310 PROMOTING POTENTIALorders, numbers of siblings, spacing between them, and so on. In dynam-
ical terms, the attractor landscape of the average family can contain
many incongruencies (unsynchronized attractors) that refract through
diff er ent members of the group in diff er ent ways.
Siblings share half their variable genes, on average. But as described
earlier in chapter 5, even genet ically identical mice reared in the same en-
vironment develop the full range of individual diff erences seen in nor-
mal mice, with eff ects refl ected in brain networks. Only by attempting to
view the “environment” as a collection of disparate ele ments can we miss
such structural eff ects.
In humans, new levels of co ali tion emerge through cooperation
among brains, forming epicognitive regulations in the form of cultural
tools. Th ese are the basis of culture and consist of vastly deeper, more
power ful, repre sen ta tions of the world and of action on it (as I mentioned,
science is just such a cultural tool). Th e cognition- culture interactions
redefi ne human potential and intelligence as a consequence.
Culture— including ideas, values, institutions, and ideologies— became
the most impor tant environment for human intelligence. But these are
not ele ments to be learned by simple association, as if a shopping list:
they are all structural abstractions governed by system dynamics. Failure
of access to them, or disengagement from at least the most impor tant of
them, can have devastating eff ects, as I now illustrate.
SOCIAL CLASS STRUCTURESAs with other levels of development, access to system dynamics in socie-
ties is crucial for individuals to function fully and to develop individual
potential within it. Th at is, human psy chol ogy is only fully realized when
fully and equally engaged with the dynamics that govern the whole. Im-
balance of access means power for some, subordination for others. Th is
is, of course, just a more sophisticated way of reiterating what has been
said before, from Aristotle to John Dewey: namely, that humans are po-
liti cal animals, needing to be socially engaged in a way diff er ent from the
ant or the sheep.
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