Introduction
In this blog series I would like to comb through the pages of Elkhonon Goldberg’s book The Wisdom Paradox looking for bridges or connections between Bowlby’s theory of attachment with its focus on ethology and animal studies, and modern attachment theory with its focus on interpersonal or social neurobiology. Why on earth would I engage in such an endeavor?
Starting in the late 1970s and into the 1980s two advances—one sociological, one technological—rocked the foundations of Bowlbian attachment theory. The first was the continuing advance of feminism and its criticism of Bowlby’s theory as advocating for biological determinism—biology holding that mothers should securely attach to their infants—and the further imprisonment of women within the household. The second was the emergence of brain imaging technologies such as CAT (computed axial tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners.
Almost overnight ethology (the study of animal behavior) and animal model studies were largely abandoned in favor of these new brain imaging technologies as a means toward unlocking the secrets of the human brain. In his book chapter on primate attachment[1] Dario Maestriperi writes, “[T]hroughout the late 1960s and early 1970s [when Bowlby did the bulk of his work], interactions between primate and human researchers were frequent and mutually beneficial.” He continues by bemoaning the fact that today (in 2003) “such interactions have since become rare.” Maestriperi places the blame for this scientific divorce squarely at the feet of neuroimaging devices and techniques, and the pressure to justify the large expense for these contraptions.
As I have written about before, in the shift from Bowlbian attachment theory to modern attachment theory much was left on the cutting room floor such as grief and mourning, human-animal connections, inner working cognitive maps or models, and even an explicit treatment of organic systems theory of which evolution is a prime example—all topics that can be found in Bowlbian attachment theory. That’s not to say that these topics have disappeared altogether. They have not. You just have to search for them. As an example, Bowlby most likely got his idea of inner working cognitive models or maps from such influences as Jean Piaget (who he met with during the Geneva Conferences) and Edward Tolman who coined the term “cognitive model.” Piaget is considered to be the father of what researchers call spatial cognition or wayfinding behavior. At the risk of being glib, it is hard to explore one’s environment (a focus of Bowlby’s theory) without some degree of spatial intelligence, an intelligence we share with most of the animal kingdom from bees to birds. Bowlby knew this, which is why he made it an important piece of his overall interdisciplianry attachment ecosystem. Spatial cognition as a discipline is going strong as evidenced by the 2020 book by Tori Ishikawa entitled Human Spatial Cognition and Experience: Mind In the World, World In the Mind. However, there seems to be a clean break between Bowlbian attachment theory and spatial cognition, sadly enough.
The point here being that as Bowlbian attachment theory was passed through the keyhole of neuroimaging, a number of pieces were shaved off of the Bowlbian attachment theory ecosystem. Neuroimaging assess for what neuroimaging assesses: human brains laying in neuroimaging machines. That’s not to say that eventually when brain scanners are reduced to the size of a smartphone, neuroimaging will not then begin studying people and animals as they naturally explore their environments outside of the lab. They will. Until then one will have to search around for Bowlby’s “shaved-off pieces.” As fate would have it, I think I have found a number of those pieces hiding in Goldberg’s book The Wisdom Paradox. Goldberg calls himself a neuropsychologist. And, yes, he does pull from neuroimaging studies, however, he’s very unorthodox in his approach and, as a result, spends time looking at such things as animal models, cognitive maps and models, evolution, and organic systems theory. He’s very Bowlbian probably without knowing it. Let’s dive into Goldberg’s book The Wisdom Paradox.
A New Take On the Left Brain vs. Right Brain Dichotomy
Even those of us who have a casual interest in neurology know about the left brain vs. right brain dichotomy. Neurologists (and much of the general public) typically believe that the left side of our brain is for linear, logical, linguistic tasks. In contrast, the right side is for holistic, ill-defined or vague, abstract tasks. Heck, this dichotomy forms the backbone of a book that I have mentioned many times before: The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by the neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist. McGilchrist goes so far as to suggest that the right brain is the “master” and the left brain does the right brain’s bidding. The Master and his Emissary traces out the cultural vacillations between left and right brain since the beginning of recorded time, from Ancient Rome and Greece, through the Dark Ages, and out into the light once again of the appropriately named The Enlightenment. It ends with the Digital Age that now surrounds us, a decidedly left brain environment McGilchrist argues. Certainly there’s some truth to the left brain vs. right brain dichotomy, however, Goldberg sees a fundamental problem.
