I understand. Call me another thrower."
In the 2019 edition of The Master and His Emissary, McGilchrist wrote "We have created a world around us which... reflects the LH's priorities and its vision." Some people (or broadly speaking, agents) are going to be more easily caught within the positive feedback loops constructed between the left hemisphere and environments that mirror its priorities and vision, overwhelmed by this "Māra drive." And some will find it easier to remain within "Bodhisattva cognition," engaged in caring for others and an "expanding circle of empathy", as Peter Singer called it, which is a "light cone of care" by any other name. Buddhists speak of compassion or loving-kindness. Christians speak of love and other "fruit of the spirit." These are ontologically primitive values, that is to say, unexplainable in any other terms, and wholly outside of any utilitarian or consequentialist context. Some meditative practices, such as tonglen, are designed to expand our "circle of compassion" to encompass all beings. For another example, "helper theory" or the "helper therapy principle" is a well known phenomenon, particularly present in support groups like AA, whereby helping others helps oneself. This can produce a positive feedback loop for Bodhisattva cognition. It is notable that those engaged in this way are not primarily concerned with distinctions between self and no-self, or any labels, categories, or other identifiers. Such things are subsidiary to the much greater concern for providing care to others. With this orientation to the world firmly established, the left hemisphere is then able to get to work in its proper role as the servant of care, love, and an altruistic regard for others.
If expanding our circle of empathy and engaging in ethical, caring relationships with others is the goal here, then this brings me to a criticism: Why do so many spiritual gurus (at least in the West) become embroiled in scandals of sexual impropriety? Only the other day did someone recommend reading Culadasa's The Mind Illumined, and it wasn't long before I found out that he "admitted to being involved in a pattern of sexual misconduct." He apparently died about three years after this went public (I've noted that, apparently the social and psychological stress involved in these scandals does tend to hasten one's demise). So the question I'm wondering is, why would an expert on the "illumined mind" engage in unethical behavior? Could it be that the illumined mind Culadasa describes wasn't really Bodhisattva cognition, but rather a manipulative Māra drive in the guise of a Bodhisattva? What does Culadasa really have to say about care and compassion? Or for that matter, what do any of these other gurus say about it? Setting these scandals aside for the moment, if our capacity for care really is the central feature we should be addressing, then I think any program seeking to apply the hemisphere hypothesis would need to place that axiological consideration of care, empathy, or love (by any other name) at the core. If anything else, such as pragmatism (or illumination, though in truth I do not know to what that refers) is centered instead then it would be misguided.
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"In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of [Galadriel's] eyes?" |
What all this may suggest is that there are "twin attractors." On the one hand, the bodhisattva cognition is drawn toward expansive, compassionate care, which is perhaps best expressed through helping the minute particulars of life. Truly, this is the "infinite in the definite". But on the other hand, we must be keenly aware that such a beneficent motivation can be misappropriated by the Māra drive, and directed toward other ends, through contextual manipulation and post hoc rationalization. And thereby, despite our initial intentions, the fragile balance of these two asymmetric modes of attention, which accords priority to one distinct disposition over another, may be catastrophically inverted. So, if one is to be preserved whole (at least during our allotted time in the world) and be able to effectively respond to value and telos, then one must exercise some due caution in regard to attention hazards, as we navigate the contours of our cultural psychomachia. Regarding the misbehavior of gurus, I think that, like Icarus, those who would fly too close to the sun, and aspire to be bodhisattvas, are to that same degree vulnerable to temptation. The siren song of great goodness and great depravity is to some extent proportional. And that may place such people at increased risk if they fail to appreciate their true situation. And note the asymmetry here owing to a qualitative difference: while those who are good are keenly aware of and tempted by evil, those who are evil are by their nature blind to goodness and therefore, I believe, incapable of experiencing a corresponding temptation operating in the opposite direction. This awareness of possibility and the need for restraint is what makes virtuous behavior difficult to sustain. And perhaps by tempering our ambitions, whether that be by accident or design (wu wei), one might, counterintuitively, better achieve them.
