Shortcut Brains

Brains. What are they good for? Why do we—and loads of other animals—have them? What is the point of evolving increased neural complexity? Brains obviously confer advantages, or they would not survive the gauntlet of evolution. They must also exact a cost, or every creature would boast a headpiece of enormous potential. If every living being had a giant brain—or even a modest one—the ecological web of life would surely fail, so that brains are a niche evolutionary strategy possessed by a small minority of species, enabled only by the presence and support of the whole.

Early brains—and I’m thinking worms, here—facilitated regulation of bodily functions, and humans preserve those essential features in the brain stem. Reptiles developed the capability for more complex calculations, assessing a number of simultaneous inputs to guide decisions of fight or flight, for instance. Selection (evolution) saw to it that these calculations were, on average, functionally “correct,” becoming more nuanced over time. We, too, preserve these well-honed instincts deep in our brain structure. As animals evolved (e.g., mammals, but not exclusively so), they developed a cerebral cortex and limbic system to navigate social arrangements and better adapt to varying conditions. This is where emotions originate. Some mammals then doubled-down on this nifty cerebrum thingy to develop a neo-cortex with all sorts of cool lobes (like the frontal one) capable of forming ever-more sophisticated mental models of the wider world—allowing flexible adaptation informed by years of development and model-building during a long process of individual maturation. Among other things, culture arises from this cerebral capability (culture being socially-learned behaviors that are not stamped in genetically, as practiced by many social animal species).

In short, brains serve to form mental models of the world that help us flexibly adapt and survive. Our models are not constrained to be correct, as long as they are useful in some functional, adaptive, average sense. I’ve taken to using the term “meat-brains” to help drive the point that brains are just organs—however sophisticated—and to poke at our cultural worship of brains, to the point of being dismissive of any life not boasting comparable cognitive capacity. But having a large brain is not everything, and in fact has demonstrated itself to be one of our greatest liabilities—by conceiving and enacting modes of living not ecologically contextualized and vetted to, you know, actually work in the long term—to the tune of initiating a sixth mass extinction. Like any evolutionary adaptation, it can be taken too far.

Incidentally, I wrote this and last week’s post roughly in parallel a few weeks back, and did not carefully coordinate their order of appearance: they might have been arranged either way. Some themes are common to both, but they might be thought of as siblings that belong together.

Illustrative Stories

Our mental models commonly assume the form of stories, and I will sketch five such stories that provide adaptive benefit—which is all it takes to select and promote a practice, importantly.

A story about the woodland spirits who will help you survive a trek into and back out of the dense forest if shown respect and deference but will curse and punish you if shunned may not be correct in a literal sense, but is correct insofar as it instills a set of attentive and alert behaviors that serve to enhance survivability.

A story about Sky Woman, who only survives on this land by the grace of cooperation from the other animals may seem fanciful, but impresses a sense of community and reciprocity that has adaptive benefit to the carriers of this story.

The shamanic practice of interpreting seemingly random patterns from burned remains to elicit a story about which way to go this year for the big caribou hunt might seem unscientific and pointless, but carries adaptive benefit in breaking up patterns that the animals might otherwise smoke out. Practices, stories, and their associated mental models that work—for whatever inexplicable reason—persist and thrive through self-reinforcement.

A story—however fictional—about this dude named Santa Claus who will shower capitalist rug rats with the fruits of production—but only if the children are not naughty—serves to keep behaviors in check for as much as three or sometimes four weeks before the big day.

A story about heaven and eternal happiness if executing a life free of sin has shown itself to exert a strong influence on behavior—at least so that sinful behavior is better hidden from view (of God?).

In other words, our mental models don’t have to be correct or complete—and almost never really are or can be—in order to have utility and staying power. The bar for acceptance is often rather low, as taxing as it can be to develop something from scratch. So, attractive notional models that confer obvious benefit and comfort are snapped up. In the culture of modernity, those models that paint us in a flattering light are especially prized.

Mental Mismatch

It is important to admit that our brains are not designed (by the selective pressures of evolution, to be clear) to build complete, correct mental models of the entire physical universe, or of the entire web of life on Earth, or even how our perception of consciousness arises. Overwhelming complexity makes such feats utterly untenable. Our models are, necessarily, shortcuts to reality. That’s their whole purpose.

