Brain Wiring

“It’s like brains get wired differently over time.”

Elizabeth Warren

[Commenting on the evolving and often contradictory regulations for major financial institutions] 

In fact, life is nothing if it’s not about “getting wired differently over time”.  We start out with a very small window on the world and with only nominally imprinted neuroplasm.  Then we see, hear, experience, learn and understand new things – as well as “old” things in new ways.  The dynamic wiring and rewiring provides an emerging map of who we are, where we are, and how our world actually works. 

But life continues evolving and our horizons keep expanding … all the way to the end … and we have to do real-time rewiring edits along the way. 

During the course of events, we strive to envision the world as comprehensively as possible, filling in blanks with things that seem most plausible or most “right” where experience hasn’t yet caught up with us.  For instance, to balance all the “bad” stuff that happens, there must be some ultimate “Good” or “Justice” in the universe, so – with a lot of help from entrepreneurs [Marvel?] selling superhero paraphernalia – we construct superhero ideology to fill that gap. 

We also create “working hypotheses”, assumptions and expectations and adopt tribal truths about the unseen world that allow us to function comfortably in relation to our evolved cohort of fellow travelers in whatever corner of the world we happen to occupy. 

In Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind, author Yuval Noah Harari suggests a “Cognitive Revolution” occurred approximately 70,000 years ago that distinctively set humans apart from other animals. 

“The key thing that distinguishes [humans] radically from other animals and allows us to create large, complex social organizations – is our ability to have a commonly held belief about things that do not exist or cannot be empirically demonstrated at all.” 

"In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip [‘us’ versus ‘them’] helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum 'natural' size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings.  

“But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust. 

"How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.” 

“States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag.” 

"People easily understand that 'primitives' cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and by gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. Take for example the world of business corporations. Modern businesspeople and lawyers [ -- and politicians -- ] are, in fact, powerful sorcerers. The principal difference between them and tribal shamans is that modern lawyers [and politicians] tell far stranger tales." 

All of which makes one wonder: “Who’s wiring my brain?!”

While we can’t control the physical wiring (the “hardware”), the virtual wiring (“software”) is largely an owner-driver, self-development project.  We may not be able to control how it works, but, to a very large extent, we can control and/or make reasonable value judgments on what goes into the workings and what comes out of it. 

The first maxim of computing applies equally well here:  “Garbage In, Garbage Out!”  And it’s important to understand that garbage is not only a nuisance and burdensome constraint but can be toxic.  [Think drugs, alcohol or other addictions, including smart phones and video games].  Put sludge into a high performance automobile engine and you’ll burn out the engine. 

Finally, latent “imprints” from early evolutionary beginnings are already hard-wired into the workings, just waiting to be fired up and fully engaged.  Who among us is immune to any of the canonical vices: Lust, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Anger?  Those are hard-wired and have to be very diligently managed. 

While “virtues”, as such, are not necessarily hard-wired, the inclination does exist, at least in some small critical mass of individuals, and are largely learned otherwise.  But life is complicated, and many, including Aristotle, have observed that an excess of “virtue” can, in fact, be a form of vice.  The crusades of the 11^th through the 13^th centuries – carried out under the guise of “salvation of the infidels” –were graphic early examples.  But more recent examples also abound, and nowhere is it more prevalent than in political campaigning, with incessant gossip, myth mongering, and virtual vice-vanquishing virtuosity. 

With greater care than usual, we have to ask: “Who’s wiring my brain?”  And we have to exert some serious executive-level control. 

Let’s take total ownership … beyond gossip, beyond innuendo, beyond common myths, beyond primitive imprints and beyond the toxic sludge [put the donut down gently and back away slowly!]  … salvage some semblance of sanity … and set a solid course for sustainable sensibility.  If we get “wired” with the best possible “software” we can find, the hardware will respond, accordingly.  Quartermaster