The Emotional Federalism of the Mind: A Psychextrical Model of Human Inconsistency
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
Introduction: The Myth of Consistency
Human beings have long prided themselves on the illusion of rational consistency — the belief that our thoughts, decisions, and judgments flow from a single, coherent self. Yet, both in law and in life, inconsistency emerges as the most persistent trait of human reasoning. A juror may convict and acquit within the same case; a friend may agree with half of your sentence and oppose the other half without noticing the contradiction.
These are not flaws in reasoning — they are the biological expressions of neurotype plurality, a central principle in Psychextrics.
In Psychextrics, the neurotype is the behavioural constitution of the self — the encoded pattern through which emotion, perception, and cognition converge to produce conduct. Each person hosts multiple neurotypes: distinct emotional circuits that activate depending on stimuli, mood, and hormonal state. What appears to be one mind is, in fact, a parliament of emotional circuits.
1. The Neurotype as Behavioural Constitution
A neurotype is not a personality but a circuit pattern — a distinct pathway through which emotional and perceptual signals are processed. It is shaped by both GIM (Genetic Index Marker) — the inherited architecture of emotional wiring — and EIM (Epigenetic Index Marker) — the environmental reinforcement or suppression of those traits.
Unlike personality, which describes surface behaviour, neurotype defines the infrastructure of behaviour — the internal logic by which emotions and cognition cooperate or conflict. No two neurotypes are identical; each carries a unique pattern of emotional excitation, inhibition, and moral valuation.
In judicial or interpersonal contexts, this means that the same facts, arguments, or experiences are not simply interpreted differently — they are constructed differently by each individual’s emotional circuitry.
2. The Fragmented Self: How a Single Sentence Reveals Multiple Neurotypes
To see how this operates, consider a simple conversation between two people:
Amira: “I agree that surveillance can prevent crime, but I also think it invades privacy.”
To the listener, this sounds like a balanced, rational opinion. But psychextrically, Amira’s sentence exposes two competing neurotypes.
- First Clause (Agreement) — “Surveillance can prevent crime.” This activates the security neurotype, rooted in the amygdalo-thalamic loop, especially the ventral anterior nucleus of the thalamus. Its emotional logic prioritises safety, predictability, and social control.
- Second Clause (Disagreement) — “But it invades privacy.” Here, the autonomy neurotype takes over, mediated by the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus and anterior cingulate cortex, which govern empathy, individual freedom, and self-boundary regulation.
These two circuits coexist but rarely harmonise. The human cortex, which merely displays the results of thalamic processing, fuses their outputs into a single sentence — masking the inner contradiction.
What sounds like reasoned balance is actually emotional diplomacy between rival circuits.
3. Everyday Examples of Neurotype Switching
The phenomenon of neurotype switching is everywhere in daily life.
A parent tells their child, “Always tell the truth,” then later warns, “Be careful what you say to people.”
To the psychextrical observer, this is not hypocrisy but contextual circuit dominance.
- When invoking honesty, the moral alignment circuit (posterior hypothalamic and limbic activation) dominates.
- When invoking caution, the protective circuit (lateral hypothalamic and orbitofrontal influence) assumes control.
Each statement feels sincere at the time because each is emotionally true within its own neural context. The human brain, therefore, does not contradict itself — it oscillates between truths that are situationally valid.
This same oscillation explains why, in the courtroom, a judge or juror may issue verdicts that logically conflict: they are emotionally consistent to the circuit that dominated at each point of decision.
4. The Diagrammatic Model: Neurotype Conflict in Real Time
Below is a simplified psychextrical schematic showing how two neurotypes compete for cortical dominance during a single act of reasoning.
