In the name of God

He may hasten his re-appearance

Reasoning Using Both Sides of the Brain

Abstract:

This paper is aimed at introducing the role of the right hemisphere in improving our reasoning. It is
argued that we do not dismiss the atomic energy just because it has a destructive power, we should
equally not ignore the power of emotions in our fact-finding journey. Emotions can be used and
controlled by a zigzag movement between two parts of the brain. This process is shown to be
successfully possible using De Bono's lateral thinking idea. Moreover, in order to explain our thesis,
we have used and modified the model introduced by Popper. But the soul of this work has been
inspired by the work of Ayatullah Sadr who introduced the Subjective Certainty in justifying
Induction. As a result, the role of religions, and generally, faith in the reasoning is touched upon.

Introduction:

An increasing number of researchers are getting concerned that not only we use half of our brain,
but the whole system of thinking has also been exposed to malfunction because of that. In order to
give a glimpse of the difference between two parts of the brain and how they reason, an example is
given here. Left brainers reason as this: We should not smoke because it is dangerous to our health.
But right brainers see things differently. They say: I do not like losing you if you smoke. It might be
dangerous to your life. In another example, left-brainers define a circle as an entity that has equal
distance to its centre from all its points. But right brainers say we like the circle because its points
have equal distance to their focal (loved) point.

In this paper, the writer does not want to write about how the two hemispheres of our brain express
their work. The scope of this paper is limited to show how we can use the combination of both sides
in order to improve our reasoning and more emphasis is given on how to avoid the pitfalls that are
available in each side. The aim is to take readers out of the realm of the abstract world of logic and
into the pragmatic world of human experiences. It is a matter of common sense reasoning.

The role of emotion on our reasoning is not new but it not discussed fully as it should be. David
Goleman, a writer, and journalist wrote a book called "Emotional Intelligence, why it should matter
more than IQ" more than a decade ago and it was so successful that it became a best seller book for
three consecutive years! This shows the extent the American public believed in this matter more
than our scientists.

Those who use the mechanism used by the left hemisphere of our brain (I call them left brainers) are
concerned with ‘I am right, you are wrong' strategy. They want to find something solid they call it
truth and the only truth. But the funny thing is that the same people who want to prove they are
right, are advocates of scepticisim. This is a paradox. While those who use the mechanism of the
right hemisphere of our brain (I call them right brainers) use some sort of internal experience for
their search for truth. It is worth mentioning that if the causal effect of truth is considered, then we
should note that the irrational ideas and emotions have equal (if not more) causal effects in our
world.
Popper, the contemporary thinker who has new ideas in this filed, claims the three most important
things that make us human are: compassion, the consciousness of our fallibility, and our ability to
correct (or at least improve) that fallibility by rational criticism. His line of thinking is simple:
Products of our mind have a causal effect on us and on our environment, therefore, they are real
and at the same time, they could be falsified. This type of thinking, as well as almost all his
arguments, is the work of our left hemisphere. But he was a human with a consciousness. He also
had to have some right-hemisphere thinking. For example, he admits that we can have internal
experiences and says: We can distinguish, if we wish, fully conscious experience from dreams. The
last statement is the work of our right hemisphere.

In this paper, our aim is to expand the work of Popper by introducing the abilities of the right brain
in reasoning. So, we touched upon the problem of left-brainers and how they have missed an
important issue which could be developed by the right brain only. In section 3, after discussions
made on the solution given by Popper, we give a glimpse of differences in our brain's two
hemispheres. In section 4, we look at the main ingredient of our reasoning which is Induction.

My central thesis is that we have limited knowledge and we want to improve the results of our
reasoning in any way we can. So, we have to be realistic and see who we are (as pragmatics do) and
not what we are designed to be (as idealist suggest). Here, the writer wants to emphasis on the fact
that most scientists have shut their eyes to the obvious: The very fact that we can ‘lie' or ‘close our
eye to a fact' for that matter, tells us that human thoughts are products of our ‘will'. The role of our
volition in our reasoning is rarely discussed. Yet it is argued that the main problem in our reasoning
comes from this fact.

In other words, we have partial knowledge from the world around us. But at the same time, we have
something inside us that gives us the feeling of reality. Otherwise, we would never use the results of
any scientific work, do not fly by plane, do not board a ship or even do not cross a road fearing to be
hit by a car. But the problem goes beyond that. If we did not have faith in our teachers or scientists,
we would have never learned anything or do anything for that matter. From a reasoning point of
view, it is argued that the starting point of any reasoning is faith in something. And by faith, I mean
believing in something we have no knowledge of. In science, we call it assumptions, hypothesis,
supposition, premises, postulates, etc.

Since the creation of the science of logic by Aristotle, we have become more or less left brainers. The
work of the right brain (psychology and emotion) has been considered notoriously wild, un-
predictive and in most cases illogic. So, the consensus was to drop it altogether. In my humble
opinion, this was the greatest mistake of science and even knowledge. But all of us have the right
hemisphere and are affected by its working, even if we believe in it or not. It is true that it can
produce unwanted results, but putting our heads in the sand does not solve the problem.

In response to it, we argue that the result of any reasoning is a product of our ‘will'. And by ‘will' we
mean the ability to accept or refuse the facts. Have you asked yourself how on earth can we put a
close eye on a fact if we do not have the Freewill power? And if we accept that, we have to admit
that all our thought products are subjected to a deceiving agent because simply a freewill can
choose wrongly as well.

Popper tried to prove that our thoughts are not mere subjective things in our mind, they can be
represented in the outside world as well. He knew that we could not judge anything subjective, but
when it came out of the bearer's mind, then it is in our world and then we can criticise it. This by
itself proves that ideas or thoughts expressed by thinkers are products of them and therefore, are in
the realm of ‘actions'. We go further and argue that those statements that have been considered for
long as superstitions, believes, supernatural discussions, etc. can also be brought out of subjective
minds into the outside world. In fact, the right hemisphere which is the birth place of these thoughts
is in constant contact with the outside world and communicates in actions. Therefore, if we properly
study human emotional behaviour, we can criticise what is in his/her right hemisphere. One such
field is called NLP (Neural Language Programming). It has got momentum in recent years and is
getting increasingly popular.

1) Reasoning or Revealing?

Although the reasoning is not restricted to human beings only, it has been much more developed in
us. Yet, we do not know how it works and what are its strengths and weaknesses. We expect some
sort of reasoning when we talk to a dog, cat, donkey or any domesticated animal. And they do
respond more or less to our requests. But when it comes to communicating and reasoning with
members of our own species we face real problems. Even in most basic concepts such as being,
matter, God, creation, time, etc. we have not yet come to a common term within the human race.
We feel simply that there should be some reasons for this problem. But even on this last statement,
we cannot be sure. Who says and on what basis that we all should have the same type of reasoning
and why the outcome of our thinking should be unique? We are really on a fluid ground (or water
logic as De Bono puts it) not a solid one when it comes to our ability to think and reason.

So, what should we do? Should we do something at all? If we contemplate a bit on this question (to
do something or not to do anything!) we might start from a better position. What makes us feel that
we need to do something? There is something in all of us. That is to say, those who contemplate.
Unfortunately, we have brothers and sisters who do not want to think. Let us ignore this group for
the time being and come back to our question of what makes us feel an urge to finding a solution for
our reasoning problem?

Well, before we can say anything or argue any theory, we need to agree on some sort of crude
reasoning at first. You see, this is the real problem. In order to argue on anything, we need to use
reasoning and in order to be sure that the latter is acceptable, we need to reason for it! There is a
catch 22 (chicken and egg paradox) here: There is a loop that starts with questioning the reasoning -
> use reasoning to answer it -> question the reasoning (back to where we stared). Yet we feel it
without having a problem. I mean we feel that there should be a solution for our reasoning problem
without having the same feeling for the paradox. In other words, if the paradox was there, accepted
by a source within ourselves, we should not have the feeling we have for the question at hand. I am
sorry for repeating myself, but I think this is a crucial element on what I want to convey: There is
another source apart from language that can help us. There is something within ALL of us that can be
tapped to break the loop.

