One of the most remarkable series of experiments in neuroscience involves people whose corpus callosum has been severed. In these people, the two hemispheres of the brain do not communicate with each other. This allows researchers to test some theories about brain organisation. What they have found is that messages directed to the right hemisphere can remain unperceived by the left hemisphere. The human being can respond to the messages without the verbalising part of the brain, in the left hemisphere, being able to articulate the reason for the response, since it is unaware of the prompt. But here's the thing. Although the left hemisphere is wholly unaware of the prompt, it is totally convinced that it does know the reason for the action. Very plausible and coherent explanations are put forward. These are, an objective observer may conclude, complete fabrications. But apart from the existence of a secret truth known only to to the researchers and their subject's right hemisphere, the situation appears little different from any normal case where explanations for actions are offered.
The obvious conclusion, it seems to me, is that the verbalising left hemisphere generally seeks to integrate our actions into a coherent narrative. I simply refer to this automatic process as "the storyteller". The storyteller weaves perceptions of the world, pre-existing concepts and recently apprehended ideas into the story it is continuously telling, whilst we are conscious. In other words, we make it all up as we go along! The belief that we acted for particular reasons is persistent, perfectly plausible, but ultimately delusional.
Now, we should not conclude from this that our decisions are never rational. All we should conclude is that no matter how rational our decisions seem to be, our conviction that they are rational comes from the plausibility of our storyteller. In other words, decisions may sometimes be somewhat rational, but they are always rationalised.
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Well that would make some sense. However, as you said on my blog the other day there are intersections of heart vs. head etc. I think this make sense. Karl Weick calls this storytelling process "sense making". It's definitely the left brain in action IMHO. It's reasoning/not intuition as such.
You can shut down your intuitive side. It's easy enough to do... but what you get for that is a life filled with stories that don't make sense!
Many thanks for your comment, Luke. I agree that there is a lot of common ground between Weick's "sensemaking" and what I described as "storytelling". I'm not sure to what extent the differences arise from our different contexts: Weick' organisational versus my individual; is sensemaking the projection of storytelling into an organisational context?
Here's a case in point. I'm quite sure that storytelling is more general than sensemaking, that there is a feedback between storytelling and (to be defined) other mental processes, the result of which might more accurately be compared with sensemaking. It would, however, require a deal of storytelling and sensemaking to convert that presumption into a plausible conclusion. The simple fact remains, however, that the "conclusion" is the starting point. It is quite possible, of course, that my presumption will shift as (if) I try to justify it; that's the sign of an open mind!
The other important point you highlight is that storytelling does not occur in a vacuum. Our brains and bodies respond to the stories as they are being created. This is one of the intersections between head and heart. But that's a topic for another day. All I would say is that you cannot easily shut down your intuitive side, "you" can only disenfranchise it, to some extent. In other words, some input and feedback into the storytelling process may be blocked.
You have a good point. I think storytelling is possibly (individually) based on what I think should have happened as opposed to sense making which appears to us to be the case. The concept of storytelling involves narrative where I think that the sense making stuff is a reason that possibly forms part of a bigger narrative. Interesting stuff nevertheless.
Perhaps if we view sense making (head) as part of the story (heart) we can begin to find the intersection points!
Thanks again, Luke. You may find the next post an interesting development of the idea of the storyteller.
On the interactions between head and heart, I have little to say at this juncture. The role of the audience in the storytelling process is crucial, I would say. The storyteller seeks to satisfy all stakeholders, whether categorised as "head" or "heart". One view would be that "heart" reactions are attraction and aversion, whereas "head" reactions relate to coherence and plausibility.
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