The Scientific Community Brain

We are consistently getting better at generating enormous amounts of information. The more data one creates, the better one must become to sift through it to find relevant parts. If we are creating a haystack of valuable information, how do we find the needle? We continue to develop more tools to handle this computationally, but what about the algorithms of our minds? The effectiveness of our thought processes. What I believe is needed now is more wisdom. Instead of quickly proceeding with a laser focus set on competing for the next smartest solution. The next grant, the next high-impact publication - to sometimes pause - and ask the question: how can we all contribute to creating an environment in science where new perspectives and ideas naturally emerge in abundance?

If every person working within science was a neuron:

One single cell in a collective scientific community brain: how effective, open-minded, and allowing of new ways to create is that brain today? How often do we choose to be helpfully constructive instead of negative in our feedback to our colleagues? How often do we select curiosity instead of worry on a daily basis? How often do we see opportunity instead of roadblocks? How often are we even aware that we have these choices?

You may only be a single scientist in our community, a small sample of the whole, but not separated from it. How many new insights are available to us by simply remembering that we can consciously choose, in our day-by-day moments, to create an environment in academia that is the most fertile soil for the growth of seeded ideas and scientific progress.

Through the process of evolution, described by C. Darwin [1], and the survival of the fittest, a term coined by philosopher Herbert Spencer [2,3], we have an abundance of beings here on Earth that have demonstrated competence in various areas. They themselves have not needed a personal reason to evolve. As with evolutionary pressure and natural selection, it happens anyway. Thus, competence can come before reason. I find of particular interest one theory of consciousness where the philosopher D. Dennett describes our brain as multiple simultaneous processes where sometimes some take precedence, and we become aware of those. An idea that our sense of personal identity could be thought of as a center of narrative gravity [4]. Although, any such theory of consciousness has yet to be proven. The evolution of thoughts and how we relate to them continue.

What if we could choose where to move our center of narrative gravity? By disentangling our sense of self from thoughts themselves. Then placing it where we instead are the observer of thoughts, I believe this is possible. In fact, for hundreds of years, it has been essential to mindfulness practices employed throughout eastern cultures [5]. Thus, we can choose to be the music conductor of our thought processes. Where the placement of our attention can form and direct the inner symphony of creative thinking.

For argument's sake, let’s take on the perspective that each scientist is a neuron in a brain - the Scientific Community Brain. In this Intuition Pump, let's say we begin with observing two identical such brains in parallel universes. In the universe (X), the center of narrative gravity, i.e., our sense of self, is placed inside all the thoughts produced by the brain. To survive as a neuron in this brain is to be heard; it is a publish or perish evolutionary process. The brain itself is only aware of the most heard thoughts, i.e., the published thoughts with the highest impact. Because the center of narrative gravity is placed very close to all these thoughts, the brain’s sense of self gets entangled with them. To abandon such an entangled thought, i.e., let it perish, would be a form of self-death. It would go against the survival instinct of the brain. Thus, the processes of this brain have an inherent resistance to change preference for a given thought once it has been entangled with the brain's sense of self. Let's assume this entanglement occurs in degrees; the closer a thought travels to the center of narrative gravity, the more entangled it becomes. It goes from being only thought to becoming a deep-seated belief. Thus, such a brain is prone to irrational decision-making.

In the other parallel universe (Y), the center of narrative gravity, i.e., our sense of self, is placed outside all the thoughts produced by the brain. The same holds true in this universe for neurons, publish thoughts or perish. This brain is also only aware of the published thoughts with the highest impact. The difference between these two, otherwise identical brains, is the placement of the narrative center of gravity, i.e., the sense of self. No entanglement occurs in this brain, where the sense of self is placed at a distance - at a place outside all these thoughts. The processes in this brain have no inherent resistance to change of preference for one thought over another. It is based on purely rational decision-making.

Now, let's assume there are many such brains in the universe (X) and (Y). The only difference between brains from the universe (X) and (Y) is their placement of narrative gravity, i.e., their sense of self, in relation to thoughts produced by the neurons. The question then becomes, in which universe, i.e., mental environment, are we most likely to observe brains that produce ideas that could go on to be described as revolutionary and groundbreaking?

References

[1] Darwin, C. On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (John Murray, 1859).

[2] Survival of the fittest. Encyclopedia Britannica Available at: https://www.britannica.com/science/survival-of-the-fittest. (Accessed: 14th September 2021)

[3] Spencer, H. The Principles of Biology. (William and Norgate, 1864).

[4] Dennett, D. in; Kessel, F., Cole, P. & Johnson, D. Self and consciousness: Multiple perspectives. (Erlbaum, 1992).

[5] Keng, S.-L., Smoski, M. J. & Robins, C. J. Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: a review of empirical studies. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 31, 1041–1056 (2011).