I am using language to convey my message, yet we can refer to something different that cannot
speak and has no language. Since that thing is within all of us, we can refer to it directly. But each
person has to do it himself. Nobody and no argument can stimulate that part. It is really an
independent body that listens to us (that is the language side) and responds in its own way. It has
different names. Some call it consciousness; some call it gut-feelings; some call it faith; some use
other words such as assumptions, hypothesis, instinct, etc. I call it the right hemisphere. The very
fact that we do not have a commonly accepted name for it proves my point: We have looked
somewhere wrong in finding a solution to our reasoning.
Let us touch upon the main problem of induction by asking the following psychological question:
How is it that nevertheless all reasonable people expect and believe that instances of which they
have had no experience will conform to those of which they have had experience? Or in other
words, why do we all have expectations, and why do we hold on to them with such great confidence
or such strong belief?

Hume's answer to this psychological problem of induction was: Because of 'custom or habit'; or in
other words, because of the irrational but irresistible power of the law of association. We are
conditioned by repetition; a conditioning mechanism without which, Hume says, we could hardly
survive. So, even Hume admits that the way we think is a result of interference of our psychology on
our reasoning. Hume, like Aristotle, and so many philosophers before and after them, simply
dismissed this result and request us to drop the results of our right thinking because it is not thinking
but rather guessing.

Along with the history of thinkers, we have two schools of solutions in order to respond to the above
question. One school stuck to the language and tried to express the other one in linguistic terms.
They tried to define not only materialistic things but every human feelings and emotion using words.
These are philosophers. The other school dismissed the language altogether and stuck to inner
feelings. We call them mystics (or Sophie). They convey their messages by acts and asceticism. No
reasoning per se is done among these groups. They just perform and learn and teach by their
performances and actions. The message (the reality of the world) is not communicated among them
but is conveyed by directly connecting each person to the common source of knowledge whoever or
whatever it is.

So, there are two types of connections, one that connects people to each other using language as a
media between them, and the other one uses the asceticism to connect directly each individual to
the source of knowledge. Both schools claim that they can correct their reasoning perfectly. The first
group corrects their knowledge by collaborating between their fellow beings and the second group
refines the knowledge they obtain directly from the source by enhancing their acts. But as we all too
well know, we are not living in a perfect world. Data gets lost in its way from one person to another
and there are a lot of impurities among mystics. In reality, we have a mixture of the two schools.
There are philosophers who have tried to convey the transcendental approaches (such as Plato,
Mulla Sadra, and Heidegger), and on the other side, there is Sophie who speaks and writes about
spiritual journeys (such as Jalaluddin Rumi and Peter Kingsley). If these two groups were truly
disconnected from each other, then we would not have any faith, intuition, or insight among
philosophers and in general any sort of mixed or new ideas; as well as a truly silent world among
mystics.

In the real world, members of the first school (left brainers) get their real/useful information from
those individuals who have had a direct experience with the source of knowledge (call it intuition, a
moment of ‘Ah!', or just a guess) and have also been able to communicate them somehow to others.
A similar situation has happened to people in the second camp (right brainers). Among them there
were people who not only grasped some real data from the source, they were able in
communicating them to others by speaking (giving sermons, lectures or just pieces of advice) or by
writing in detail about their experiences. If there were not a mixture of two classes the situation
would have been very different.

Let us break the loop. Let us be pragmatic and avoid radical skepticism. When you look at a mirror,
you see two bodies: one in front of the mirror and one behind it. Which one is the real one? How are
you going to reason? The left brainer says I can ask another person to tell me which one is real. If we
both agree on me being real and the one behind the mirror is the imaginary one, then we have
reached a conclusion. Of course, if we ask more people, the reasoning becomes stronger and better.
But the problem is overlooked here: Who says that the other person you are asking is not an image
in your brain like in a dream? In order to break the loop, we go to the right-brainers. They claim you
have the power to feel which one is real and which one is just an image. Now it is time for the left
brainer to be sceptic and ask: What makes you be sure of this result? Here, there is something at
work that we cannot put it in any language-based literature. Here, there is something at work that is
as certain as you can get. We have an internal referee that can tell us what is certain, what is not. It
is an independent body with access to every human being. It is called the Intellect. We will discuss it
very briefly in section 8.

So, the solution given here is to start from somewhere in the right brain, then use critical reasoning
of the left in order to identify and separate all those false certainties that we think we are certain of.
At the same time denying this fact is equal to denying everything, we can get. I mean there would be
no point in pursuing any reasoning (or even any discussion for that matter) if we deny having such a
reference within us. So, if you find it in your common sense, then continue reading; otherwise please
stop reading since it is not written for the only left brainers!

2) Popper's Three Worlds

In search of reality and how our mind can change it, Karl Popper introduces a new type of reality. He
starts his argument by saying that both the materialist monist and the dualist (who believe in the
existence of both matter and mind) seem to be bound to say that there is nothing objective about a
work of art. Popper wanted to find a way to rationally criticize a work of art or any other product of
the human mind for that matter. Since he thought criticism of human mind products is of the
greatest importance. In order to make his point clearer for us, he introduced 3 different distinctive
worlds. The whole realm of being, the natural and physical world, lies in the world 1 (W1). This is the
world we believe to be there out of our minds. Each individual has access to this world via his/her
senses. This world exists in its own time. We have access to it for one moment of this time only but
all the time!

The second world (W2) is the world that exists in our minds. The subjective content of each
individual's cognitive and emotive apparatus falls within this world. This world is unique for each
person since it is confined to his/her own mind only.

And finally, the space that contains ALL publicly available products of human interaction with reality
(theories / world-views / concepts) lies in the third world (W3). W3 contains entities such as our
theories, moral principles, legal codes, blueprints and plans of all technological products, music,
poetry, religious, philosophical, and other types of ideas, etc.

In order to argue his point (that W3 is as real as W1 and can cause change to our world), Popper
says: "If the universe consists only of concrete physical world 1 objects, or of world 1 objects and
concrete world 2 experiences, but not of abstract objects such as great books or great theories or
great symphonies – then all talk about such objects must be fictitious." In other words, are we
thinking in a real world or when we discuss everything around us we are doing something fictitious?
He then reinforces his point by saying: "Objectivity of the world 3 comes from the fact that it
stimulates (causes) people to think." Indeed, the world 3 consists of products of the human mind;
that is the products of world 2. As a result, it can make quite unexpected discoveries. So, it is real.
Popper admits that many objects belonging to world 3 belong at the same time also to the physical
world 1. A book is in world 1 because you can burn it and produce energy, but it is in world 3
because the writings in it can guide a mind to something new. Moreover, he adds that W3 theories
must always be grasped or understood by a mind before they lead to human actions, and to changes
in our physical world. There is another important difference between W1 and W3. While W1 is
happening moment by moment, therefore it has a time dimension; W3 is a timeless object and
remains there regardless of what happens to W1 or time. As a result, we can travel in time if we are
in W3 but we cannot travel in time for objects in W1.

As one can see, Popper wants to solve the problem of induction (discussed in section 5 below) by
bringing us out of the scepticism and take us to the pragmatic world. The reality in his view is equal
to what can cause a change in the world. So, even when we can call the W3 as a virtual world, he
calls it real. I agree with this approach. But we need to enhance the worlds of Popper by breaking
them in sub-universes as follows.

