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

344 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Variation in intelligence is conceived as some kind of “brain power.”
Yet brain studies have failed to construct an overall, well- integrated, the-
ory of what the brain is for. Chapter  6 explained how brains further
evolved from physiolog y as even more intelligent systems in more change-
able environments. It explains how their primary function is to abstract
(statistical) structural information from rapidly changing environments.
Th e information is assimilated as dynamical attractors (or structural
grammars) and used to constantly create novel responses. Th ese are anal-
ogous to those operating in cells at the molecular level. Only now they
operate across cells (neurons), with a specialized form of communication,
deeper information, and many times faster. Much experimental work was
described in support of that view.
How cognition is related to brain activity was taken up in chapter 7.
Among psychologists, there is little agreement about the true nature of
cognition, its evolutionary origins, and its forms and variations. Th e
chapter showed why the dominant models have been less than convinc-
ing. I explained how their drawbacks stem from misunderstandings of
the nature of experience and the true functions of cognition.
Accordingly, the chapter explained how cognition is an emergent
phenomenon of the nonlinear dynamical pro cesses of the brain, dealing
in statistical patterns, or structures and not in specifi c contents like
symbols, features, or images. Th e patterns refl ect the deeper correlations
among interacting variables, not shallow associations. Th ey are structures
that can be constantly updated, and they create novel constructs out of
variable and sparse “data,” imparting great predictability for interpreta-
tion and action.
It is impor tant to realize how those constructs are now cognitive
entities, not merely neural ones. As multidimensional, spatiotemporal
discharges, they enter into a new emergent level of regulation with one
another, creating new properties of life in the pro cess. Th ey are diff er ent
from the brain in the same way that molecules become diff er ent from
their constituent atoms. One of those properties is that of refl ective ab-
straction, which discovers deeper structure in the world. It emerges from
co ali tions of attractors that take the system far beyond current experi-
ence, permitting more intelligent action on it than simple associations
ever could. Th e chapter explained how key components of cognition—

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