:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Brain as collective action

“It’s hard to tell which you is the real one. The chorus of voices makes you feel like you’re not one person but many. The truth is, you are many. You are a population… When you think, you engage in group-think.” David Rosenbaum,

Quote Bank

Rosenbaum (2014):

“Many aspects of experience, or possibly all aspects of experience, reflect the goings-on of multiple brain regions acting as a population.”

“But like conglomerates of amoebas or fungi, populations of neural demons have emergent properties, and that is where things get interesting.”

“The way [neurons] express cooperation, mechanistically, is through excitation, and the way they express competition, mechanistically, is through inhibition. If a neuron is friends with another neuron, it excites that other neuron.”

“Much as there are dominance hierarchies in nature—pecking orders among poultry, for example—there are dominance hierarchies in the brain. The idea that neural ensembles dominate other neural ensembles is widespread in neuroscience.”

“it’s good for neurons to team up with other neurons. Teaming up is important because the neural ecosystem has a limited supply of oxygen, glucose, and other needed materials. Individual neurons benefit from joining up with other “like-minded” neurons—that is, neurons tuned to similar functional events—just as we humans tend to do better if we join with others than if we go it alone.”

“If it’s a jungle in there, shouldn’t neurons just inhibit their neighbors as much as possible? Shouldn’t neurons be as aggressive as possible all the time, suppressing their neural neighbors as fiercely as they can? ….Neurons need to be on good terms with other neurons with whom they have connections. If you’re a neuron, you need input to get activated. It won’t serve you well over the long run to deflate all the neurons with whom you have ties because, through their activity, they might promote your own future functioning. Biting the neural hand that feeds you won’t help you over the long run.”

“ask yourself what kind of neuron you’d like to be. If your main priority is survival, you’d want to be a neuron that fires often. You’d want excitement that occurs fairly regularly but not nonstop, for that could exhaust you. And you would not want to be endlessly isolated or interminably inhibited, for then your draw on metabolic resources could get dangerously low.”

Wilson (2007):

“just as the mind of an individual is not contained within any single neuron or hormone, a social insect colony has a mind that is not contained within any single insect.”

“It is the pattern of social interactions that creates the wisdom of the hive, just as it is the pattern of neuronal and hormonal interactions that creates the wisdom of a single individual organism.”

Further Resources

• Hayes & Wilson videos
• Hayes, L. & Ciarrochi, J. (2015). The thriving adolescent. Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Positive Psychology to help young people manage emotions, achieve goals, and build positive relationships. Oakland, CA, USA: Context Press/New Harbinger.
• Inside out (Keltner)

Analogies for Sustainable Development