Why Our Complex Brains Are Like An Avalanche

摘要

Chaotic thinking is rarely a recipe for success, but evidence is emerging that operating at the edge of chaos may drive our brain's astonishing capabilities. Neuroscientists have long suspected that the network of neurons in our brains might be connected in such a way that they achieve a state of "self-organised criticality" (SOC), in which they are neither ordered nor random, but somewhere in between. In such a state, even a minor change can prompt a large reaction: for example, forest fires,rnearthquakes and avalanches tend to propagate under SOC.