Multiple factors shape thought, but communication is especially heavy-handed. Communication not only restructures the contents of the mind,; it re-configures the brain’s very neurological patterns (Rotman 2008: 51-52). Brian Rotman explains four ways people communicate selfhood: self-pointing, a spoken “I,” an alphabetically written “I,” and “self-enunciation within contemporary media” (Rotman 2008: xxxiii). The written “I” is the only disembodied method, but this separation subliminally trickles beneath conscious awareness. Writing has been a major component of communicating theological concepts because writing has been the easiest form of mass communication for centuries. Theologians 1,000 years ago probably did not ponder the disembodiment of writing any more than landing spaceships on the moon. Television – which mediates communication through bodies – was not on their radar. But contemporary theologians have options. Gunther Kress is clear that, “The former constellation of medium of book and mode of writing is giving way… to the new constellation of medium of screen and mode of image” (Kress 2003: 9). These moving constellations have forced a fundamental shift in the way social brains engage thought. Theology that fails to take this into account will find itself hopelessly outmoded and no longer equipped to engage the study of God in fresh situations.

This article addresses the cognitive and neurological effects stemming from shifts in “culturally mediated systems of external memory” (Rotman 52) – such as writing and images – and how theological communication could expand in response. Writing reinforces left-brain, systematic, and linear thought (Armstrong 1995: 115). Images, on the other hand, encourage more right-brain, intuitive, and spatial reasoning. It would be simplistic to hold that writing is only mediated through the right hemisphere and images only through the left, but communicative modes create lateral biases. Theological minds emerge, – not only from the “linear, logical, detail-oriented left hemisphere”, – but from embodied, whole brains. The first section of this paper shows writing’s left-brain bias. The second section turns a corner by examining emotion as altered body states and how this leads to a right-brain bias. Visual mediums are the most direct way to communicate right-brain thoughts, so the last step is to show how visual mediums could add a holistic, embodied element to theology.

WRITING AND A DISEMBODIED, LEFT-BRAIN BIAS

Writing forces neurons to march in line with time (Kress 2003: 2). The left hemisphere attributes meaning to words and strings those words together to form sentences, paragraphs, and full discourses (Hogue 2003: 87). In a sentence, one… word… follows… another, so the brain follows a preset “reading path” (Kress 2003: 3). A dog bit Karen means something entirely different than Karen bit a dog. Reading paths necessitate choices about which words make the most sense in which temporal order (Kress 2003: 3), so writing creates “the subliminal appeal of reducing wholes to constituent parts” (Jahandarie 1999: 57-58). It entrenches linear (temporal) neurological patterns through the repetitive, reductive decision-making (Jahandarie 1999: 54).

This leads to what could be called: alphabetic reasoning. Daniel Siegel explains that the left hemisphere is responsible for “more slowly acting, linear, sequentially active, temporal (time-dependent) processes. Verbal meanings of words… are a primary mode of processing for the left side” (Siegel 2001: 179). The left-brain deals in “monosemantic ‘packets’… which are then processed in a slower, linear mode” (Siegel 179). Writing strengthens linear thought patterns in the left hemisphere. Siegel holds that, “Repeated activation of specific neuronal pathways reinforces the strength of connections between groups of neurons” (p. 194), so neurons fire in similar patterns in the future (p. 24). The brain functions like a malleable muscle, but writing only exercises the left-brain. The brain is sculpted like a bodybuilder who only lifts with one arm. That arm ripples, but the other atrophies. Plastic makes perfect.

The “linear, logical,” and “linguistically-based” left-hemisphere (p. 161) evaluates the contents of written words through syllogistic reasoning (p. 197), prejudicing the brain to evaluate their contents through the brain’s semantic operator. The semantic operator deals with “propositional representations – symbols of external or internal facts that can be… assessed as ‘true’ or ‘false’” (p. 35 [emphasis mine]). In alphabetic reasoning, ideas are filtered into categories of: right or wrong, – fact or fiction. Then, alphabetic reasoning reinforces the brain’s quest for causation through sequencing. Reading paths communicate meaning through cause-effect relationships, so the ensuing left-brain thought patterns in the semantic operator create a syllogistic lens. Wholes are eliminated in the effort to snap details into linear, cause-effect relationships. Meaning is confined to these necessary but limited ways of processing information.