First of all, the real world needs to be divided into two categories: a world of laws that govern the
material world. We call it W1a. In Islamic literature, this world is called " ‫ "ملكوت‬which literally means
‘kingdom'. The second half is the actual materials and effects that we see and interact with. We call
it W1b. In Islamic literature, this world is called "‫ " ُملك‬which literally means ‘property'. We cannot
change W1a, but our aim is to know it as accurately as possible because in that way we can control
the world around us and that is the objective of science. What we can change and is changed by our
thoughts and decisions (W2) lies within W1b.

The next division comes from the way our brain works. We have two hemispheres in our brain that
work differently. This is discussed in the next section. The right hemisphere is directly connected to
W1 and the left hemisphere is the source of ideas and theories which are generated in W3.
Therefore, W2 should be divided into two parts. We call the results of the right hemisphere as W2r,
and what is produced in the left hemisphere as W2l. We will discuss the difference between W2r
and W2l in the next section.

But what is more important is the way W3 is produced. Popper and his disciples have overlooked the
fact that the contents of W3 are not produced automatically from W2. Here, our volition or will is
highly at work. For those who do not see any connection between our will and our ideas, are advised
to read a paper written by William James at the beginning of the last century titled "The Will to
Believe". In fact, World 3 is a product of human will and therefore, is affected by both his/her
emotions and decisions. This subject is discussed in section 6.

Moreover, in order to have better classifications, we can divide W3 into several sub-universes. Since
W3 is affected by our subjective mind, it is not universally accepted by all of us. That is why we use
different terms for our W3 products in science. Some of them are Conjecture, ideas, hypothesis,
theory, rule, law, fact. They have increasing strength in terms of being tested and survived the reality
check. Therefore, W3 is not a unique world for all of us as W1 is. This is because W3 is produced
after several modifications made by several W2s and modifications made to W3 itself. In fact a new
content in W3 is modified by a circle of W3 -> W2r -> W2l -> W2r (of the same person) -> W3 -> W1b
-> W2r (of another person) -> W2l -> W2r (of the second person) -> W1b -> W3 … loop.

For example, when someone has a new theory (which is in his W2l), he expresses it in a form of
formula, writing, lecture or similar action. This will make it part of W3 which is part of W1b too. Then
this formula is studied by someone else, which means it enters another person's W2r and will be
processed by his W2l and will be responded back to W2r to give his reaction to the formula. The last
action will be in W3 as well as W1b too. This loop between these two people continues until they
agree on it with or without modifications. It is at this stage that this information is available to the
public but still it is not agreed by everybody.

In order to show our point graphically, we may ask several people to draw a sketch of a man. Fig. 1
shows three such drawings. All sketches in Fig. 1 belong to W3 and convey the same message (figure
of a man), but they are different as well because they are affected by W2 of different individuals
who had a certain affinity to a shape. One person who sees everything in curved shapes draws a
sketch of the man as in Fig.1a. Fig.1b shows that the person in charge liked everything in triangular
form and Fig.1c similarly indicates the W2 of this person was full of squares.

a b c

Fig. 1: A man is drawn by different people.

It seems that we need to modify Popper's worlds even further. The W1 is not all the reality. We
should say that W1 belongs to those realities that could be comprehended by us. For example, W1a
is a world in which reality is there but we cannot understand it. However, we may feel the data
available in W1a somehow (through direct connections to the right hemisphere, the unconscious
part of our mind). As we can see in section 3 (right and left brain) below, our right brain can
comprehend many aspects of life and the outside world but we cannot explain it or comprehend it.

In order to reduce the confusion, I suggest a new numbering with a new prefix S for Space.
Accordingly, the space of understanding will be divided as follows:

S1 (W1a): The truly real world (in my definition). This world is totally independent of our mind and
cannot be changed by our will/worldview/ emotion or whatever to do with us. The aim of science is
to know this world as much as we can.

S2 (W1b): The world out there that has been affected by our intentions. This is the material world.
This is the world that can be affected by our minds. But we have access to it for a moment only
albeit all the time.

S3 (W2r): This space is made of products of our brain's right hemisphere. It is full of empathy but is
very wild. It is in direct contact with all other spaces. It can notoriously go wrong, but it can be
trained and tamed by ingredients of all other spaces. This space is the source of intuition and
generally provides us with new ideas but some of these new ideas are not compatible with the
reality of S1.

S4 (W2l): This space is made of products of our brain's left hemisphere. S4 is the birth place of logic.
It is the controller that in the first place prunes the outcomes of S3 but also controls the outcomes of
S5 (other people's ideas). But eventually, it is this space that makes the right decisions. Almost all
our scientific work is the result of proper usage of this space.
S5 (W3a): Whatever comes out of our brain's right hemisphere in the form of art, poems, writing,
painting, etc. This space is located in the world outside our minds but the main difference between
it and S2 is in being timeless. S2 is of substance type and S5 is in fact essence (virtual). It reflects
what we think and others think. It is this space that needs to be purified as much as we can.
Moreover, it is by using this space that we all try to dominate others and make them follow us in its
contents.

S6 (W3b): Works, sayings, and even stands of Sages (those who claim to have some sort of
intuition/light/ revelation). It also contains highly regarded physical and scientific laws. This space
should be considered sacred: give them priority to our new conjectures/understandings/ theories. If
there is a contradiction between items in this space with those of S3, S4 or S5, we should have a lot
of critically acclaimed contradictions before we drop items in S6.

Based on the above classifications, our aim will be to understand S1 by changing the contents of S4
continuously. In doing so, we should start with the contents of S6, apply it to S2 and critically test it
using S3 and S4. In doing so, S5 will be our scratchpad. Somewhere that everybody has access in
order to modify, nullify or criticize it. Fig. 2 shows the relationship between these spaces.

W1

W3

W2

Fig. 2: Relationship between proposed Spaces

3) Right & Left Hemispheres of the Brain

The right hemisphere of our brain is the accelerator and the left hemisphere of our brain is the
steering wheel of our thinking car. If we lose the right hemisphere we cannot make any new ideas
and focus on things that do not make any sense. And if we lose the left hemisphere we make all
sorts of nonsense assumptions.

The asymmetry of the right and left hemispheres of the human brain has been known for more than
a century. However, due to the advancement in neurological technologies, many aspects of these
differences have been documented. For example, Iain McGilchrist refers to more than 500
researches in which some sort of difference between right and left hemispheres has been
observed.McGilchrist, Iain, The Master and his Emissary, 2012

Michael Gazzaniga is another author and researcher in this field. His work under the term ‘Split
Brain' is well-known research. The main difference between these two hemispheres from the scope
of this paper is the way they behave in reasoning. The right hemisphere creates new ideas directly
from senses but the left hemisphere chops the idea in small details and drops those of them that are
not logically correct or compatible with what we know. However, in order to get familiar with these
hemispheres, I have copied some of the well-known works in this field.

The brain is made of two hemispheres, joined by a structure called the corpus callosum which
contains nerve fibers that continuously exchange signals between the right and left hemispheres.
Some individuals have suffered more or less complete damage to the corpus callosum, either
because of a stroke or because of a surgical operation. These subjects are invaluable to
neurobiologists because it is possible to interrogate the right and left hemispheres separately, see
how differently they think, and then piece this information together to reconstruct the thought
patterns of normal individuals. The problem with attempting to "talk" to both hemispheres is that
language is controlled by the left one, the only hemisphere that can articulate things. Fortunately,
the right side can still "respond" to interrogations by virtue of its control over the motor functions of
the left half of the body, including the arm and hand.