The birds and the bees
“Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees…” - Jewel Akens (1964)
“Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage… you can't have one without the other.” - Frank Sinatra (1955)
McGilchrist has often explained the evolutionary origin of brain lateralization to be a consequence of predator and prey dynamics, where half of our neuroanatomy seeks out food while the other half is on the lookout so as not to become food: acquire and protect. But in light of the preceding discussion, I think we can suggest a different evolutionary story for lateralization. It may be a consequence of the polarity between eros and agape, create and care, "carnal desires" and "filial piety," or in the jargon of popular evolutionary terminology, between "sexual selection" and "parental care," though only if we understand each of these in a much broader sense. (One may also compare it to the "I-It" and an "I-Thou" relationship in Martin Buber's terms, though this is unhelpfully abstracted away from the evolutionary context. And this isn't just a recapitulation of the self/ nonself ontological
dichotomy, but a phenomenological difference of precisely the form
described by the hemisphere hypothesis. Yunkaporta's notion of a "custodial species" verges on the deontological.) These are both extremely important for the continuation of a species, but each involves different cognitive processes with corresponding strengths and weaknesses. Complimentary, but also pulling in separate directions. While carnal desires are metaphorically very similar to the predatory form of attention, and thus should require no further elaboration, the conceptual substitution of "parental care" for "prey" within the formulation provided by McGilchrist will require some explanation. As he proposed predator-prey trophic dynamics, I am proposing sexual selection-parental care dynamics as the twin attractors (or motivating teloi) of evolution.
Parental care is displayed to some extent by nearly all organisms. The name itself is something of a misnomer as affection may be bi-directional, extending from child to parent as well as parent to child, and across generations (see grandmother hypothesis). It unifies very broad, deep and enduring processes of investment, which are therefore layered and rich. This contrasts sharply with the immediate, intense, demanding nature of carnal desires. It is far easier to "hack" the cognitive processes associated with carnal desire using supernormal stimuli that "demand our attention." The unfortunate poster child for this is the beetle species Julodimorpha bakewelli. (I shall literally share an illustration of this, as pictures can be far better at conveying these sharply contrasting orientations.) Lastly, like predator and prey, carnal and filial are modes of attention that do need to operate simultaneously, with priority given to filial virtues in most cases if a conflict between them arises. Many animals would rather sacrifice themselves than fail to provide for their young. But in general, a species must be able to both procreate and secure the material means for reproduction, and also protect the very progeny thus produced. Consistent with the earlier explanation McGilchrist provides, these are sufficiently qualitatively different cognitive processes that they would benefit from neurological differentiation to support them in parallel. Evolutionary biologists such as Robert Trivers have tried to articulate some of the complex dynamics that this can give rise to (see "parent-offspring conflict"). It may seem almost cliché to say so, but in our contemporary culture, shallow carnal desires are overshadowing deep filial care, in so many words, because "sex sells."
It is best to think of this more as a refinement and conceptual expansion, than a replacement for the explanation provided by McGilchrist. It meshes better with the view from a "Third Way" (Denis Noble) or the Expanded Evolutionary Synthesis perspective. What do I mean by this? A "sexual/ carnal orienation" encompasess the more narrowly defined need to eat, but it also expands the idea to include all forms of resource acquisition, including the genetic or otherwise novel structural resources to realize the transformative potential of reproduction (which can also include theories of a fecund universe, such as the "meduso-anthropic principle" of Louis Crane). A "parental/ filial orientation" encompasses more than a need to preserve my own bodily integrity, but that of my offspring, my species, and potentially higher levels (to include ecosystems, or even the cosmos itself). The point here is to get to the heart of this, and while centering the narrative around trophic dynamics, as McGilchrist has, is conceptually simple, it is incomplete and needs to be "unfolded." (Interestingly, the Japanese terms 性淘汰 (sei sentaku) and 動物の子育て (dobutsu no kosodate) somewhat recall the dual pair "exclusive/ inclusive," and the corresponding hemispheric attributes of "either/or versus both/and" thinking.) There are many possible objections to my reformulation here. Firstly, while we all must eat and avoid being eaten or any other source of mortal injury, we are clearly not all parents. But here I would rejoin that these orientations are part of our biological inheritance, and subject to processes of evolutionary exaptation. In a highly social species, we are all alloparents. There's a very rich literature on the ethics of care to draw upon. And the dynamics of supernormal stimuli, which are particularly relevant in the context of sexual selection, offer similarly rich explanations. One may also note at this point that sexual selection is a particular instance of the more general "signal selection" (per Amotz Zahavi), which has long since superseded natural selection in importance, at least among humans, which could help explain "how we got stuck" (per Graeber and Wengrow) in a LH captured society. Synthesizing all this into a simple portable idea is very possible, as it can be united under the metatheoretical framework of the hemisphere hypothesis.
