Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

220 A CREATIVE COGNITION

Cognitive psychologists have used terms like “action schema” or “event
structure” to refl ect such general patterns with varying specifi c con-
tents. Such general patterns permit further predictability in changing
environments.
Most importantly, event concepts will be integrated with patterns of
action or response. For example, the moving visual sensations of cycling
will be integrated with familiar patterns of information from somato-
sensory receptors in muscles and joints. Approaching a hill will duly pre-
dict the strain about to follow in those impulses. Th e cumulation of an
individual’s specifi c experiences shapes the neural networks through
which actions are expressed. Th at is, cognition shapes brain networks
rather than vice versa. Th at gives rise to enormous individual diff erences,
as well as other in ter est ing properties.

EMERGENT FUNCTIONS

So far we have been talking about the merging and integration of network

attractors. It has long been known, however, that ensembles of such

attractors do not merely cooperate in an additive fashion, like cogs in a

machine. Th ey mutually reor ga nize in the pro cess to exhibit emergent

properties. Such properties would not be expected from the be hav iors of

the separate attractors. Th is should not be too surprising, as it happens

in metabolic networks of single cells, in development, and in physiology,

as mentioned earlier. At the level of cognition, however, emergent prop-

erties become even more impor tant.

It is impor tant to note that these complex traffi c fl ows are carry ing

cognitive constructions over and above the neural activity. Th ey are the

outputs of attractor landscapes, but as cognitive interpretations, not

passive patterns of neural activity. Th e ner vous system receives two-

dimensional light patterns. It is the cognitive system that converts these

into meaningful three- dimensional objects and other constructs useful

for making predictions. Th ese properties are emergent and cannot be

reduced to the properties in the separate networks.

Th is becomes clear from a number of observations. Take, for example,

the eff ects of a novel stimulus on the amygdala, part of the brain involved

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