A Brain Inspired View of Life: The Scientific, Social and Cultural Implications of Interconnectivity and Complexity

Many scientists have tried to identify how the brain creates a working information processing system through its network of neurons, also called the Connectome [1]. Two massive brain research projects along with other smaller scale ones have shown that it is not the neurons themselves but the way they are interconnected that gives the brain its computing power. Such complexity and integration is increasingly found in other research areas, due in large part to the progress made in the computational, network and complex systems sciences. I propose that advances in brain research, when viewed together with advances in other areas involving complex systems, can teach us a great deal about the essence of life, and may thus have significant social and cultural implications. The idea that life is made up of integrated information systems or one large, interconnected whole could be the simplest, most elegant explanation of how complexity and integration manifest in humans, nature and in society, and could form the basis of how and why the well-being of each and every single living thing on this earth should matter to all of the rest. Recognizing that science and technology create tools that can be used for social change, the current paradigm shift in science from the parts to the whole and now to interconnectedness implies that we must approach the interconnected and interdependent problems afflicting the world today from a new perspective.