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Psychological Illusions
 

Section III - Chapter 2

 
2.  The Dualities of Formatory Mind

and Formatory Psychology
   One of the most significant and least understood features of modern thought is the extent to which dualities pervade common thinking, as well as modern philosophy, psychology and science.  The tendency to think in two’s is a “self-element” in science;  a personal element which people unconsciously introduce into things which they think about.  Understanding thinking in twos is critical to appreciating the limitations of modern thought and the predominant scientific paradigm.  It also prepares us to grasp the idea of thinking in threes and sevens.
    P. Ouspensky (1957) describes dualistic thinking as a self-element in science- an example of “formatory thinking:”
"The mechanical part of the intellectual centre has a special name ... called the ... formatory apparatus.  Most people use only this part; they never use the better parts of the intellectual centre. ...  Formatory apparatus has very definite limitations.  One of its peculiarities is that it compares only two things, as though in any particular line only two things existed. ...  Another of its peculiarities is immediately to look for the opposite. ..." (pp. 63)
Formatory thinking is simplistic and dualistic, a lazy mental habit that blinds people to the full spectrum of existence.  People look for only two elements, two principles, two alternatives or two parts.  Unquestioningly, psychologists most frequently regard human beings ashaving only two parts, or existing simply in two states or under two conditions.
    Certainly, life appears to be pervaded by opposites:  the males and females,  good and  bad, positive and negative, up and down, with loves and hates, pains and pleasures, conscious and unconscious, rational and emotional, with a  mind and a body, all between life and death.   If that is not enough, we have the left brain and the right brain, science and pseudoscience, cause and effect, action and reaction, stimulus and response, input and output, in the binary age of 0 and 1, with subjects and objects, black and white, night and day, hot and cold, in and out, off and on, with good guys and bad guys, in the past and into the future, all made of matter and energy trapped within time and space, between being and non-being, on heaven and on earth, with spirit and matter, God and the Devil.  Life is full of opposites, or at least this is how people mechanically think about it, although we might wonder is this right or wrong?
    A Yin/Yang play of opposing forces seems to dominate our existence, when really it is characteristic of mechanical patterns of thinking.  Whenever people consider any subject of human discourse or academic science, they tend to uncritically embrace thinking in twos.  A serious study of philosophy, psychology and science immediately reveals the pervasiveness of dualistic thinking.  In modern psychology, discussions of human nature, consciousness, mind, personality and the self are hopelessly dualistic.  The most common tendency is to consider two sides to human nature,  two types of consciousness, two types of mind and two dimensions to the self.
    The central  duality of modern psychology is the view that  human beings have primarily two major parts: a mind and a body.  Psychology itself is most frequently defined as the science of behaviour and mind, and philosophers debate endlessly the mind/body duality.  There is the psyche (mind) and the soma (body).  Even if people ask, is there anything beyond the physical or material body, they consider it to be the metaphysical or immaterial soul to contrast with the physical and material.
    With reference to consciousness, the most common dualistic distinctions are between the conscious and the unconscious, waking and sleeping, being aware or  unaware.  Alternatively, other theorists discuss the differences between consciousness and awareness, or between consciousness and self consciousness.  At one symposium, the duality was between Consciousness I and Consciousness II, to differentiate the self-consciousness which humans can know from the basic consciousness shared with other living organisms. These dualities of consciousness are also tied into the dualities of the mind and self.  Psychologists almost always think that there are two modes of mental functioning -a conclusion based upon a hundred years of formatory psychological and philosophical inquiry, and decades of split brain research.
    There are two modes of knowing, two types of intelligence, two types of information processing,  two types of mind, and two cerebral hemispheres. In 1966, Ulrich Neisser, a major figure in the emergence of cognitive psychology, commented:
"Historically, psychology has long recognized the existence of two different forms of mental organization.  The distinction has been given many names: “rational” vs. “intuitive,” “constrained” vs “creative,” “logical” vs “pre-logical,” “realistic” vs “autistic,” “secondary process” vs “primary process.”  To list them together casually may be misleading ... nevertheless, a common thread runs through all of the dichotomies."  (p.297)
The historic tendency to conceptualize mental organization dualistically received a major boost with the modern split brain research.  Neurologists since H. Jackson (1864) have taken the left hemisphere to be the center for the faculty of expression, required for the analysis of language and speech formation.  In contrast, Jackson noted that a patient with a right hemisphere tumor “did not know objects, persons and places.” Since Jackson, neuro-physiologists have confirmed the localization of different mental faculties within the two cerebral hemispheres.  The left hemisphere is prominent in hearing and speaking language; while the right hemisphere is prominent in the perception or cognition of forms and sequences, as required in musical abilities, facial recognition, pattern recognition and so on.
    In modern split brain research, the corpus callosum which normally connects the right and left hemispheres is surgically severed.   This procedure helped to illustrate the varied functions of the two hemispheres.  This work fueled the imagination of three decades of psychologists and consciousness researchers, as there there seemed to be hard evidence to support the traditional dualities of the mind.  In this vein, Bakan (1978) explained:
"The left hemisphere mode (of thought) is described as symbolic, abstract, linear, rational, focal, conceptual, propositional, secondary process, digital, logical, active, and analytic.  The right brain is described as iconic, concrete, diffuse, perceptual, ap-propositional, primary process, analogue, passive and holistic. ... The two modes are antagonistic and complementary, suggesting that a unity and struggle of opposites is characteristic of mental functioning."  (p. 163)
    So many philosophers and psychologists formed their favorite dualities of the mind, that it was only a matter of time before all of these dualities were taken to refer to the same fundamental dualistic truth.  In 1972, Robert Ornstein published a popular and influential book entitled The Psychology of Consciousness.  A major theme was the duality of human consciousness and the differences between the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex:

"The recognition that we possess two cerebral hemispheres which are specialized to operate in different modes may allow us to understand much about the fundamental duality of our consciousness.  This duality has been reflected in classical as well as modern literature as between reason and passion, or between mind and intuition.  Perhaps the most famous of these dichotomies in psychology is that proposed by Sigmund Freud, of the split between the “conscious” mind and the “unconscious.”  The workings of the “conscious” mind are held to be accessible to language and to rational discourse and alteration; the “unconscious” is much less accessible to reason or to verbal analysis. ... There are moments in each of our lives when our verbal intellect suggests one course and our “heart” or intuition another." (pp. 74-5)
Dichotomania is this unthinking tendency to construe all phenomena in dualistic terms and then to superficially equate these dualities.  Dichotomania  leads to confusion and babel.  Is the heart really in the right hemisphere, along with passion, intuition, and, the unconscious?  Certainly a long list of philosophers and psychologists have taken a dualistic approach to the mind and to consciousness studies.  Unfortunately, this reflects not the dualistic nature of reality but the dualistic thinking of the formatory apparatus of the scientists of new formation.
  Gurdjieff explains that one must overcome such tendencies to think in ones and twos:
“Our principle error is that we think we have one mind.  We call the functions of this mind ‘conscious;’ everything that does not enter this mind we call ‘unconscious’ or ‘subconscious.’  This is our chief error.  Of the conscious and the unconscious we will speak later.  At this moment I want to explain to you that the activity of the human machine, that is, of the physical body, is controlled, not by one, but by several minds, entirely independent of each other, having separate functions and separate spheres in which they manifest themselves.  This must be understood first of all, because unless this is understood nothing else can be understood.”  (1949, p. 54)
    Mystical and occult teachings provide more complex principles to replace the dualities of formatory thinking and psychology.   In particular, the laws of three and seven allow for a more differentiated view of human nature, which includes a heart and soul.
 

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