HOW THE BRAIN MAKES POTENTIAL 169more intelligent systems in more changeable environments. In this chap-
ter, I show how (very dynamic) brains are even better at making potential.MORE META PHOR, MORE IDEOLOGYTh e root of the prob lem in connecting the dots is that the brain, like the
concepts of potential and intelligence themselves, has also become a
vehicle for ideological expression. We pour into it intuitions derived from
our social structures and then appeal to brain sciences—as we do with
genes—to justify those social structures.
Th e fi rst hint of that pro cess is found in the widespread resort, not to
actual brain functions that might constitute intelligence and individual
diff erences in it, but to meta phors. Most of those are crudely mechanical,
like a calculator or computer or some other machine. “High cognitive
ability,” says James Flynn in his 2013 book on IQ, “begins with ge ne tic
potential for a better- engineered brain.” Elsewhere, he claims that “a good
analytic brain is like a high- performance sports car.”^2
Accordingly, individual diff erences in general intelligence (or g) are
said to refl ect diff erences in the speed, effi ciency, or power of the think-
ing brain; while the brain itself is reduced to an engine with diff er ent
capacities, with more or fewer interconnections among the parts. Th e
under lying assumption is that, like a machine or computer, there is a fi xed
logic of operation, refl ecting built-in (innate) rules or pro cesses, with in-
dividual diff erences in effi ciency.
Other meta phors have more roots in social structures and labor
organ ization, as when the brain and its functions are likened to a factory
with its divisions of workers and hierarchy of departments, all under the
control of a “central executive.” For example, executive functions are of-
ten ascribed to the frontal lobes of the brain (partly because they are big-
ger in humans than in other species). As Elkhonon Goldberg puts it in
her book Th e Executive Brain, “Th e frontal lobes are to the brain what a
conductor is to an orchestra, a general to the army, the chief executive
offi cer to a corporation.”^3
A second hint of ideological infl uence is that the meta phors are as
vague as the popu lar notions of potential and intelligence: there is still
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