Consider that life on Earth is, as far as we know (or at least for all intents and purposes) a single phenomenon radiating from a common origin, superficially fragmented into millions of species sharing vastly overlapping genetic heritage. Life, as a whole, adapts and evolves, its various genetic snippets—as distributed among numerous species—busy diddling around, but in constant interactive relation to the simultaneous diddling in all the other species. We call this co-evolution, but in a sense it is a single phenomenon expressed all at once across a tangled web of life in a tightly-coupled interdependent way. Our brains, representing one tiny corner of this vast and diverse set of functional tricks, are in no way equipped to subsume the whole complex tangle in what—by necessity—is a manifestly cursory representation. Shortcuts simply can’t cut it. The real world is far too complex, far too storied, far too subtle, far too interconnected, far too inscrutable. Life is like an unimaginably massive supercomputer of unthinkable scale, performing a parallel computation of spectacular breadth, subject to a near-infinite number of input channels as each organism interacts with the physical world and other organisms. We can forget about tracking even the tiniest sliver of this enormous expression with our puny meat-brains.

Yet, we try. We tell ourselves that we either already have the answers, or soon can. We latch onto facile models that have appeal, almost as a frightened retreat from staring into incomprehensible raw reality. This yearning for safety drives us to all manner of philosophical or metaphysical shelters. That’s just what brains will do—limited as they must be. Affinity, and comfort for all.

Echoing something I added to the comments of last week’s post on mind: Physicists are accustomed to being disappointed—not getting their way. Experiments hand the microphone to nature (the universe), which might not say what we want or expect. Relativity, quantum mechanics, a cosmological constant, or neutrinos having mass were not adopted because of their appeal (initial reactions were hostile), but were crammed down our throats by the most powerful and final arbiter imaginable. In most cases, physical theories are not conceived then validated, but introduced, unbidden, by nature (note the direction). We are not at liberty to now decide it’s fashionable/attractive to adopt some counterfactual theory. This is why I keep saying that we don’t get to decide how the universe actually works, and might well be stuck with a reality that does not cater to our whims and wishes. That’s the tough-love universe I’m used to. It pairs well with humility: my desires are irrelevant. I suspect most folks in our culture don’t work this way, advocating based on affinity rather than humility.

Humbler Than Thou?

To be clear, I am not trying to establish philosophical superiority. Contrary to the expected conceit characteristic of our culture, I will not claim to be the one possessing the correct answer. I simply claim that none of us are capable of getting our heads around the universe, rendering such a quest an unreasonable goal. More appropriate, to me, is learning how to nestle our brains into the universe as we find it: as a part that is graced with the opportunity to exist. So, my clever strategy is to opt out of the “competition” for a correct or superior mental model, and be highly suspicious of anyone who claims to have found the one correct way, or to be close. By saying “We don’t know,” and that we might satisfy ourselves with gruel, space is opened up for a diversity of approaches of functional value in relation to the community of life. Let ecology decide. Oh yeah: it will, anyway. There’s no “letting” about it.

Having said that I don’t possess the one right answer, I will share my unauthoritative approach that may well be sufficient. To me, this is the humble version, albeit informed by some of the objectively remarkable achievements of modernity in penetrating nature’s secrets (e.g., physics, by handing the microphone over to nature and listening to the whispers).

I have no reason or standing to disbelieve the consistent, repeatable findings of physics—many of which I have replicated first-hand in my privileged poking-around, never once stumbling on an exception. This constantly happens the world-over: a diversity of skeptics thrashing about in a rather large parameter space. Fame awaits those who break the paradigm, so incentive abounds. Yet the basic story persists—survives the onslaught. The fundamental particles, and more importantly, their rich interactions have every appearance of being capable of providing a wholly adequate foundation for the emergence of staggering, brain-busting complexity. It doesn’t take much. That’s basically it. Why be greedy (needy?) and ask for more?

What more do we need? If something can happen (i.e., is sufficiently probable), it should not surprise us if it does. It’s Murphy’s-Law-adjacent. If a universe and set of physical laws can make stars and galaxies, then at least one instance in an enormous multiverse very probably will. Among an incomprehensibly large number of stars in that universe, some will host rocky planets where conditions are stable and conducive to complex chemistry. Once nature’s endless and varied explorations of chemical arrangements stumbles on a self-replicating molecule, the phenomenon locks itself in by virtue of this profound capability: no going back! Given hundreds of millions of years, these molecules will elaborate into a diverse menagerie of interrelated experiments, objectively selected as those that can survive in the full context of their environment and in relationship to other self-replicators.