In a wonderfully elegant experiment, a group of researchers led by Michael Gazzaniga at Dartmouth

College showed pictures to the right and left hemispheres of a split-brain patient and then asked
each hemisphere to pick another picture to accompany the one originally presented (See Fig. 3). The
right side was shown (through the left half of the visual field) a house with snow and, logically
enough, it picked a shovel. The left hemisphere was shown a chicken leg (through the right half of
the visual field), and it picked a chicken head-also quite logically. The experimenters then verbally
asked the patient to explain his choices. The left hemisphere was the only one that could articulate
an answer, but remember-it did not know why his right counterpart had chosen a shovel since the
information about the house with the snow did not cross the severed corpus callosum. The patient's
answer was as astounding as illuminating: "Oh, that's simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken
[which was true], and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed [which was coherent, but
completely false]." In other words, the left hemisphere fabricated a reasonable story to fit all the
available data!

Fig. 3: The Split Brain experiment by Gazzaniga

http://www.intropsych.com/ch02_human_nervous_system/02splitbrain.jpg

Since we do not want to explain the whole differences of functions carried out in the left and right
hemispheres, we just indicate some of the differences that are more relevant to this work. Some of
the differences in the reasoning functions of the right & left brain are as follows (page numbers refer
to the source of citation: The Master and his Emissary):

Greek physicians in third century BC held that the right hemisphere was specialised for perception
and the left hemisphere for understanding (p16)
each hemisphere apparently adopts its own strategy, the left hemisphere uses a "local" strategy –
grouping the images according to particular features while the right hemisphere relies more on
‘global' strategy (p27 )

the right hemisphere has a longer working memory (p43 )

The right hemisphere, with its greater integrative power, is constantly searching for patterns in
things. In fact, its understanding is based on complex pattern recognition (p47)

The right hemisphere understands from indirect contextual clues, not only from an explicit
statement, whereas the left hemisphere will identify by labels rather than context (e.g. identifies
that it must be winter because it is ‘January', not by looking at trees) (p49)

The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of abstraction (p50)

The right hemisphere's version is more global and holistic, … the left hemisphere identifies single
features that would place the object in a certain category in the abstract (p52)

The right hemisphere's view of the world, in general, is construed according to what is of concern to
it, not according to objective impersonal categories, and therefore, has a personal quality (p54 )

The right hemisphere priorities are about: Whatever actually is, and what concerns us. (p56)

Some types of reasoning are dependent on the right hemisphere. More explicit reasoning is
underwritten by the left hemisphere (p65 )

Right Brain is the silent one and all talking are done by the Left hemisphere.

While syntactical understanding is more impaired in left- hemisphere-damaged children, actual

lexical understanding is worse impaired by right- hemisphere damage. (p71)

It is the area around the fusiform gyrus of the right hemisphere that is dominant for an unconscious
reading of the facial expressions. (p 71)

Those with left- hemisphere damage are actually better at detecting a lie .. (p 71)

Things that are value-laden for me, because of their place in "my" world, are salient to the right
hemisphere, a consequence of its concern for what has personal meaning. (p 72)

The ability to compare duration in time is clearly better performed by the right hemisphere (p 76)

The left hemisphere is concerned with what it knows, where the right hemisphere is concerned with
what it experiences (p 78)

The left hemisphere is ever optimistic, but unrealistic about its short-comings. (p 84 )

The conscious sense of self is more dependent on the right hemisphere, whereas the objectified self,
and the self as an expression of will, is generally more dependent on the left hemisphere. (p 87 )

The right hemisphere processes unconscious emotional material. Whereas the left hemisphere is
involved in the conscious processing of emotional stimuli. (p187)

EEG Coherence data points to the predominance of the right hemisphere in dreaming. (p188)

McGilchrist concludes: I believe the essential difference between the right hemisphere and the left
hemisphere is that the right hemisphere pays attention to the others, whatever it is that exists apart
from ourselves, with which it sees profound relations. .. By contrast, the left hemisphere pays
attention to the virtual world that it has created … (it) knows itself.

4) Six hats of De Bono

Dr Edward de Bono has degrees in medicine and psychology. He lectures extensively on how to
think. He has written over 60 books on applying how we think to creativity and lectured on how to
improve creativity to employees of several blue-chip companies. It is worth mentioning that
companies are willing to pay him tens of thousands of Dollars for each lecture. In one of his early
works, he introduced 6 coloured hats. Hats were a metaphor for how we think. When we put on a
blue hat, for example, we should think about how to organise things. These hats are:

Blue: How are we going to organise and manage our task at hand

White: Considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?

Red: Look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion.

Black: Apply pure logic to identify what might not work.

Yellow: Use optimistic viewpoints to help you think positively.

Green: Creatively apply ideas of provocation and investigation to see where your thoughts go.

Interestingly, half of the above hats belong to the left hemisphere and the other half to the right
hemisphere. The ones that belong to the right-brainers are White, Yellow and Red (all bright
colours). These are hats that are usually overlooked in our thinking strategies and de Bono insists on
reviving them. The other darker colours (Black, Blue & Green) are controllers. We are usually familiar
with them. This is because left-brainers have dominated our scientific society for the last two
centuries and we need to revive the right side of our brain as well.

There is no rule on how to mix the above thinking procedures but the most common one starts with
blue and continues as follows: Blue -> Red -> Green -> Yellow -> Black -> White. As you can see, this
is a zigzag movement between the left and right hemispheres and this is the way these two
hemispheres co-operate in order to produce better and creative thoughts. But if we look a bit
deeper, we see that the process starts with the right hemisphere, have a zigzag process and ends in
the right hemisphere as well. The first step is our faith in the process. If we do not believe in de Bono
and his hat system we would not try it in the first place. Faith and trust is the first building block in
any thinking structure.

Therefore, we can summarise the changing hat system of de Bono as follows. First, we start from the
right hemisphere by believing in his method. Then we use the left hemisphere to organize our
methodology and what we are going to do i.e. first nominate the main elements of the thing at hand
and then put all of them in their place and order (blue hat). Then we go to the right hemisphere
again in order to broaden our scope by using full thrust of our emotions and wild ideas as well as
connections between those elements (Red Hat). Now it is time for the left hemisphere to prune the
branches of our thought that are too segregated or un-related to the whole (Green Hat). At the end
of this round, our thoughts should have been aligned to one or more directions and we would know
where we are going. It is time to use the specialty of the right hemisphere (hope and positive
thinking) in order to widen these adopted branches and see what else / new we can get from these
directions (Yellow Hat). The loop between right and left continues until the differences are minimal.
At this stage, the left hemisphere makes the final corrections. It takes out anything which is deemed
illogical and makes it perfectly adoptable to all other information we have (Black hat). For example,
in one quiz the presenter asked what is in my fist. The participant, after several questions and
answers, made his mind and said: It is a cow in your hand! Certainly, this chap did not use the Black
hat or his left hemisphere for that matter because it is obvious that cows do not fit in one person's
fist. The final stage is the production of the result by the right hemisphere (White hat). At this stage,
we comprehend what we have achieved. I believe this small example gives a glimpse of how two
hemispheres of our brain work together and how we should utilize the same procedure to enhance
our thinking ability.

5) Problem of Induction

Let us have a feeling of this problem by giving two examples. Once we moved to a new home. My
cousin and I parked our cars on the street in front of the new home. At the very first night, someone
crashed his car to both our cars. My cousin made his mind: Nobody should park in the street in front
of this home since it would be hit. In the other end, we see thousands of people die and some of
them are very close to us, but we do not make the generalisation that we will die too. As you can see
from both the above examples (in both ends of the problem's spectrum), induction is heavily
affected by our emotions. It is not a matter of how many experiments we have before we can make
our mind, it can be just one experience or a life time experience. We make our mind according to
our experiences and this proves to be wrong at least in some cases. Therefore, it is deemed not to be
a reliable method of reasoning.