[External Stimulus]
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────┐
│ THALAMIC PROCESSING │
│ (Sensory–Emotional Relay) │
└────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Neurotype A: Security Circuit │
│ – Amygdala → Ventral Anterior Thalamus │
│ – Emotion: Fear, Order, Stability │
│ – Hormonal Signature: High HFI Cortisol │
│ – Output: “Surveillance prevents crime” │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
├──────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Neurotype B: Autonomy Circuit │
│ – Mediodorsal Thalamus → Anterior Cingulate │
│ – Emotion: Empathy, Freedom, Integrity │
│ – Hormonal Signature: High HFI Oxytocin │
│ – Output: “Surveillance invades privacy” │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────┐
│ CORTICAL DISPLAY │
│ (Conscious Integration) │
│ → Merged Sentence Output │
│ “I agree… but I disagree”│
└────────────────────────────┘
What appears as ambivalence is, biologically, neurotype dualism — two distinct circuits firing sequentially within milliseconds. The cortex produces a grammatically coherent sentence, but its emotional origin is bifurcated.
5. Linguistic Indicators of Neurotype Transition
In Psychextrics, the neurotype is understood as a semi-autonomous emotional-cognitive circuit within the diencephalon, possessing its own threshold of reasoning, empathy, and defensive orientation. During communication, individuals rarely operate from a single, unified neurotype; rather, they oscillate between multiple micro-circuits, each contributing fragments of perception and judgement.
This oscillation becomes linguistically visible through transitional markers — words and phrases that signal the internal negotiation between competing neurotypes. These are not merely stylistic features of speech; they are behavioural biomarkers of cognitive shift.
Common identifiers include conjunctions and qualifiers such as “but,” “however,” “perhaps,” “nonetheless,” “although,” “still,” “then again,” “I suppose,” “on the other hand,” and “to be fair.” Each operates as a neural semaphore, indicating that one neurotype has yielded to another within the same sentence or thought stream.
For instance:
“I agree with what you’re saying, but I still feel it’s unfair.”
In this sentence, the speaker’s analytical neurotype (seeking agreement and coherence) is immediately interrupted by an empathic or moral neurotype asserting emotional discomfort. The word but becomes the hinge — the linguistic fingerprint of a neurotype shift.
Similarly, when one says:
“Perhaps you’re right, nonetheless I think it’s risky.”
Two transitions occur. Perhaps indicates tentative alignment — a cognitive concession from the reasoning neurotype; nonetheless signals reassertion — the return of a defensive or cautious neurotype.
Under psychextrical mapping, these linguistic events correspond to neural toggles between thalamic nuclei involved in decision-weighting (such as the mediodorsal nucleus, which processes evaluation and prediction) and hypothalamic circuits modulating emotional dominance. The cortex merely narrates this internal federalism as language.
Thus, conversational words are not inert connectors; they are biological signals of emotional diplomacy — the mind’s own legislative markers of internal dissent and reconciliation.
In practical terms, recognising these transitions allows behavioural analysts, therapists, and legal professionals to detect intra-personal conflict in real time — moments when an individual is neither lying nor inconsistent, but rather negotiating truth among competing neurotypes.
In legal and conversational contexts alike, this understanding reframes inconsistency as structural pluralism — not moral weakness, but the natural speech of the divided emotional state that defines human cognition.
Here, I presents a psychextrical decoding of linguistic markers as behavioural evidence of neurotype transition.
Table of Transitional Markers and Their Neurotype Functions
| Linguistic Marker / Phrase | Neurotype Function | Behavioural Interpretation (Psychextrical) | Diencephalic Correlate |
|---|---|---|---|
| But | Conflict Reassertion | Marks resistance; one neurotype interrupts another to preserve dominance or moral stance. | Mediodorsal nucleus (evaluation control) engages against anterior hypothalamic alignment. |
| However | Analytical Override | Signals a logical reappraisal interrupting emotional consensus. | Lateral thalamic nuclei re-engage executive memory. |
| Perhaps | Diplomatic Concession | Indicates partial surrender or cooperative reasoning without full commitment. | Ventromedial thalamus reduces limbic resistance. |
| Nonetheless | Cognitive Retraction | Withdraws concession; reinstates defensive posture or moral reasoning. | Paraventricular hypothalamus reactivates assertive emotion. |
| Still | Emotional Persistence | Suggests lingering affect even after logical resolution. | Posterior hypothalamus sustains emotional continuity. |
| Although / Even though | Dual-State Coexistence | Simultaneous operation of opposing emotional circuits; tolerance of contradiction. | Bilateral thalamic co-activation; increased oscillation frequency. |
| Then again | Retrospective Adjustment | Reflects recursive cognition — mind reviewing its own stance in real time. | Dorsomedial thalamic replay loop. |
| I suppose | Reluctant Acceptance | Emotional compliance without full conviction. | Reduced hypothalamic dominance; temporary thalamic submission. |
| On the other hand | Comparative Equilibrium | Balances two opposing neurotypes — often ethical versus practical reasoning. | Thalamic interlaminar mediation between moral and analytical circuits. |
| To be fair | Empathic Modulation | Introduces fairness circuit to temper aggression or bias. | Anterior hypothalamus regulates moral empathy. |
| In fact | Certainty Reinforcement | Reasserts control by the dominant neurotype seeking closure. | Lateral thalamic dominance over limbic ambiguity. |
| Anyway | Cognitive Closure | Ends internal debate; disengagement from conflict to preserve energy. | Hypothalamic shutdown of competing circuits. |
Speech is not a monologue of cognition — it is a federal parliament of neurotypes, each taking brief turns to legislate emotional meaning. Transitional markers are the procedural rules of that parliament, signalling when one emotional constituency yields the floor to another.