THEOLOGY AND LEFT-BRAIN BIAS

As writing has become increasingly more accessible in punctuated bursts over the past few millennia, theologians have become more and more linear and syllogistic in thought. But neurons fire in strikingly complex and highly plastic patterns (Bennett and Hacker 2008: 137). Linear rules for systematic theology are only engrained through repetition. The dark side of alphabetic reasoning is that it can produce theologians who tend to exercise linearity while alternative methods atrophy. Recall that the semantic operator can only qualify concepts as right or wrong. Linear patterns do not leave cognitive space for multiple details to be processed simultaneously. In the study of God, this cognitive capacity is absolutely necessary.

So far, I have examined several important consequences of alphabetic writing: it is inherently linear; in committing to using particular words in particular sequences it automatically eliminates other options; it coerces thought into cause-effect analysis, and it externalizes, or disembodies, thought. Of these consequences, the disembodied nature of theological writing is the most problematic.

EMOTION AS ALTERED BODY STATES

Emotions are physiological changes in a person’s body. These are mediated through combinations of gestures, postures, and behaviors (Damasio 2003: 63). External images – or stimuli – are mediated to the brain through the senses, and internal body and brain states refract the external world (Damasio 195). Marshall McLuhan writes, “The use of any medium or extension of hu/man/ity alters the patterns of interdependence among people, as it alters the ratios among our senses” (Jahandarie 51). The higher cognitive processes involved in developing theological concepts are pushed and pulled by the body’s constant emoting (Siegel 143).

The signals passing in and out of bodies generate emotion, so change signals can make emotions contagious (Siegel 143, 50). Siegel explains that, “Complex neural/bodily aspects of emotional processes are not easily translated into words. Nonverbal expressions, including those of the face, tone of voice and gestures, can transfer information about internal states more fully to the outside world than words can do” (Siegel 150). When it comes to altering the emotions correlated with belief – belief that can override higher cognitive functions – bodily gesture trumps writing.

Because this emotional processing is primarily non-conscious, people do not qualify intuition as true or false by sequencing details into rational arguments. For example, anger is typified by “dilated pupils, widened orbital area, raised eyebrows, furrowed brow, and pursed lips” (Siegel 128). The brain absorbs all of these signals at once when someone unexpectedly sees this:

Through non-conscious processing, faces can change emotions and minds in a flash.

Intuition of other people’s emotions occurs within the Mirror Neuron System (MNS). This system draws most heavily from facial expressions (Siegel 290), and it tells the viewer’s brain to respond to the viewed face in kind (Siegel 129). The MNS non-consciously indicates: whatever is happening in that person is also happening in me. This is why people constantly imitate the “motor acts, postures, and gaze of their co-citizens” (Kanwisher and Duncan 2004: 463-64). When people talk, their body language loops without their awareness as emotions harmonize. Yawning becomes contagious. When the MNS causes altered body states and facial expressions, people influence each other’s emotional-cognitive looping, and thought itself is steered.

There is scientific evidence that the entire body is engaged in understanding and remembering. James McGaugh demonstrated that the Vagus nerve – which connects the brain stem to the stomach – directly unites visceral and emotional experience with mental processing. McGaugh presented subjects with two stories containing similar amounts of data. One story had high emotional content and the other had low emotional content. People with functioning Vagus nerves recalled more data from the stories with high emotional content than from the stories with low emotional content. People with damaged Vagus nerves had identical recall from both stories. This suggests that certain types of thought are crippled by the absence of full-bodied emotion. Siegel explains that, “conceptual representations are nonverbal. They form the fundamental building blocks of our thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and aspects of our explicit memories” (Damasio 167). Written theological method is often left wanting embodied communication to close the cognitive loop.