In inductive reasoning, one makes a series of observations and infers a new claim based on them.
Many dictionaries define inductive reasoning as reasoning that derives general principles from
specific observations. In other words, it is the progression of mind from particular/individual
instances to a broader generalization. Inductive reasoning is inherently uncertain. Moreover, the
observations themselves do not establish the validity of inductive reasoning, except inductively.
While the conclusion of a deductive argument is supposed to be certain, the truth of the conclusion
of an inductive argument is supposed to be probable, based upon the evidence given. The Problem
of Induction is a difficult yet important philosophical dilemma facing all thinkers. I am not looking at
this subject from a philosophical point of view but from a pragmatic approach introduced by Popper
and to the psychological (subjective) factor that plays in Induction as introduced by Ayatullah Sadr.

Bertrand Russell remarks that there would be no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity
should we follow Hume Popper, Karl, The Problem of Induction (1953, 1974)

In another word, if we follow Hume in his radical scepticism then all the difference between science
and lunacy disappears since we do not have anything to stand on.

I humbly go further and claim that whatever scientists did all this time was contrary to what they
said to believe. When we make any inference from any experiment, we are against Hume in
considering it an un-acceptable act. We all know that there is some truth in our scientific action. We
have achieved tremendously good and new results. We have traveled by planes and rockets safely.
So, there should be something there. Here we come closer to what Popper wanted to say. Popper
looks at the induction problem from a pragmatic point of view and not as a philosophical dilemma.
The following is excerpts from his work on Induction:
The whole apparatus of induction becomes unnecessary once we admit the general fallibility of
human knowledge, or as I like to call it, the conjectural character of human knowledge. I think that
all philosophy must start from commonsense views and from their critical examination. By purely
rational arguments, we can prefer some competing conjectures to others.

Once we fully realize the implications of the conjectural character of human knowledge, then the
problem of induction changes its character completely: there is no need any longer to be disturbed
by Hume's negative results, since there is no need any longer to ascribe to human knowledge. The
validity will be derived from repeated observations. Human knowledge possesses no such validity.
There is neither a psychological nor a logical induction. The commonsense solution is: by opening
our eyes and ears. Our senses are the main if not the only sources of our knowledge of the world.
This gives an answer to Hume's psychological problem which completely removes the clash between
the logic and the psychology of knowledge.

So, Popper does not put his bet on our minds but on our minds. One mind may go wrong, and
sometimes badly wrong. But if we add extra minds, the possibility of mistake will be reduced to the
extent that we can nullify it in our practical day to day life. This is realistic reasoning or common
sense reasoning or you can say a pragmatic point of view. We understand now why he has created
another world (W3) beside W1. By exposing the contents of W3 which are our conjectures, ideas,
and hypotheses to other minds we can engage a process which he calls it critical rationalism in which
we can drop those ideas that do not comply with the world 1 (W1). In this way, we do not need to
think of the legitimacy of Induction.

I endorse Popper's approach but expand it further as we did in his worlds. By adding the right
hemisphere, not only we make the results of induction more legitimate, we add lateral thinking to
our reasoning. There is another addition though: the possibility of direct connection to the source of
knowledge (light) in the world. I do not want to call it revelation, religion or similar tags; this is
touched upon in section 7. Here, we just add the possibility of having such a powerful advantage for
our knowledge.

But the problem of induction is much deeper than what Hume even thought of. In fact, it was
Ayatullah SMB al Sadr who pointed out that our knowledge of the outside world is entirely made of
induction. I mean if we can recognise a pen, a rock, paper, table, sky or brown, all these concepts
have been made by a process of induction in our brain's right hemisphere. Let us pose a moment on
this notion. Ideas and thoughts in our minds are in our minds and are not accessible to others; we
can only guess what might happen inside our minds. But we do not need to know further. For
example, when we see a green colour, it does not matter what happens in our mind and how that
concept is stored there. The important thing is that every time the person sees the same colour
responds to it, in the same manner, all the time and call it green. Now, if another person sees the
same colour and calls it green, we have no problem even if what happened in this second person's
mind be different from what happened in the first person's mind. The important thing is that two
people call the same thing green. Now, do this test: Take a piece of turquoise, or if you cannot find it
a piece of paper coloured cyan, and show it to people around you (preferably from different
nationalities or backgrounds) and ask them if it is blue or green. You will be surprised to see that
some will call it blue and some find it to be green. Why did this happen? As Ayatullah Sadr said and
Popper accepts in broader situations, every concept we have are products of our right hemisphere.
We can call it a conjecture according to Popper, or induction according to others. The important
thing is that the result (the new concept made from our senses) is a product of our mind and is not
made automatically.
Even if one person responds to an experience different from others, I have proved my point. In the
case of the above experience, I should say that the colour of turquoise is called cyan in the printing
industry. It consists of 50% blue and 50% green. So, it is right in the edge between green and blue
and that is why we have differences of opinion on it being green or blue. Because there is no clear
cut edge on what is blue or green. We simply may pass the imaginary line and make one colour
wider that the other in its spectrum. The definition of colour, in this case, is a product of our freewill
following many experiences we had from that colour and what people named it. That is why I agree
with Popper that the product even if it is only a simple concept is a conjecture made by our brain.
There is no pre-defined concept in our minds.

In another example, I claim that some male seahorses get pregnant and give birth to their children.
Do you believe it? What is the definition of male here? The partner that gets pregnant and gives
birth should be the female by definition. Isn't it? Who sets the definition for males and females?
What makes scientists claim that it is the male who gives birth? There should be a reason for them
to claim the above, I simply do not know it but I am surprised to hear it. Do you?

In another example, it is asked if we can call the reservouirs behind the dams, lakes? Should they
reach a certain size before we can call them a lake? Or is there any other criteria to separate
reservouirs from lakes? What about the Caspian Sea, is it a lake or a sea? We can find many more
such examples in which we have differences of opinion even between scientists and scholars. This is
in fact exactly the problem of induction.

I think it is safe to claim that we do not have such a thing as a set of specifications for almost all
things around us. We simply know this is a spoon, this is red, that person is happy, etc. These
knowledge have been created in our mind after many experiences in our early years of childhood.
Indeed all of them are results of induction except for those concepts that are taught to us using
definitions or specifications. For example, we know the word ‘digital' to mean an electrical signal
that represents either zero or one. But we know this because it has been defined to us as such. Do
we all know what ‘spin' is in quantum physics or the famous Hilbert Space?

So far we learned that the right hemisphere is concerned with what is good for us as matters of
survival, direct sensory feelings, or generally what affects us immediately. While the left hemisphere
looks beyond there and tries to understand what is at work behind our sensory feelings. It looks at
things that affect us in the long term. These results have been supported by previous experiments as
was shown by McGilchrist. Moreover, we all knew this. It is not new to all of us. Even small children
know this fact. Look at Fig. 4 and you will right away know what I am talking about.

Fig. 4: The good guy / bad guy within us

We feel the existence of these two guys whenever we have a conflict in our needs. One of them
looks at the immediate pleasures and advocates for an action (the bad guy, right hemisphere), but
the other one considers what is good for our future (the good guy, left hemisphere) and usually
prevents us from doing it. The problem in our reasoning comes from our ability to decide between
these two forces within us. Where does it come from? I mean does our mind automatically select
from these two hemispheres, or there is something else at play that we call it ‘Freewill'.

Ayatullah al Sadr does not use the word ‘will'. He claims what makes us decide on the outcome of
inductive reasoning is a process called ‘subjective certainty'. So, in his argument, the number of
experiments has no role in the final generalization process of induction. The probability of a
generalisation for a set of experiments in an inductive process simply increases by the number of
experiments but it will never reach a point that automatically switches to certainty. It is our
subjective mind that makes us believe in a generalisation. Popper simply rejects the existence of an
automatic system and says that our mind produces a conjecture out of those experiments. We go
further and claim that this power comes from our tenet of volition. So, it is our ‘will' that decides on
the outcome of an induction process. In another word, we produce the outcome of induction using
our will power.