In his book The Wisdom Paradox, Goldberg discusses the problem he sees with the current take on the specialization or lateralization of the human brain along the hemispheric divide, left brain vs. right brain. Goldberg recognizes that many brains in the animal world are also lateralized. However, animals do not have the same advanced language abilities that humans possess. So, what purpose does lateralization serve animals? Goldberg answers simply: “patterns.” The left brain is good at storing patterns, language being just an advanced form of pattern or pattern-making. The left brain makes the world knowable and predictable through its store of patterns, the patterns or maps or models that arise as the organism encounters the environment. Goldberg argues that it is the right brain that explores new, vaguely defined environments. As novel environments become known through repeat encounters, a pattern of that novel environment emerges and is then passed to the left brain for storage. Goldberg’s model fits nicely with Damasio’s model of how the nervous system “maps” the environment. Consider this excerpt from a March 2025 post of mine that contains quotes by Damasio from his book Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, (quotes I will undoubtedly use again as they are that important):
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Damasio imagines that a nervous system in essence creates a grid, a grid that is capable of creating … wait for it … maps. Yes, maps. The nervous system with its grid-like nature is capable of mapping its environment, both the environment of the body (via the various organelles) as well as the environment of external reality (via sensing structures). As Damasio puts it, “The grid-like anatomy of all these neural structures is ideal for the purpose of activating neurons in a patterned [emphasis added] fashion so that varied designs, in varied dimensions, can be ‘activated’ rapidly and wiped out just as rapidly.” Simply, for minds to come onto the scene we first need maps or images. Without maps or images there can be no minds. Organisms that have the ability to create maps or images could be said to be minded but they are not yet conscious. For consciousness to develop, Damasio argues that we need some way to store maps or images and then, most importantly, some ability to inspect those maps and images. This is where the various structures of the brain come into play.
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Effectively Goldberg suggests that the right brain explores novel environments and through repeat encounters forms a map or model (or pattern) of that environment. These maps of the environment are then passed along to the left brain for storage. Now, there’s one more critical piece: reflection. As indicated above, an organism needs some way to inspect and reflect on stored maps or models. This is where the so-called Executive brain along with its Executive Functions (EF) comes into play. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the overall cognitive system that Goldberg (and Damasio) describes is in fact very much like Bowlby’s attachment ecosystem. Again, I would suggest that Goldberg is much more Bowlbian than meets the eye. Now, Goldberg delivers a real kicker: wisdom.
The astute reader may be asking, What’s this paradox referred to in the title to Goldberg’s book The Wisdom Paradox? It’s a doozy. Goldberg (as do many other neuroscientists) recognizes that typically as the brain ages it loses its cognitive oomph. Brain centers shrink a bit, myelination (the protective sheath surrounding neuron axons) gets “dried out,” and brain center connections get “rickety.” However, in many cases, wisdom seems to increase with aging. WTH (what the heck) is going on?
Goldberg hypothesizes that as aging progresses, it’s the right brain structures that take the biggest hit. And, when you think about it, this makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. As the brain ages, so too the body. A person in his or her golden years is probably not going to engage in the types of exploratory behavior (e.g., climbing mountains or exploring underwater caves) they once did. This is where the tables turn on the left brain vs right brain dichotomy. Goldberg suggests that as the focus on the right brain diminishes with age, the left brain enters the spotlight with its store of patterns or maps or models. Goldberg goes further and suggests that over time, and with the help of EF skills, the left brain creates “meta-patterns” or “meta-models.” The Goldbergian ecosystem extracts generalizations from the store of left brain patterns. Goldberg uses the example of learning to ride a bike, which leads to the formation of “procedural memories” or patterns. Once learned and stored in the left brain, we can apply these meta-patterns to other domains beyond the domain of original learning. If you learn to ride a bike on the street in front of your house, you can then ride a bike at the beach, in the country, in the city, in the moutains. Clearly you may need some additional training to handle city bike riding (which can be challenging), or a different bike to ride in the mountains or on the beach, but you do not need to learn how to ride. Education expert Howard Gardner will point out that at its core education is about teaching subject matter in such a way that it can be applied outside the domain or original learning. He’s talking about Goldberg’s meta-models. And, yes, these meta-models are the stuff of wisdom. I will inch further out on my precarious perch and suggest that the various secure and insecure attachment styles or patterns are also meta-patterns that arise out of a cognitive ecosystem.
Looking Ahead
In the next post I’d like to present research that supports the model that Goldberg presents. Sure, Goldberg presents research in support of his hypothesis in his book The Wisdom Paradox. However, I found this research “independently” from Goldberg’s book. I put independently in quotes because the supporting research appears in a volume that was edited by Goldberg entitled Executive Functions in Health and Disease. Next time I’ll talk about the book chapter entitled Executive Function and Neurocognitive Aging by Spreng et al. After that I’d like to come back around to the topic of how Goldberg’s cognitive ecosystem potentially changes how we look at the left brain vs. right brain dichotomy as presented by McGilchrist in his book The Master and his Emissary. I’ll give you a hint; it has to do with cultural cognitive maps, a topic I took up recently.
Notes:
[1] Here’s the full reference for Maestriperi’s book chapter:
Maestriperi, D. (2003) Attachment. In D. Maestriperi (Ed.), Primate psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