Crucially, no one needs to understand how it works for it to work. Life formed before brains, obviously. Brains are an afterthought: one of myriad biological stunts conferring some adaptive advantage. Nowhere is there a requirement that any brain (or collection thereof)—past, present, or future—be able to construct an adequate mental model tracking the full complexity or connecting the dots from first principles to Donald Trump. Maybe you’re now dissuaded from even trying!

Restated, incomprehensibility is not disqualifying, and indeed true-to form: the universe can damn well do what it wants, without consulting our limited brains first to make sure we can comprehend its workings in full. Dissatisfaction or emotional repulsion is also not disqualifying: fragile sensibilities (shaped as they are by both genetics and culture) don’t enter into it.

Everything Awaits

We needn’t demand an end-to-end explanation just for peace of mind. Tidy explanations stem from limited capacity. Attractive narratives—especially those that somehow elevate humans, consciousness (seems like an adaptive illusion), a grand purpose, etc.—are especially suspect as characteristic human fabrications lacking support from the universe.

What’s left in the absence of an explanatory model is awe, and humility (can humility be bold font?). Some might see only pointless crumbs left after shattering a cherished construct. Electrons and gravity may seem insufficient sustenance: wholly unpalatable. Who’s fault is that, then? Fancier (fanciful; fantastical?) stories might scratch an itch, but let’s at least be clear: is the universe demanding them, or are we? Maybe the universe doesn’t care what happens in human brains: it never did, and certainly couldn’t have for 13.797 billion of its 13.8 billion year history. The abyss may seem impersonal, but that’s okay. It’s not about me: never was. It’s not about my emotional needs. It needn’t elevate human qualities to the top of the heap as defining ultimate meaning. That seems right. It seems familiar. It fits with the rest of the universe. It seems liberating. No pressure. Just live. Just admire. Just accept. Revel in other life and the gift of experiencing this planet and its host of complex diversity.

To some, loss of a cherished worldview invites thoughts of nihilism. From my perspective, this is a misfire. It’s a matter of priorities. If the loss of a mental model makes it seem like nothing is left, then far too much priority was placed on possessing a sense of closure from that mental model: a refuge of sorts. What’s actually left is the whole universe: stars, galaxies, Earth, Life! That’s right: none of it goes away when dropping the requirement for understanding it all. Nihilism communicates “then there is nothing.” Just open your eyes! Everything is still there! In fact, to me, it is all the more glorious and profound because I can’t explain it all—nor do I see the point of such a requirement. That all of this could arise from fundamental interactions of matter is truly amazing and great! It’s beyond me: bigger than me. Rather than creating a hole in my imagined soul, it offers an ocean of possibility and mystery.

Let the Stories Begin!

I don’t want to give the impression that because we lack the wit to comprehend the full contextual puzzle, we close off space for stories that help us live in the world. We can no more banish stories from human cultures than stop lightning. I still believe stories to be essential—especially those that motivate ecologically-appropriate behaviors. The trick is to acknowledge them as stories, not as some mighty, absolute Truth: helpful and even whimsical tales to guide our actions—to better fit within the community of life. We can hold the stories to be true to a point, without committing the rookie mistake of taking them literally. I know: it’s an advanced skill that other cultures have done better than our own.

As an illustration, I return to a quote from Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s Hospicing Modernity that I used in Putting Science in Its Place—this time in a more extended form.

In many different communities throughout the world there are stories of intelligent, powerful, small sentient beings usually called “little people,” who live in forests and can make themselves invisible to human eyesight. (In Western cultures these would be gnomes, fairies, elves, trolls, etc.) If kinship is honored, these small sentient beings can show human relatives where to find food, water, or medicine; where to sleep safely; or how to find their way back home if they get lost. If they are ignored by the human relatives visiting the forest—which they look after—these sentient beings can make the visitors get hurt or lost by fogging and meddling with the visitors’ thoughts and vision. Therefore, the best advice is to acknowledge their presence, recognize their gifts and their labor, and show reverence to kinship by asking permission to enter the forest and making offerings of berries or song.

If a person is not familiar with this type of storytelling, at this point invariably some obvious questions come up: “Is it myth or reality?” “Is it science or folklore?” or “Is it true?” I have observed how the Indigenous people I work with answer the “is it true” question. They usually surprise people with an unexpected answer, which is generally a version of: “Sometimes.”

They know. They have not been infantilized by modernity to be literal pedants. Their stories stress humility and cooperation. I interpret this attitude as revealing an underlying acceptance of mystery and ambiguity—not needing to claim ownership of ultimate truth.