I entirely agree with McGilchrist when he says: "It will be objected that we mean by words such as
‘will', ‘intend', ‘choose' is that the process is conscious: if it's not conscious, then we did not intend
it, it was not our choice. The fact that it is clear to all of us these days that our conscious wishes,
intentions, choices can play a huge part in our lives seems not to be noticed." There are plenty of
such ‘wills' that our unconscious mind selects and we are not aware of it, but we have previously
trained the right brain to do such a selection. In fact, during our childhood, we constantly change our
choices for ‘concepts' as we learn them better.

He further writes (based on works of Hans Vaihinger): One does not, in fact, have to look at split-
brain patients to see that the right hemisphere has a will, can intend, mean, will and choose, just as
the left hemisphere can. McGilchrist, p188

So, our thesis on this matter is proved by neuroscientists to be true. Of course, it will remain as a
theory until a better one replaces it. I would like to end our discussions on induction by saying that
induction cannot be justified by the left hemisphere but it can be used by the consciousness of the
right hemisphere completely in a legitimate way.

Of course, there are many philosophers who do not agree with this claim and do not allow any
psychological or subjective matter to enter our reasoning process. In the next section, we claim that
not only we possess such an ability (to ignore the facts) but it goes even beyond our own ‘conscious
will' and can unconsciously deceive us as well.

6) The Deceiving Mind

In section 3, we mentioned a situation (the test made by the Gazzaniga team) where the Left brain
fabricated a story. But our ability to lie goes far beyond that. We all too well know that we humans
can lie. Some do it on an almost daily basis. Interestingly, the ability to lie perhaps is unique to
human beings. How come that we can lie? I mean what makes us able to lie and how on earth can
we do it? The answer comes from our ability to choose on what we think, i.e. our will to select the
data and consequently, our will to produce what we know is not right.

William James, the founder of modern psychology, elaborates on our will to choose the data
received by asking these questions: "Does it not seem preposterous on the very face of it to talk of
our opinions being modifiable at will? Can our will either help or hinder our intellect in its
perceptions of truth? Can we, by just willing it, believe that Abraham Lincoln's existence is a myth
and that the portraits of him in McClure's Magazine are all of someone else?" Then he clearly
confirms that we have such a power: "We can any of these things, but we are absolutely impotent to
believe them." He then emphasises the difficulty of accepting this argument by saying: "The talk of
believing by our volition seems, then, from one point of view, simply silly. From another point of
view, it is worse than silly, it is vile." Later on, he gives this rule: "As a rule, we disbelieve all facts and
theories for which we have no use." So, in his opinion, at least when we do not have an important
use for a theory, event, or fact, we may simply disbelieve it. It is the way our mind works. He then
confirms that our emotions have a direct effect on our logical findings: "Evidently, then, our non-
intellectual nature does influence our convictions. There are passional tendencies and volitions
which run before and others which come after belief." He confirms the fact again later on by saying:
"And now, after all this introduction, let us go straight at our question. I have said, and now repeat it,
that not only, as a matter of fact, do we find our passional nature influencing us in our opinions, but
… " He continues the discussion on what to do if we can deceive ourselves. How can we find the
truth then? The answer in simple terms is given by him as:" The most useful investigator is always he
whose eager interest in one side of the question is balanced by an equally keen nervousness lest he
becomes deceived." James, William, The Will to Believe

So, his solution is to tell ourselves that our previous faith and belief might cause our "self" to deceive
our "mind". So, by being aware of this notion and calculating its effects seems to be enough to lead
us to the truth in his terms. Interestingly, Holy Qur'an strongly and in so many verses and in most
clarifying terms tells us that we can lie and be aware of our deceiving mind. The following are just
some of them.

ُ ‫ظ ْل ًما َو‬
•‫علُ ًّوا‬ ُ ‫س ُه ْم‬
ُ ُ‫َو َج َحدُوا ِب َها َوا ْست َ ْيقَنَتْ َها أَنف‬
And they denied them unjustly and proudly while their soul had been convinced of them - 27:14

• َ‫َاب َي ْع ِرفُونَهُ َك َما َي ْع ِرفُونَ أ َ ْبنَاء ُه ْم َو ِإ َّن فَ ِريقا ً ِ ِّم ْن ُه ْم لَ َي ْكت ُ ُمونَ ْال َح َّق َو ُه ْم َي ْعلَ ُمون‬
َ ‫الَّذِينَ آت َ ْينَا ُه ُم ْال ِكت‬
Those whom We have given the Book recognize him as they recognize their sons, and a party of
them most surely conceal the truth while they know (it) – 2:146

• َ‫للا َو َمايُ ْشع ُِر ُك ْم أَنَّ َها ِإذَا َجاءتْ الَيُؤْ مِ نُون‬
ِ ِّ ‫الل َج ْه َد أ َ ْي َمانِ ِه ْم لَئِن َجاءتْ ُه ْم آ َية لَّيُؤْ مِ نُ َّن ِب َها قُ ْل ِإنَّ َما اآل َياتُ عِن َد‬ َ ‫َوأ َ ْق‬
ِ ِّ ‫س ُمواْ ِب‬

And they swear by Allah with the strongest of their oaths, that if a sign came to them they most
certainly believe in it. Say: Signs are only with Allah; and what should make you know that when it
comes they will not believe. - 6:109

ِّ ‫ش ْيء قُبُلً َّماكَانُواْ ِليُؤْ مِ نُواْ إِالَّ أَن يَشَاء‬

•ُ‫للا‬ َ ‫َولَ ْو أَنَّنَا ن ََّز ْلنَا إِلَ ْي ِه ُم ْال َمآلئِ َكةَ َو َكلَّ َم ُه ُم ْال َم ْوت َى َو َحش َْرنَا‬
َ ‫علَ ْي ِه ْم ُك َّل‬

And even if We had sent down to them the angels and the dead had spoken to them and We had
brought together all things before them, they would not believe unless Allah pleases. – 6:111

َ َ‫َولَ ْو َجاءتْ ُه ْم ُكل آيَة َحتَّى يَ َر ُواْ ْالعَذ‬

َ ‫اب األَل‬
• َ‫ِيم ()الَيُؤْ مِ نُون‬

They do not believe ( ) Though every sign should come to them until they witness the painful
chastisement – 10:96-97

So, we may deceive even ourselves by not accepting some truth. There may be several reasons for
doing so, but the important thing is to be aware of this possibility. Obviously, this ability causes great
damage to our reasoning and its correctness. This means that we should always interrogate our
reasoning in order to check if there is an unconscious foul play at work.
Here, I would like to refer to Popper's claim saying "I do not know of anything more 'rational' than a
well-conducted critical discussion". When it comes to deceiving ourselves, it is we who should have
that internal critical analysis of our thoughts. There is no one else inside our mind; especially inside
our unconscious mind. Here, comes the role of religions who have taught us to care about our
actions or precisely our ethical conduct. Ethics are in fact feedback on our unconscious thinking or
reasoning. Therefore, correcting /enhancing/purifying or whatever we may call it, is a process similar
to critical rationalism that should be applied to our acts and especially our ethical conduct when it
comes to rationally improve our thinking process.

7) Role of Religions in Reasoning

Faith is part of science and vice versa. Time magazine recently (Nov. 2014) wrote in its cultural
section about universe and science surrounding it:

It's huge, it's cold, it's possessed of forces that would rip you to ribbons the second you dared to step
off tiny planetary beachhead it has permitted us. What's more, it completely defies understanding,
at least for anyone who's not fluent in the language of singularities and space-time and wormholes
and all the rest. But never mind, because we believe in it all – and oh, how we love it. Big cosmology
has become our secular religion, a church even atheists can join.