This table, therefore, functions as a psychextrical lexicon of intra-personal democracy — a translation of inner neural diplomacy into everyday language. Where traditional linguistics sees syntax, Psychextrics sees neural choreography: a conversation not between two people, but between multiple emotional states within each of them.
In judicial or political discourse, mastery of these transitions constitutes neurotype literacy — the ability to read emotional structure beneath verbal surface. It explains why a trained advocate can appear consistent despite switching reasoning stances, and why an untrained speaker appears erratic though emotionally authentic.
Understanding this lexicon also provides the foundation for AI-assisted neurotype detection in systems like my proposed future Judicial Artificial Intelligence System (JAIS), enabling future jurisprudence to interpret human testimony not as inconsistency but as a record of internal emotional negotiation.
6. The Broader Parallel: From Conversation to Courtroom
This micro-neural dynamic mirrors judicial inconsistency. When appellate courts deliver split or contradictory verdicts, they are engaging in a scaled-up version of Amira’s dual-statement phenomenon. One part of the judicial brain (the logic of precedent) agrees with conviction, while another (the emotional empathy circuit) leans toward acquittal.
The human brain cannot sustain emotional symmetry across multiple interpretations of the same moral event. Thus, inconsistent verdicts are the institutional expression of a biological fact — that human reasoning is federated, not unified.
7. The Emotional Federalism of the Mind
Human cognition is a parliament of emotional constituencies. Each neurotype—moral, logical, empathetic, authoritarian—governs its domain, casting votes on every perception, judgment, and conversation. The “final decision” is not the product of consensus but of temporary majority control.
This is what Psychextrics terms emotional federalism — the coexistence of competing emotional states within a single brain, constantly negotiating for dominance. When one circuit’s reign ends, another assumes control, and what was once a “truth” becomes a “mistake.”
Law, politics, and morality all emerge from this same architecture. Hence, equality before the law, objectivity in politics, and consistency in personal ethics remain aspirations rather than realities — because they assume the brain behaves as one, when in fact it behaves as many.
8. Toward Psychextrical Awareness
Recognising neurotype plurality liberates us from the illusion of coherence. It allows us to see disagreement — even within ourselves — not as failure but as a sign of biological democracy. Every contradiction is evidence that multiple circuits are alive and participating.
From the bench to the living room, from jury rooms to personal relationships, the human mind is not divided by confusion but united by conflict. And just as societies create constitutions to manage competing interests, so too must our understanding of mind acknowledge the emotional constitution that governs every act of thought.
Conclusion: The Psychextrical Human
The psychextrical model reveals that inconsistency is the price of consciousness. The same neural plurality that makes empathy possible also makes contradiction inevitable.
Humanity’s greatest paradox is that the circuits that allow us to see multiple perspectives also prevent us from ever holding one permanently.
Whether in the courtroom, the parliament, or the intimate sphere of dialogue, every statement we make is a temporary alliance of emotions—a momentary peace in the civil war of the brain.
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