EMBODIED COMMUNICATION AND RIGHT-BRAIN BIAS

The body’s indicators of emotion – somatic markers¬ – interface with the right hemisphere more than the left (Damasio 144, 82). The right-brain simultaneously correlates multiple details rather than sequencing them in cause-effect relationships. Siegel describes how the right-brain deals with nonverbal communications through “fast-acting, parallel (simultaneously active), holistic processes” (Damasio 179). This means that the right-brain is the default processor of metaphor and paradox. Imagistic representations in the mind do not force choice, categorization, or analysis. They exist simultaneously without being truncated by “top-down” processing as emotions ebb and flow (Siegel 165).

Kress calls this type of right-brain embodied thought “spatial reasoning,” and he places it in opposition to the “temporal reasoning” sublimated by alphabetic thought (Kress 45). Spatial reasoning portrays multiple details simultaneously, so spatial reasoning is correlational rather than sequential. This opens up possibilities for theologians by beginning with building blocks of thought before they are sequenced into categories of justified and true, fact or fiction.

The right-brain is functionally nonverbal, so its contents have to be externalized in “non-word-based ways, such as drawing a picture or pointing to a pictorial set of options” (Siegel 327). Alternative mediums, such as video and visual art, could generate entirely new forms of theological thought.

MEDIA’S ROLE IN SPATIAL REASONING

Video and visual art are viable possibilities for developing a right-brain, spatial reasoning into theological method. Jahandarie poetically explains, “Electric media are extensions of our central nervous systems and thus put us in touch with the totality of experience” (Jahandarie 99). Jahandarie overstates his case; – for example, video does not communicate through odors, for example, – but his intended meaning is helpful. New technologies make it possible to create right-brain mass communication. The MNS is 80-85% as effective at influencing emotion through video as it is in person (Kanwisher and Duncan 469), so gestures captured on video have a startlingly high ability to steer the emotional side of the cognitive loop. Emotions can be altered and details can be expressed simultaneously if theologians were to use a wider set of cognitive and communicative tools.

Rotman explains that people listen, “not to speech sounds as such… but to the movements of the body causing them; we focus on what happens between the sounds, to the dynamics of their preparatory phases, pauses, holds, accelerations, fallings away, and completions” (Rotman 23). Through the MNS, we get hunches, – not only about what another person is thinking, – but how the person is thinking and feeling. The dynamics of gesture in film add an intuitive, interpretive element to its communicative ability. In split-brain studies, the left-brain cannot even register facial expressions or emotional states (Rotman 151). While the left-brain might be incredible at reading and writing books, it is inept at spatial reasoning. Siegel writes that the left-brain’s “monosemantic ‘packets’” operate through neurological patterns and processes “quite distinct from the analogic representations seen, for example, in an artist’s painting or in a photograph,” so “the right hemisphere more fully ‘sees the world for what it is,’ whereas the left hemisphere must reduce the world much more into mentally defined, often socially constructed chunks of information” (Rotman 179). The right-brain’s holism and simultaneity could be invaluable to theologians, but it is too often dampened by the limitations of past technologies.

WHEN THEOLOGY IS EMBODIED

Siegel mentions the “theory of nonlinear dynamics of complex systems” in regard to personhood (Siegel 7). The firing of every synapse in every thought exponentially complexifies what it means to be human. Perhaps God is not only linear, either. Images are not filtered through the linear critiques applied to writing because they function differently in the brain. This does not make imagistic, spatial reasoning irrational. It makes spatial reasoning non-rational, and theologians desperately need non-rational ways to discuss a nonlinear God. Spatial mediums are not able to comprehensively encapsulate God’s personhood any more than writing, but they could generate new perspectives to better triangulate theological depth in conjunction with it.

In the syllogistic line that runs from rational to irrational, the concept of a trinity is inherently problematic. The semantic operator only deals with logical, sequential coherence, so the multiple, simultaneously existing details involved in conceptualizing the trinity do not get cognitive space. In this case, it might be advantageous to take a right-brain, imagistic approach to theology.

Depictions allow for multiple details to coexist without sequence. Images can be worth far more than 1,000 words. Imagistic reasoning allows space for entire persons to subject themselves to concepts. The “events and actions” lost in writing’s “principles and concepts” could be filled out through images (Jahandarie 17). Instead of only understanding theology in terms of right and wrong, the theologian could also trust a Vagus nerve when it communicates that an image or gesture is good or bad. The details could remain simultaneous in the right-brain without being sorted, and persons could experience theologies to a fuller degree in addition to critically evaluating them.

