Methods of Understanding

What I find intriguing in comparing the perspectives of Heilman and Sacks is how their slightly different views are just more specific manifestations of an overriding theme of opinion. Generally speaking, this theme is the one mentioned by Sacks as the holistic versus topistic mindset, wherein the former find truth in overall functioning of a given entity (i.e. the brain) and the latter find truth in the compartmentalized sections of that entity. Though Sacks advocates for a combination of the two (an integrative mindset), he does seem to focus more on the holistic end of the analytical spectrum. By contrast, Heilman is an obvious proponent of more distinct separation of parts (what with his numerous schemas of functional pathways in the brain that explain aphasia, agnosia, and the memory systems). The categories to which these individuals side, however, seem to be just another echo of an overarching pattern in human thought: one side arguing for a unilateral perspective, the other upholding a multilateral one. An immediate concept that comes to mind is the various divisions of religious thought, which either conceive of a higher power as embodied in one, ultimate form (i.e. the Christian “God”) or conceive of a higher power as embodied in many different forms (i.e. the myriad Hindi deities). Another concept that can be filed into this form of categorization is, perhaps not as apparently, the Nature-Nurture debate, where Nature would seem to be the overall fatalistic force that governs all human personality or behavior, and Nurture would seem to be the many different influences that shape an individual bit by bit. Perspectives in Medicine, of course (i.e. holistic versus…well…Western) are other illustrations of such cognitive sectors.
Perhaps what is the most interesting about these forms of analysis and understanding (the “all” versus the “parts” perspectives) is the notion that we, as humans, may be constrained to such patterns of thought, and that this fact underlies our constant exhibitions of it in its different forms. In other words, the question might be asked: are our powers of understanding only achievable through a set number of mechanisms, such as the opposite poles of all-or-nothing and the modular? Does this translate into some innate capacity we are endowed with (and thus cannot escape) of comprehending one entity only in its opposition to another? Yes, it is a useful mechanism to dichotomize and contrast, but might doing so remove the essence of that which we are observing?
I understand that this might be a bit too much of a philosophical rambling; but I am very intrigued by the manner in which humans come to understand things, and also why certain individuals are drawn to one end of the spectrum (i.e. the specific) and not the other (i.e. the broad)—or even what leads an individual to adopt a conjoining of both mindsets. The possibility, too, that patients experiencing an onset of aphasia or agnosia in their lives become all the more frustrated because they are aware of that they’ve lost something, to me, confirms this notion that an entity’s opposite contributes greatly to it’s meaning, or how we understand it. Such patients, for instance, are markedly more distressed than their amnesiac counterparts who, though they often suspect something is missing, are generally unaware that anything has been lost (and therefore are not in a constant state of frustration…at least to the eye of the observer). In the first instance, a part of someone’s functioning is lost (i.e. there is damage to the left temporal lobes encompassing Wenicke’s and/or Broca’s area); whereas in the second instance, often an entire structure spanning both lobes (i.e. the hippocampus or the ability of acetylcholine to reach this area) is affected. (In viewing it from anatomical terms, however, both instances seem to fall under the category of compartmentalization, so this example may just prove more confusing).
Regardless, I am very curious to view other methods of understanding the brain and the self, aside from the holistic and topistic views. Perhaps if I find another method, I might produce a more coherent and translatable explanation of what I’m puzzling over…