McGilchrist: “Nobody has put forward a better explanation of why these two neuronal masses should be what all creatures with brains seem to have. I think it's for a very important evolutionary reason: every creature has to solve the conundrum of how to eat and how to stay alive. Now that might not sound difficult, but actually if you're eating you have to catch something. While you're watching that, and totally focused on it, you're not seeing everything else. While you're busy getting what you want, there could be somebody else getting you! So you have to have another part of the brain that is ‘seeing the whole picture.’ That’s the right hemisphere. But not only does it see the broad picture, it even sees the stuff that the left hemisphere sees in detail… One aspect of survival is simply grabbing and getting, amassing stuff, utility, power. But the right hemisphere is looking out for everything else, offspring, mate, conspecifics, all these things, and looking for predators as well. So it sees this big picture. And the two kinds of attention produced two kinds of a world… A culture is an organism. A society is an organism. And it's not surprising that it reflects the ways of thinking of those who are the individuals in that society. Which explains why one can speak of a civilization having a tendency towards left hemisphere thinking at the expense of right hemisphere thinking.”
If we take a step back, this may be about the means-ends distinction. In the instance of "getting what you want" we may really be talking about a means. And the nearest evolutionary process that involves an analogous mode of cognition is “signaling theory.” A well known example of this is sexual selection, such as the tail of a peacock. In the case of avoiding "somebody else getting you" we may really be talking about ends using the language of means (infinite in the definite) because avoiding death raises existential questions about life. An evolutionary process that addresses this is parental care, such as the egg brooding of an octopus. Now, one may object that “care” is only a means. But that ignores the subjective experience of the caregiver, for whom providing care (that is appropriate and effective, whatever form that may take) is very often their raison d'etre. "The journey is the destination." And so the means-ends distinction, provided here with reference to several well known examples from sexual selection and parental care, may provide a better explanation for the initial bifurcation of the two neuronal masses. Now, were I to omit these or any other examples, this wouldn’t mean anything. Means and ends don't exist in and of themselves. They are abstractions. But what is real are the qualitatively different forms of attention that find unique expression within an evolutionary context. And we need a rich understanding of the ways in which all this manifests if we are to understand the broad implications for living systems.
Symbiogenesis: Mutualism-Parasitism Continuum
The evolutionary origin of brain lateralization has often been explained by McGilchrist to be a consequence of predator and prey dynamics, where half of our neuroanatomy seeks out food while the other half is on the lookout so as not to become food. This was recently laid out again in a conversation with Eric Metaxas. But if we take a further step back, this may be about the “means-ends” distinction. In the instance of solving the conundrum of “how to eat” we may really be talking about a means. And in the case of “staying alive” we may really be talking about ends, because avoiding death raises existential questions about life. I'd suggest that these could be thought of as manifesting in the polarities of “carnal desire" and "filial piety,” or more abstractly, eros and agape. In the jargon of popular evolutionary terminology, we can also point to examples such as "sexual selection" and "parental care," if understood in a broad sense. These dynamics are extremely important for the continuation of a species, but each involves different cognitive processes with corresponding strengths and weaknesses. Complimentary, but also pulling in separate directions. It may seem almost cliché to say so, but in our contemporary culture, shallow carnal desires (attention hazards) are overshadowing deep filial care (helper therapy principle), in so many words, which could help explain "how we got stuck" in a LH captured, devitalized society of deceptive semiosis. That's also the motivating question of Graeber and Wengrow's book The Dawn of Everything. Today we tell people what to attend to, and let others tell us what to attend to, but we could ask how we can help others, and ask others for help. And all this can be handily united under the metatheoretical framework of the hemisphere hypothesis.
A Psychomachia of Binary Oppositions:
Left & Right (neurobiological)
Means & Ends (abstract philosophical)
Māra & Bodhisattva (religious and mythic)
Possess/Control & Care/Compassion (agentic virtues)
Eros/Carnal & Agape/Filial (psychological virtues)
Sexual Selection & Parental Care (evolved behavior traits)Attention Hazard & Helper Theory (attentional dispositions)Parasitic/Deceptive/Coercive & Mutualistic/Translucent/Permissive (semioethics of symbiosis)
Doctor T, Witkowski O, Solomonova E, Duane B, Levin M. Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence. Entropy. 2022; 24(5):710.
Witkowski O, Doctor T, Solomonova E, Duane B, Levin M. Toward an ethics of autopoietic technology: stress, care, and intelligence. Biosystems. 2023; 231, Article 104964