Moreover, there are people who act on their faith - or absence of faith - and ignore their rational
thinking or at least suppress them. For example, according to news agencies
http://billmoyers.com/2012/02/28/vaccination-nation-2/

, there is a movement in the USA in which parents refuse to inject their children with vaccines. They
claim vaccines are surely a ‘poison' but their usefulness is not that certain. It is even worse:

"In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year," the paper reported, "some 30% of 133
doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and a recent survey of
909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported discharging families for the same reason."
February 15 edition of The Wall Street Journal

Why these parents have such reasoning? One cannot say that their brains do not work properly or
they have some neuro-disease. In most cases, they simply do not trust science, the government, or
their agencies. It is here where we can see the extent of the effect of emotion on our day to day
reasoning. If we lose trust, we cannot accept even the results of scientific work.

The Princeton psychologists Julian Jaynes in his classic work, The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, points out the fact that very little brain activity is in fact
conscious and that we take decisions, solve problems, make judgments, discriminate, reason, and so
on, without any need for conscious involvement. It was mentioned earlier that some of these
decisions are made during our childhood and are somehow stored in our right hemisphere. But what
Jaynes is referring to is our day to day judgments. Most of the cases where we did not have previous
experience and need some sort of immediate decisions are made by a process we call ‘faith'. Our
mind does not stop simply because it does not have a full proof answer for it, it simply calls for the
best second guess or relies on others.

It is time to have faith in faith. It was a mistake to dismiss the faith altogether. And yet we are using
it in our day to day scientific work. Look at the theory of evolution. This theory has a lot of facts but
it remains a theory, a human conjecture. There are plenty of loopholes (facts that do not comply
with this theory) in it. Yet look around you, especially in the West; almost every teacher refers to this
theory as if it is a solid fact. This certainty comes from their faith in this theory and not from
scientific reality. Even when Einstein formulated his relativity theory, he assumed the speed of light
to be the maximum speed any matter can have. This was his faith in this subject. And if any scientist
refers to this matter should note that he too is using his faith in it. There are several pieces of
evidence that this might not be right, but all our educational system is authorised and designed to
teach it as a fact. What I want to say is the fact that faith in something – and not necessarily in its
religious context – is part of our scientific fact.

Moreover, there are things that we are certain of such as:

There is a reality apart from our thoughts.

There are laws governing the universe we live in.

We can improve our understanding of the world.

There is a purpose (such as evolution, survival of the fittest, etc.) in life.

We prefer having an eternal life as if it is part of our identity.

We are fallible creatures.

Reasoning has improved our understanding.

And we can think of many more similar points. These statements may be wrong, but we have a
feeling equal to certainty on them. Where do these feelings come from? Surely, it is related to our
right hemisphere.

Religions and especially Islam provides us with an abundance of worldviews and ideas.
Unfortunately, this vast and potentially useful data has been ignored by the scientific community
because of what McGilchrist calls it left hemisphere thinking among Western scholars. Religions give
us ample information and better than that, a unique way of looking at what is around us. Missing
this information surely affects our reasoning abilities. The right hemisphere's vision is more global
and holistic. It looks at the whole universe as one thing in order to give us a better picture before we
break it into pieces and digest it in our left hemisphere. This view is given by religions in many forms.
Not only there are concepts like Creator, hereafter, justice, etc.; the acts of worshipping and
religious ceremonies are other tools by which our right mind can grasp the reality better.

Missing the advice and views of the right brain surely affects our reasoning and its correctness. It is
worth looking at an analogy between the reasoning of those who have lost their right hemisphere
and scientists' reasoning who have done the same by omitting religious views. Cutting reports a
patient who has lost her right hemisphere and as a result, could not control her left arm. She
claimed that this arm belongs to her mother and is attached to her body for some reason!!
McGilchrist, citing Cutting, 1990, p 190

Also Read:

Popper, Karl, Three Worlds, The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, April 1978

Goleman, David, Emotional Intelligence, why it can matter more than IQ, 2005
Sadr, Seyed Mohammad Baqir, Al Usus al Manteqieh lel Istiqraa (The Logical Basics for Induction),
1978

Edwards, Betty, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic
Confidence, Apr 2013

This sounds totally ridiculous for those who have a grasp of the right brain and know that each
person's arm is with the relevant body and we cannot borrow or attach a person's arm to another; at
least not so easily. But when it comes to the scientific realm, it becomes much more difficult to claim
that the work of a highly commended researcher is absurd. Yet along scientific history, such events
happen. For example, the well-known and highly acclaimed researcher such as Michael Gazzaniga
claims that it is the left brain that is superior and is the creative one. He knows too well that all
ingredients of creativity are in the right hemisphere. But the right hemisphere simply cannot express
its findings in words. It seems that Gazzaniga has mixed between "creativity" and "imagination" or
even less than that "articulation". We have mentioned one example of his patients who created a
story by saying "you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed" in order to justify his action. But
this is not proper reasoning as we know it. The left brain can lie as well (see above). Such ability
scraps it from being a trustworthy factor in our reasoning.

Even McGilchrist who believes in oneness and is a right brainer and believes in religious intuitions
has fallen to the same trap. He has separated the functioning of the two hemispheres and looked at
them individually and not holistically as he himself advises us to do so. On the other hand, whoever
possesses a universal view, and of course some background on logical reasoning can see that the
right brain provides the new ideas and the left brain prunes it.

Once religions open up the vast opportunities available to the right mind, then we may discover
things that we never thought of. According to many religions, humans have tremendous power over
nature. We can reach stars easily if we try to know how to achieve it. Wormholes or something that
does that job is not a science-fiction dream. We have stories that say these things already have
happened and some of them are in near past just in our lifetime. Religions can explode our
discoveries once we break the material chain that we have tied to our thoughts.

8) Critical Rationalism Extended

It is time to use right-hemisphere thinking. This section is written with that in mind. Therefore, the
first thing to specify is the worldview in which I want to place my arguments. So, I hereby declare
that the following views and arguments are based on my understanding of Twelver Shi'a Islam.

Moreover, I would like to introduce a modification to Karl Popper's work based on what was
mentioned earlier above. We start by defining a different meaning for reality based on the teachings
of Islam. Here, we accept (belief, assume, etc.) that there is a world outside our mind and it has laws
of its own. These laws can change and affect the matter around us. We cannot change these laws
but our mind has the power to change the matter.

On the internal side, our right brain is the agent that has connections with the material outside
world and the left brain is connected to something universal for all human beings called Intellect
(with the capital I). The right hemisphere has two different connections to the real word. One is the
sensory system we are all aware of and the other connection is the source of intuition. It works like
any other sensory system we have but it is channeled through our heart and is connected to the
source of knowledge.

Therefore according to this theory, we receive information through five different channels:
Sensory System. In addition to 5 senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, there are plenty of
other internal sensors that have a direct link to our reasoning system. Some of them come from the
digestion network, body movement, empathy, among others. This is called world 2 by Popper and
we called it S3. These senses take only a moment and are replaced by another sense the moment
later. So, they do not exist apart from a single point in time.

Intuitions. Almost like the above. In fact, Popper does not see any difference between this source
and other sensory systems. In the extended theory, the difference between these two senses comes
from their source of knowledge. The above (physical) sensory system gets its knowledge from S2
while the intuition gets its knowledge directly from S1.

