I believe that the male brain is naturally more reductionistic, attempting to understand things by breaking them into pieces and understanding the pieces. And ascribing rules to describe and control the world around them. Like in physics or chemistry, understanding the smaller elements in order to gain insight and influence on the larger systems. The part teaches about the whole.
The female brain on the other hand is more holistic, tending to use the wider context to give meaning to the smaller pieces. For example, the particular words you say are much less important than the context of the interaction. In fact, it's the context and tonality that gives the majority of the meaning to the particular words. The whole teaches about the part.
Different domains are not equally well suited to reductionistic vs. holistic styles of thinking. Some domains are all about analysis and dividing. Other domains are better suited to synthesis and merging.
The interesting thing is that interpersonal things, including (especially) male-female interactions is I think very well suited to a holistic understanding, where she "just knows" this or that (or thinks she does). But a lot of it just doesn't fit with the male brain, specifically with male styles of learning or of knowledge. But you have to seek understanding with the brain you have. The Game is an attempt to force the soft, non-logical, holistic information into a hard, logical, reductionistic framework. And it succeeds to some extent, but at times it can get frustratingly vague and touchy-feely. The occasional vagueness is not a weakness exactly, but a symptom of the underlying phenomenon being described.
Historically, no understanding was required. Prevailing culture dictated that women should get married, and women were essentially transferred from being subordinate to their fathers to being subordinate to their husbands. Income patterns reinforced it. It was unfortunate, but it did mean that in courtship men did not have to understand social dynamics to any real depth, which is convenient because the male brain is less suited for it anyway.
Things are clearly different now, and understanding social dynamics is not an optional bonus skill for men.
Thursday, December 18
Reductionism and Holism
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1 comment:
This is very good!
I do differ slighty some places, but in general do agree. 1.) I do think that men and women's brains are different, but I do think that is largely due to socilisation and how the child is raised. The years that a child is growing/developing and what thinking style is encouraged is usually what shapes how the brain functions. I speculate that little girls are encouraged to practise the "bigger picture" type thinking (e.g. following mom around the house as she cleans explaining it isn't about the vaccuming, but it's about having a presentable house for guests) and boys the same action oriented thinking (if the guy runs just a bit faster he'll win).
I agree though, interpersonal actions are better suited for hollistic thinking, BUT to be able to influence the interaction one must understand the nuiances. Meaning, the hollistic thinking and "knowing" is a very reactive status to be in and you cannot seek to change the interaction if you don't have the ability to break the interaction down and find the influence points. So I feel that The Game is a way to take the reactiveness of the Hollistic attitude and give a degree of proactiveness. However, the danger in this is that some may look for a "recipie" book type of discussion. Because the definitions are not as clear, the frustration arises.
So a slight slant to reductionistic and holistic?... (and nerdily too).
I think that women function more in an analogue manner. Where the hard edges of what begins and what stops blurrs together to form a continuim. Versus men seek a more binary world, the combination of the definite YES and NOs aggregates to a definite and quantifiable solution.
Without one we cannot seek to understand the inputs given and without the other we cannot measure the outputs.
It is very interesting.
Historically no understanding was required... because the father would just marry off the girl to the man with the most cattle and sheep... but that is a different discussion :)
I love your post!
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