Valueception
Description
Daniel Thorson:
"Iain McGilchrist's extensive research on the divided brain offers compelling insights into this question. In his groundbreaking works "The Master and His Emissary" and "The Matter With Things," McGilchrist introduces the concept of "valueception" – our capacity to directly perceive values as realities that exist independently of our preferences or judgments.
This perceptual capacity, McGilchrist argues, is primarily mediated by the right hemisphere of the brain, which specializes in direct, embodied engagement with reality in its wholeness. Unlike the left hemisphere, which excels at abstraction, categorization, and manipulation, the right hemisphere maintains an open, receptive relationship with what is. It perceives reality not as a collection of objects to be utilized but as a living presence imbued with inherent meaning and value.
The cultural dominance of left-hemisphere modes of attention has led to what McGilchrist describes as a "hall of mirrors" – a world where we increasingly engage not with reality itself but with our representations and models of it. In this abstracted space, values become mere preferences or subjective projections rather than qualities we can directly perceive in the world.
Crucially, McGilchrist argues that how we attend to reality shapes what we're able to perceive. The narrow, utilitarian focus characteristic of left-hemisphere attention systematically blinds us to the presence of intrinsic value. Like looking through a pinhole, we see only what our mode of attention allows. A world approached primarily as resource, as means to our ends, gradually loses its inherent value and meaning, not because these qualities disappear from reality, but because our way of attending makes them imperceptible to us."
(https://intimatemirror.substack.com/p/valueception?)
Discussion
The Eye of Value in CosmoErotic Humanism
Daniel Thorson:
"The philosophers Zachary Stein and Marc Gafni have developed this insight further through their framework of CosmoErotic Humanism. They speak of "the eye of value" – a perceptual capacity that allows us to directly apprehend the intrinsic worth of reality.
This eye of value, when open and clarified, enables us to perceive not just that things have value but how value flows and manifests in the living world. It reveals a universe that is not value-neutral but value-saturated, where goodness, truth, and beauty are not subjective projections but real dimensions of existence that call us to right relationship.
Stein and Gafni understand our current meta-crisis – the interconnected ecological, social, and meaning crises we face – as fundamentally a crisis of intimacy and perception. When the eye of value is clouded or closed, we become functionally blind to the intrinsic worth of the natural world, of other beings, and ultimately of ourselves. This blindness doesn't just impoverish our experience; it enables destruction that would be unthinkable if we could directly perceive the value of what we're destroying.
The eye of value isn't just a passive receiver; it's an active capacity that shapes how we exist in the world. When this perceptual organ is functioning well, we naturally align our actions with the flow of value we perceive. We don't need complex ethical calculations to know that clear-cutting an ancient forest is wrong – we can feel the wrongness directly, just as we can sense the dissonance in a jarring chord."
Practices for Cultivating Valueception
Daniel Thorson:
"If valueception is indeed a capacity that can be developed, what practices might help us cultivate it? Drawing from the traditions and frameworks we've explored, several approaches emerge:
Contemplative Practice: Meditation, particularly forms that emphasize open awareness rather than narrow concentration, can help shift our mode of attention from the left hemisphere's utilitarian focus to the right hemisphere's receptive openness. Practices that develop presence, embodiment, and non-utilitarian awareness create the conditions where values can be directly perceived.
Aesthetic Education: Deep engagement with beauty, whether in nature or in art, trains our capacity to perceive value directly. When we learn to truly see a painting, hear a piece of music, or witness a landscape not for what we can get from it but for its inherent qualities, we strengthen the eye of value.
Ethical Apprenticeship: Just as mathematical perception develops through engagement with mathematical problems under the guidance of those with developed mathematical perception, ethical perception develops through engagement with ethical questions under the guidance of those with developed ethical perception. We learn to see values by apprenticing ourselves to those who see them clearly.
Imaginal Practice: Following Burbea's approach, we can deliberately cultivate the soul's perceptual capacity through practices that engage the imaginal realm. This might involve working with imagery, metaphor, and symbolic understanding to develop our capacity to perceive meaning and value in direct, embodied ways.
Community of Practice: Our perceptual capacities are shaped by our social environments. Communities that validate and support valueception create the conditions for its development, while environments that ridicule or dismiss such perception inhibit it. Creating communities where direct perception of value is honored and cultivated becomes essential for its flourishing."
Implications for Our Collective Future
Daniel Thorson:
"The rediscovery and cultivation of valueception holds profound implications for addressing our contemporary crises. When we can directly perceive the inherent value of ecosystems, of other beings, of truth and beauty and goodness, our relationship with reality transforms. Actions that seemed reasonable within a value-blind framework become unthinkable when we can directly perceive the value of what would be destroyed.
This shift doesn't happen primarily through better arguments or more information but through the development of perceptual capacities that allow us to see what was previously invisible to us. A person who can perceive the inherent value of an ancient forest doesn't need to be convinced not to destroy it; the value itself becomes directly apparent and compelling.
Educational systems oriented toward developing valueception alongside other forms of knowledge would produce individuals capable of seeing dimensions of reality currently obscured in our culture. Political and economic systems informed by developed valueception would naturally align with the intrinsic values they perceive rather than operating from value-blind abstractions.
The heart of our meaning crisis lies not in the absence of meaning from reality but in our diminished capacity to perceive the meaning that saturates existence. The path forward involves not constructing meaning in an empty universe but developing the perceptual organs that allow us to recognize and participate in the meaning and value that have been here all along."