Core dichotomies or dimensions of being:

- unconscious vs conscious (a.k.a. nature vs nuture?)
- instant gratification vs long-term benefit
- passive vs active

- art vs science (one deals with instances, the other with paradigms)
- social benefit vs individual benefit

There is no "human vs machine","human vs nature","God vs athiest" or "freewill vs instinct" in this list, as these are not dichotomies. To that end, I am still debating whether "nature vs nuture" should be the first in the list, as "unconscious vs conscious" is probably too similar to "freewill vs instinct".

The first 3 dimensions are inherantly personal and from a physical (neuroscientific) perspective are related. The final pair are social dimensions, accepting them as distinct types of dimension implicitly means that there is a fundamental shift, a higher level of complexity which conforms to different principles. This distinction is therefore a matter for debate, an example of which may be the process of understanding an ant colony from the perspective of individual ants (or a human body from the perspective of each cell).

Clearly these dimensions are not black-white distinctions in practise but form two ends of a continuum. However, I would content that the progression along that continuum is not even and that the "middle-ground" has far fewer examples than the "ends". In this regard, my opinion is that these 5 dichotomies are the core of our psychology. Tools which seek to understand individual psychological nature derive from them, in the firm tradition of an instance being derived from a framework.

Maslow was brilliant, and fits well with my framework. Competeting/parallel (holistic) needs being fullfilled is classic neuroscientific territory and the idea of becoming more fullfulled and self-aware as needs are met fits well with the first 3 dichotomies. It is no surprise that Maslow is a favourite with marketing types and he has gone further than the MBTI and others in providing tools to understand paradigms rather than instances.

Personal Dichotomies

Neuroscience was my first love. Neuroscience provides some facinating takes on the philosophy of religions and our links to the environment (more later). However, suffice to say at the moment that the strange combination of freewill, chemical balances and nature/nurture/genetics that is modern neuroscientific thought give me a good background for a modern view of both our place in the balance of nature and sense of spirituality.

A different take on spirituality is to consider general contentment. A 2,500 year debate is still raging in regard to where we should derive our sense of happiness - God(s), from within or from society. In my experience, when a debate goes on for any length of time the right answer is usually a compromise (i.e. somewhere in the middle). We derive happiness from within, from society and from spiritual sources.

Neuroscience divides pleasure into 2 rough boxes, simple (based on older genetic systems, such as the hypothalamus) and complex (based on the inter-play betwen the neo-cortex and amygdala).

Modern marketing also splits decision making (i.e. which product to buy) into 2 boxes, lazy and active.

From a different perspective but as usual a highly perceptive and clear one, read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. A great book on how to take manufactured religion out of your thought processes. A good linkage between my thoughts above and Dawkins' thoughts can be found on page 36 of the UK paperback edition, in regards to Albert Einstein's views - for example, "I am a deeply religious non-believer" and in the Chapter 1 header on page 31, "I don't try to imagine a personal God; it surfices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.".

One of my continual problems, in politics (local or global) and "green" campaigning, is linking people's everyday lives with wider environmental concerns. The genius of religion is that it does just that. It provides a way of living that is tailored to the local population. If the Green movement is to ever really alter the way in which people live and define their lives, then it needs to make that same level of linkage.

For a scientific view of how societies and the environment are linked, read anything by the brilliant Jared Diamond. It is noteworthy that many Greek mystery religions didn't differentiate between scientific/mathmatical thought and spiritual thought (e.g. Pythagoras, with his mixed mathematical and spiritual approach), something that Christianity (and to a lesser extent) modern Islam struggle with.

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