August 22, 2023
Is a new version of the brain coming?
The theme of regeneration appears commonly in Intrepid Ed News, particularly in articles written by my colleague Benjamin Freud. I mention this because the term rewilding the brain slipped out in a conversation about biocentrism with Benjamin, the idea that humans live within the circle of Nature, not as outside manipulators, but as active participants in rewilding the planet.
This led me to think about the boundaries of Nature itself. Typically, that’s Earth and its troposphere. But no longer. The natural world has been extended nearly to infinity by the discovery of 100 billion galaxies and 5000 exoplanets (with thousands more to come). To complicate matters, Nature is suddenly much older than expected. Last year the age of the universe was 13.7 billion years; the latest estimate, as of a month ago, is 25 billion years. (Double your age over the next 30 days and see how that feels.)
I apologize for the big numbers, but here’s one more: The human brain contains an estimated 69 billion neurons. In Part 1 of Rewilding the Brain, I pointed out the obvious rise in ADHD and autism diagnoses globally, as well as the repeated stories of prodigies whose accomplishments at very young ages defy explanation. Those 69 billion neurons are acting in ways we don’t understand, though those strange behaviors turn out in many instances to be quite helpful, including in the unlikely category of national security.
The big numbers coming back from the universe leave us feeling insignificant, and the neurodiverse patterns confuse us. But what if the brain is acting deliberately? What if neurodivergence—the proliferation of different ways of thinking, flashes of unusual genius, and the liberation of unknown talents—is similar to rewilding our planet and exactly what society needs to evolve? And what if the future leads to a new version of the brain?
Reimagining the brain seems odd but it’s happened before. The metaphors of current culture, including the hydraulic theories of Descartes or Aristotle’s belief that the brain existed to cool the heart, have always driven our interpretation of the brain. Our present model is deeply rooted in the modern familiarity with machines and computers, in which biochemical interactions activate synapses and convey electrical impulses called ‘thought’. This is the foundation for the ‘truths’ of the cognitive neuroscientific view.
But the computer age is fading. Humans are transitioning into the invisible (and still mysterious) currents of energy that pervade visible reality, form networks, and operate through quantum processes. It’s reasonable to ask whether the brain needs to be updated as well. What if the human brain, instead of a wired modular unit that can go haywire because of genetic issues or chemical imbalances that disturb the circuitry, is a thriving network driven by quantum interactions capable of communication with other networks large and small—including the immediate environment, a pervasive culture, and the quantum fields that make up the warp and woof of the universe?
In fairness, a majority of the neuroscientific community disputes this possibility. However, given that the age of the universe doubled in the month of June, why not embrace the option? As long noted by physicists and mathematicians, striking similarities exist between the structure of the human brain and the universe at large. At all scales, reality operates through networks, and the network encoding the large-scale structure and dynamics of spacetime is similar to the dynamics of other complex networks that appear in nature and society. This includes the brain, which mirrors the properties of the quantum-causal network model of spacetime.
Quantum biologists provide plenty of evidence for quantum activity within the brain (the warm, wet environment of the brain is optimal for quantum transmissions) and have put forth many theories to address the fundamental gap in neuroscience: The ‘hard’ problem of consciousness itself. But how would a quantum brain affect evolution? At least three additional fields of research can provide some insight.
First, increasingly we know that culture matters. The field of epigenetics has mushroomed, and research confirms that environmental influences affect the expression of children’s genes. Under the influence of the environment, including parenting and trauma, DNA accumulates ‘chemical marks’ that determine how much or how little of the genes are expressed.
Exploring how the brain interacts at the intersection of culture and genetic expression is the goal of the field of cultural neuroscience, an emerging research discipline that investigates cultural variation in psychological, neural, and genomic processes. By integrating anthropology, cultural psychology, and neuroscience, scientists hope to understand the neurogenetic relationship between culture and the brain.
Considering the brain as a quantum organ may provide the missing link. Evidence indicates that DNA operates as a biological internet reprogrammed by words and frequencies. Is it possible that quantum waves in the brain ‘communicate’ with our DNA? The implications of this research point to culture as an underappreciated factor in human evolution. Most of us know the Nature vs. Nurture debate. But some scientists now assert that evolution is less genetic and more cultural—and that culture is accelerating as a factor in evolution as humans become more group-oriented (if you like academic disciplinary warfare, read up on arguments disputing the Theory of Evolution).
Another emerging line of thinking adds complexity to this debate: Quantum social science. This field combines the assumption that human beings and society itself are quantum phenomena with the assertion that society itself is not real or tangible, but a wave-like collective framework, similar to waveforms that comprise material reality. Given the foundation of quantum science, and combined with quantum processes in the brain, it’s not a far reach to visualize how the interaction between ourselves and our environment may be much deeper and more impactful than we previously thought. Perhaps a ‘rewilded’ society requires neurodivergent minds to resolve chaos back into a new order. Rewilding may truly be our way of regenerating ourselves.
You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Thom Markham for Intrepid Ed News.