Intellect. According to Islamic traditions, this is a universal body that has a connection to each
person. It is the unifying factor that makes us humans communicate more or less on a universal
basis. One might question, in accordance with an elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere,
known by none, how on earth reasoning is understood by all. If we are not aware of unifying codes,
it would be a miracle to have any ability to reason. It is worth mentioning that the Intellect which is
channeled through our heart to S4 is the source of our logic. That is why we can reason between
ourselves. Apparently, animals do not have a connection to this Intellect.

Books, lectures, friends, etc. or generally, every product of the human mind. This is called world 3 by
Popper but we called it S5.

Holy (infallible) Sources. This is the Holy Qur'an and traditions and even stands of 14 infallible. We
separated them from S5 and put them in S6 because they should be treated differently. As many
features of W3 are also available in W1, information of S6 can be found in both spaces of S1 and S2.
This is a bit tricky to digest for those who are not familiar with the process of revelations and
inspirations; at the same time, it is too complicated to be explained here. In brief, concepts such as
‘traditions', ‘scriptures', or even Imam's legacies are in S1(in physical forms) and S6 (in expression
terms). But behaviour of our pious scholars and their unanimous thought on any religious subject
could be considered in S6 (because it is learned from them) and S2 (because it has human
hermeneutics in it).

One quick point here: I think Popper tried to bring results of our thoughts down to earth from what
idealists might call them supernatural. Here, I would like to bring down the intuition and inspiration
down from the supernatural to our material world too. There is no doubt that our mind has a causal
effect on our material world. Whenever we speak, move an arm, even think, we are practically
changing the material world. But the effect of mind over matter is far beyond this. According to
Twelver Shia Islamic sources, the first building block of the universe was (‫ ;) المشيئة‬literally meaning
Freewill (volition) based agent. Then by applying it to ( ‫ – ) الماء البسيط‬literally meaning elementary
(basic) water – the universe as we know it was created. Now, it is our turn to make conjectures and
theories on what these two words mean and how can we assign them to the Big Bang. This is
certainly out of the scope of this paper.

Going back to the main thesis of this paper: How can we reason using both sides of our brain?
Before we enter complicated or somehow sophisticated philosophical arguments let us work
through a simple example. You hear or read this statement: I can read between lines. How can we
read between lines? There is nothing material to be read between lines. So, what do they mean by
this statement?

When we read someone's work, it is our right hemisphere (S3) that is at work. When we read a text,
the outcome of the direct reading goes to our left hemisphere (S4) as a context. S4 breaks down the
text to smaller concepts and in this way, it gives an expectation of what might be next. It sends this
shortlist of possible concepts to S3. If some of the expected words (concepts) are matched directly
or to the synonym of the next word on the text under reading, then one line of thinking is expected.
The result goes to S4 again and a new narrower shortlist will be created. And by continuing the
reading you can say you know what the text is going to be.

However, if none of the concepts in the short list matched the meaning of the next word, this
indicates that the left hemisphere is expecting different lines of thinking than what is written. This
means that our brain should start thinking outside usual terms; something new and unexpected. By
using some of the lateral thinking techniques of de Bono, slowly and slowly our brain finds out what
the writer wanted to say. Surely, there is something beyond the literal meanings of the text. It is
here that we can claim we have read between lines.

If we apply the same technique to our own thoughts, then we can read what is in our mind too! Do
not forget that we have an unconscious mind (the right hemisphere) that is at work and can help but
can foul play as well. We need to extend the critical rationalism of Popper to include works of S3.

And last, a note on how to treat S6. The message of the Holy Qur'an as well as the authenticated
traditions of our Imams not only gives us plenty of fresh ideas and benchmarks for reality. These
statements in our world of thoughts are like facts in the experiments of the physical world. They are
facts of the real world in a linguistic form. But this does not mean that we will understand them as
they are. We are fallible and we have at least hermeneutical limitations. As we need conjectures to
understand the physical world, we need also to make conjectures to understand the holy scripture.
The laws of the physics and the sayings of the holy scripture of two sides of the same coin. We can
and we have to analyse and criticise our conjectures according to both of them. This is the way we
should use our brain in order to understand the world around us better. And if we make a mistake
and it did not satisfy the reality check with either source, then the problem is in our conjectures and
not in those facts.

9) Conclusions

Since the dawn of electricity, and then the electromagnetic forces (EMF), and the advent of the
digital world, everything is made of electricity. Even if we want to look at fields of gravity and similar
non-EMF forces, we use electrical gadgets. But the world is not entirely made of electricity. Some
forces work if there is no electricity. For example, in India and some other places, there are experts
who use the Y shape branch of special trees to find water. They grasp the two ends of branches in
both hands and direct the bottom part of Y in front of them. They move around the field where they
want to dig for a well and wherever they feel a force on the tip of the Y branch, they know it is a
good place to dig.

In recent years MIT has opened a new department for self-assembly multi-material 3D printing
technology, in which different materials with different water absorption capacity are used in such a
way that it has the added capability of embedded transformation from one shape to another. In this
process, no electricity is used. What I want to say is that unfortunately, we have been so obsessed
with electricity and forces that are controlled by it, that we cannot imagine worlds in which other
forces are at work.

This is the scenario of the left-brainers. Since the advent of Logic some 2.5 thousand years ago, we
have been so successful with its results that we are missing what we can do with our right brain.
This is true if we look at the bright side only. Unfortunately, there is a dark side too. Just look at our
environment and you do not need to be so expert to understand that we have made a mess around
ourselves. We need to go back to the origins and correct the way we are going. The relationship
between religions, man, and the environment needs to be addressed seriously. In fact, they form a
holy trinity.

The main hypothesis in this work was the role of our ‘free will' in creating the results of our
observations. Whenever we sense something, our mind finds out other information available in our
brain which is somehow related to that new sense. If the result was something familiar, i.e.
previously experienced, then the brain goes on to get the next sensual excitation. However, if the
result was something new or unexpected, then our mind creates a new rule/data/ conjecture in
order to analyse the situation. But this process is not an automatic one since there are two different
sides of the brain giving two opposite suggestions. It is the free will that chooses between one of
them and creates the result. It is this process that gets flawed and is considered as the source of our
reasoning problems. This is because as soon as our heart (apparently the birthplace of our free will)
decides to get the result from the wrong hemisphere, our data gets flawed. And if it is the right
hemisphere as usually is, we are not even aware of it because the right hemisphere's works are
unconscious. It is in this case that we deceive ourselves.

In order to improve our reasoning and clear it from flaws of the right hemisphere, we have to follow
a set of codes called "ethics". By following ethical codes we can teach the right hemisphere how to
think and by doing so, in fact, we have used our freewill as well.

In other words, emotional intelligence is about getting information from our gestures and actions. It
is about body language which is the specialty of the right hemisphere. Even if we want to know what
is happening in our own right hemisphere, we have to look at our own actions and gestures. It is this
fact that leads us to consider our actions as part of our reasoning process as well. Some of Popper's
students do not accept this fact because they are left-brainers. If we enter the right hemisphere in
our reasoning cycle, then our acts surely become part of reasoning too. It is here that we say those
who smoke do not believe in the dangers of smoking and they lie to themselves if they think
otherwise.

So, if we add ethics and acts to the reasoning basket, we will understand the type of reasoning made
by religions. I do not claim that all the reasoning made by religions are correct. By far, if that
reasoning were correct we should have emerged into a unified type of reasoning. What I am saying
is that this sort of reasoning which combines both sides of our brain and includes our actions, as well
as thoughts, is the appropriate domain to work on. Surely, we need a lot of work to purify it. In the
ideological (thoughts) part, we can call the process critical rationalism and when it comes to our
actions, we may call it ethical practices. We certainly need to set out the codes in this new field. We
have just started this route and everybody is invited to join.

Lastly, I would like to add that whenever the word ‘reasoning' comes to my mind I find four other
words that are shortlisted. These are fallibility, deceit, consciousness, and Intellect.