CONCLUSION

As neurological patterns become more spatial and less linear, theologians have the opportunity to construct new theological paradigms by diversifying their communicative tools. Creating theology through imagistic mediums would be bounded by its own “epistemological commitments,” (Kress 57) though. Critical thought is a crucial element in theological conversations, for example. This suggests that – when used in isolation – either alphabetic or imagistic methods are reductionistic. Theology has to be alphabetic, linear, and critical to be constructive, but it also needs to be imagistic, embodied, and holistic to avoid reductionistic sequencing of nonlinear concepts. The multiple natures of cognition cannot be mixed or separated. Language and experience, left-brain and right-brain thinking, knowledge and belief, are locked into cognitive loops (Eichenbaum and Bodkin 179), and it is impossible to have a one-sided loop.

The advent of new mediums makes the creation of an embodied theological method – complete with shifting neurological patterns – a mandatory opportunity. The next step is to synthesize multimodal theologies with alphabetic reasoning. A critically holistic methodology would emerge as gestalt. Full-blown theological paradigms could materialize if both hemispheres were used in conjunction. However progressive, however gestalt, and however critically holistic theological method becomes, it can never be comprehensive or complete. Theologians must do theology at all times. When necessary, they should use words.

Jonathan Camery-Hoggatt is a freelance writer in Seattle. He has MA in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Most, if not all, of water’s anomalous properties make life possible. To name a few of its many oddities, water is the only material that naturally exists in all possible forms (solid, liquid, and gas) on earth. Of all known chemical compounds, water has the second highest capacity to store heat, which is crucial for climate regulation and keeping living organisms’ body temperatures constant. Water is the second best heat-conducting liquid (after mercury), and this helps large masses of water to reach uniform temperatures quickly. Water has an astonishingly high heat of vaporization which eases body temperature regulation for humans and animals via providing a cooling system through sweating. This high heat of vaporization also prevents dehydration.

The absorption coefficient of water is a million times lower for the visible region of light than the rest of spectrum, a property which enables passage of the useful and prevention of the harmful rays from the sun, and makes the earth amenable to the accommodation of biological life. Furthermore, the greenhouse effect which keeps the Earth’s climate at moderation also stems from this aspect of water. Because the sunlight that is reflected from the Earth is mostly in the infrared region, it is effectively absorbed by the water vapor in the atmosphere due to water’s higher absorption of light within the non-visible regimes, and hence the heat does not escape from the earth.

Water is one if the best solvents, which is very important for cleansing. Finally (and thankfully), water does not display its peculiarity when it comes to taste. Such a “famously odd” molecule is somewhat ironically tasteless and odorless, and extremely easy to drink and consume.

“If We so willed, We would make it bitter and salty. Then should you not give thanks?” Waqi‘ah (56:70)

Although each of the aforementioned physical aspects of water deserves mentioning in its own right, from here on we will focus on water’s properties from a biological standpoint. To this end, we will first introduce some aspects of water, look at the interaction of water with bio-molecules, and finally elaborate on three particular biological examples (protein folding, cellular membranes and water channels), which demonstrate how such interactions provide the bases for life.

Life based on water

“We made every living thing from water.” Anbiya 21:30

Thanks to its abundance on earth, water is easily accessible and inexpensive. However, in the summer of 1986, Professor Michael Levitt of Stanford University spent almost half a million dollars on a tiny amount of water, that would hardly wet the point of a pin. Certainly, the money was not spent on the water itself, but the expenditure (it now costs about 50 cents to run such a simulation) reflected the cost of running a simulation on a cluster of supercomputers for two weeks to understand the interaction between water molecules and a particular protein. Eventually, the money turned out to be well spent. Although the same protein had been modeled before by a research group at Harvard University in 1977, the simulation had been carried out as if the protein were in a vacuum. Levitt and his co-workers realized that the previous attempt to model the proteins in the absence of water was a poor predictor of the real-life scenario. Likewise, earlier DNA simulations meant to model the double helical DNA in the absence of water had failed, Levitt and his colleagues also succeeded in simulating the DNA by adding water in the environment, and the water molecules were found to be interacting with nearly every part of the DNA. Levitt’s groundbreaking discoveries not only revealed the importance of the interaction between water and biological molecules, but also paved the way for computational biologists to simulate biological entities in the presence of their native watery media.

