The Animal Self: Neurobehavioral Correlates 153“9x6” b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to HumanityFig. 7.16. Diagram showing network of neuronal circuitry in the cat cerebral cortex.
The picture represents 64 areas with 1,134 connections between them. The map depicts
only their connections but not their anatomical locations. The names of different areas
are presented in abbreviations but they are irrelevant to the current discussion. [See
Note 38; permission Cell Press.]
computers, the brain does not run in a strictly logical manner; it is tainted
by emotions and feelings made possible only by the complex cellular
and chemical nature of the nervous system. This deviation from perfect
logicality with an occasional outbreak of capriciousness is perhaps what
makes a human being human.
7.8 Hierarchical Organization Leads to Stepwise
Abstraction
Hierarchical organization of neurons in the brain permits increasing
degrees of abstraction in cognitive function, whereby particular, detailed