PROMOTING POTENTIAL 309
patterns or structures in them as the only source of predictability. Th ey
are not based on elemental “inputs” involved in assembly- line develop-
ment for stable functions.
Even at the molecular level in the cell, intelligent systems rely on the
abstraction of environmental structure for predictability. In the cell,
the abstractions emerge as self- organized structural grammars, also called
attractors. Th ey can predict futures from the relations among variables
assimilated from past experience.
As you may imagine, in such systems, anything that prevented, or
interfered with, the widest pos si ble assimilation of such structure will
suppress function. For example, disrupted or blocked interactions in cell
signaling are associated with disease, including cancer. Partial, rather
than global, receptivity to signals in the developing embryo— perhaps
blocked by drugs, toxins, or lack of specifi c resources— will distort the
normal emergence of form and function. Disturbances in the wider
environmental— including psychological— context of physiology can lead
to disease states (e.g., cardiac arrhythmias and other heart disease).
Evolution in more complex, changeable environments required more
power ful abilities for structure abstraction. A most signifi cant leap was
the evolution of brains and complex be hav ior. Th rough their supercon-
nectivity and supercommunication, brains assimilate environmental
structure to extreme depths of abstraction and predictability. We saw in
chapter 6 how absence of structure in early sensory experience retards
development in respective brain connectivity and function.
Cognitive systems emerge among that structured communication in
neural networks. Th ey form power ful attractor co ali tions with emergent
levels of abstraction (the refl ective abstractions described in chapter 7) but
are particularly sensitive to structure, or lack of it. Again, incomplete or
one- sided engagement results in biased cognitive development, percep-
tion, and function.
Investigators fi nd these diff erences diffi cult to interpret when viewed
in terms of deprivation of ele ments rather than deprivation of structure.
For example, as described earlier, psychologists have been surprised by
the way that children in the same family are so diff er ent from one an-
other. But group confi gurations and relationships can be quite diff er ent
from the vari ous points of view in a family, especially considering birth
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