When a drop of oil is placed in water, it does not mix with water. Hence, oil and water are said to be immiscible. In contrast, sugar easily dissolves in water and forms a homogenous mixture upon mixing. Although not as obvious at first sight, the underlying principles which govern this phenomenon can explain how water can interact with biological molecules.

Materials can be classified according to their “water tendency”: the ones that tend to avoid water (e.g. oil), are considered hydro-phobic (hydro: “water,” phobic: “fearing”), whereas materials that mix well with water (e.g. alcohol) are called hydro-philic (or water-loving). Water’s particular molecular structure turns out to yield a non-uniform electron distribution, and thus makes water molecule highly “polar” (see Figure 1.a). As a consequence, polar or charged molecules prefer being close to water molecules, whereas the apolar or neutral ones tend to avoid them.

Many curious aspects of water stem from another fact-that water molecules can interact with each other through “hydrogen bonding” (see Figure 1b). Although the molecules in a liquid are highly disordered, hydrogen bonding gives water molecules some order even in the liquid phase. A molecule’s ability to cooperate in hydrogen bonding is very important for breaking (or formation) of hydrogen bonds, and affect two parameters (i.e. the “order” and the “energy”) of the system which determine the feasibility of a certain chemical reaction.

Actually, most, if not all, of the oddities of water are due to these two properties (water-tendency and hydrogen bonding). Furthermore, these two aspects determine a great deal of how water interacts with other molecules, and the way water enables the proliferation of life. We will now elaborate on some biological phenomena and try to understand them in the light of these aspects of water.

Protein folding

Proteins are biological molecules that carry out the vital tasks of life. In the cell, proteins are initially synthesized as linear chains of amino acids ranging in size from a few to several thousand amino acids in length. Subsequent to synthesis, a linear chain spontaneously folds into a particular three-dimensional (3D) form (see Figure 2). This precise fold is essential for the execution of protein’s specific function (see Figure 3). As simple as it may sound, protein folding is currently one of the biggest questions in biophysics.

Researchers are working hard to be able to devise principles to estimate which 3D fold a certain linear amino acid sequence adopts, and what functions the eventual 3D structures execute. Although these questions related to the protein folding phenomenon are still far from being totally understood, some clues have been discovered.

In 1969 Cryus Levinthal stated that an average size protein would fold within about 1030 times longer than the expected lifetime of the universe if it were to fold via sampling all possible conformations even if the conformational sampling is very fast (e.g. a millionth of a millionth of a second for each conformation). This obviously is not what happens in reality, and the experimentally observed folding times are within milliseconds (a thousandth of a second) – second regime. This discrepancy between the estimated and the measured timescales is referred to as the “Levinthal Paradox.”

Consequently, proteins cannot rely on randomly sampling all the possible conformations to fold, but the folding must rather be a driven and directed process. Scientists hypothesize that water comes to the rescue at this point. As the linear protein chain is being synthesized, water-hating amino acids try to bury themselves away from water as soon as possible. This leads to the rapid collapse of the linear amino acid chain into a compact structure where hydrophobic regions are protected from water (see Figure 2c). This initial compaction which is provided by the interaction with the ambient aqueous medium is thought to be the key step in achieving folding within reasonable timescales. After the first rapid compaction, the protein adapts its final structure by sampling a much smaller number of possible conformations.

Simultaneously, hydrogen bonding helps the stabilization of certain folds with respect to other possible structures and contributes to the folding process. Eventually, the functional 3D fold is thus realized from the nascent linear protein chain.

Cellular compartmentalization

“He has let flow forth the two large bodies of water, they meet together, (but) between them is a barrier, which they do not transgress (and so they do not merge).” (Rahman 55:19-20)

Compartmentalization is an important feature of life. First of all, the boundary of a cell must be well-defined and well-controlled. Secondly, different tasks are carried out by specialized compartments (so called organelles) within most of the cells. The major design principle of the cellular boundaries depends on the immiscibility of water and oil. The subunits of cellular membranes are “lipids” which simply are oil-based molecules. A lipid molecule has two parts: A water-loving “headgroup” and two water-fearing “tails”. Because of the dual water-tendency of lipids, they can self assemble into bi-layers (see Figure 4 a and b), which eventually form enclosed structures. Thanks to the properties of water, this compartmentalization is readily achieved.

