One plus one equals banana.
On paper, buttered popcorn should not taste good.
It consists of three ingredients: butter, salt, and popcorn.
Each of these things individually does not taste great. The taste of butter by itself is underwhelming. Plain popcorn is the epitome of bland. And a mouthful of salt is downright awful.
Add those things together on paper and we should end up with something pretty wretched.
But we don’t. Instead, when we add those things together, we end up with something irresistibly delicious. So delicious that serving it in 2-gallon buckets seems entirely reasonable.
That’s because the taste of buttered popcorn is an emergent property.
An emergent property is one that cannot be explained or understood by analyzing its component parts. The taste of salt plus butter plus popcorn individually in no way equals the taste of all three combined. It’s not something anyone could’ve predicted.
Isolation Exercises
Emergent properties are characteristic features of complex systems.
Humans are complex systems.
Our brain is a complex system.
In a complex system, the behavior of the whole cannot be understood by studying its constituents. Its behavior is always the result of the state of the entire system, one that includes emergent properties. Systems where 1 plus 1 can equal banana.
Understanding complex systems requires that we think holistically. Here, context is essential. But holistic, systems-thinking doesn’t come naturally or easily. It’s far too much for us to hold and model inside the workspace of our working memory. So we often resort to reductionism, even when we shouldn’t.
Our tendency to apply reductionist thinking to phenomena it cannot explain has stymied our progress in health and medicine. The application of reductionist methods to holistic phenomena is in no small part responsible for the barrage of conflicting and contradictory information we’ve received about human health.
One example that’s relevant to this newsletter is in the realm of brain training. The research showing that a cognitively active lifestyle protects against cognitive decline and dementia led to the proliferation of a host of flashy, high-tech "brain training" platforms.
The concept behind them is that we could reduce cognition down to its constituent functions, then beef them up one by one. Intuitively, that approach is appealing. The reductive approach feels more precise. It feels more scientific.
But that strategy is based on the assumption that our real-world cognitive abilities, and the neurophysiological processes that support them, are equal to the sum of their parts.
As you may know, the results from that kind of brain training have been disappointing. Research has shown that the improvements with this kind of training are limited to the particular isolated function being trained, and that those improvements don’t persist after training ends. Not the kind of outcome we were hoping for.
In April of this year, a study was published that did demonstrate the kind of outcome we were hoping for. Here, older adults participated in a 3-month brain training protocol. The participants demonstrated improvements in multiple cognitive outcomes, and those improvements were still present a full year after the subjects had completed the training.
What was the difference?
The brain training in this case involved the participants learning multiple, real-world skills like Spanish, drawing, photography, and music composition.
Holistic Brain Training
The unique learning capabilities of our cerebral cortex evolved to support our ability to communicate and to acquire and execute a repertoire of complex motor skills. Abilities that are useful out in the real world.
It turns out that the best way to maximally stimulate the brain (and reap the related benefits in health and function) is to have it learn to do the kinds of things it was built to do. Complex, real-world skills like talking, writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, building, photographing, repairing, teaching, tinkering, socializing, spelunking, dancing, music-making,…
Skills that are more than the sum of their parts.
This Week On The Better Brain Fitness Podcast: “What Kind Of Music Stimulates The Brain Most”
In a recent newsletter, I touched on the unique impact that listening to music has on the brain, and why listening to music by itself is a great form of cognitive stimulation.
But is some music more stimulating than others? If so, what are the features of highly stimulating music?
That was the question we tackled in this episode. Click here to listen.
Do you have a question for the Better Brain Fitness podcast? Click here to send it to us.
The humanOS Newsletter: Dancing and Martial Arts for Your Body and Mind
Speaking of the benefits of real-world activities, this recent issue of the humanOS Newsletter highlighted two illustrative studies on the topic.
The first was on the impact of Polish folk dancing on blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and brain-boosting chemicals.
The second examined the effects of 12 weeks of Judo training on cognitive performance, strength, and balance.
Click here for all the details!
Movie Recommendation: Magnolia
In keeping with our theme of systems thinking and the interconnectedness of everything, this week’s movie recommendation is Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece, “Magnolia.” The film chronicles a day in the San Fernando Valley, weaving together various storylines that intersect and impact one another. Additionally, its unexpected, climactic scene could be easily likened to an emergent phenomenon.
That’s it for this issue of The Brainjo Connection. Have a wonderful week!
Josh
p.s. - this made me laugh so hard it hurt the first time I saw it. Thanks for making my world better, Pee Wee. You will be missed.