The cell membrane thus formed is impermeable to ions, and many chemical agents important for sustaining the cellular functions. Although such a barrier is essential for holding the cell contents as well as maintaining intracellular balance, material exchange between inside and outside of the cell is also an indispensible trait for carrying out the vast majority of vital processes (nerve impulse formation and transmission, cell signaling, nutrition, etc.). In order to achieve well-controlled material transport across the membrane, the cell membrane is decorated with various proteins that function as “channels” (see Figure 4c). These channel proteins come in different flavors and show specificity towards different chemicals. For instance, the channel protein for the potassium ion (K+) only allows the passage of potassium ions, whereas the sodium channel only lets sodium (Na+) through. Other channels have “gating” mechanisms that enable the channel to be “open” or “closed” depending on the need for the transport to happen. Although the specificity and gating mechanism of every channel protein relies on a unique ingenious design principle which deserves detailed mention in its own right, in the rest of the article we will focus on the water channel, for it once again exemplifies the perfect harmony between water and the bio-molecules.

Aquaporin: The water channel

Almost 170 liters of water is recycled in the human kidney on a daily basis, and this requires that kidney tissue possesses high water permeability. Since water cannot diffuse in and out of the cell membrane very rapidly for the reasons given above, reconciliation of the enormous daily flux of water in the kidneys has been a long-standing puzzle. The discovery of water channels (also known as “aquaporin”) by Peter Agre in 1992 resolved the mystery, and this finding was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003. It is now known that the recycling machinery in the kidney chiefly consists of millions of aquaporins. Like other channel proteins, aquaporins also display selectivity: water is effectively transported across aquaporins, whereas the passage of other ions and miscellaneous agents is not permitted.

However, how this selectivity is achieved presented another riddle: Hydrogen is smaller than water and can move through the smallest opening. How, then, is the hydrogen selected against, while water is allowed? It was also well known that water molecules which are ordered within the channel constriction (see Figure 5) normally form a “proton wire” through which the hydrogen ions (i.e. protons) can easily flow just like an electrical current flows along an electrical wire. Thus, as water is transported across aquaporins, hydrogen ions should in principle move rapidly in and out of the cells through the chain of ordered water molecules (i.e. the proton wire) in an uncontrollable manner. This would cause an imbalance in the cellular environment, and most likely would lead to cell death.

The answer came from a computer simulation of aquaporin by Emad Tajkhorshid and Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. They found that the water molecules change their orientation (see Figure 5) as they spun through the water channel. This rotation was achieved via water molecules’ specific interactions with the amino acid residues in the channel. Thanks to this orientation, the formation of the proton wire is disrupted (just like a break in an electric circuit) and the hydrogen ions are not permitted through the channel, while rapid water diffusion takes place. The interaction between water and aquaporin thus provides just another reason water is rightfully considered the cradle of life.

Conclusion

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

… and that He sends down water from the sky, and revives with it the earth after its death. Surely in this are signs for people who will reason and understand. Rum 30:24 

References

1. Gedik, N. “The Miracles of Water,” The Fountain, Issue 43, January–March 2005.

2. Ileri, R. “Water and Vitality,” The Fountain, Issue 2, April-June 1993.

3. Unal, Ali. The Qur’an: An Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, The Light, Inc. NJ: 2005.

4. “Simulating Water and The Molecules of Life,” Scientific American, November 1998.

5. Errington, J. R. & Debenedetti, “P.G.” Nature, 409, 318–321, 2001.

6. Water, Wikipedia.

7. “Mysteries of Water,” Physics Today, June 2003.

8. Sener, Hamdi. “Mikroalemdeki Canli Motorlar” (Living Engines in the Micro World), Sizinti, September 2005.

9. Figures are modified from: Chemical polarity, Wikipedia
Hydrogen bond, Wikipedia
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