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We begin with the synapse. A synapse is the gap between two neurons through which chemical neurotransmitters pass when neurons fire. When a neuron is active, it sends an electrical impulse down its nerve fiber at 200 miles per hour and causes the release of a neurotransmitter. The transmitter drifts across the synaptic space and binds to the receiving neuron, thereby closing the gap.

“Essentially, everything the brain does is accomplished by the process of synaptic transmission,” says Joseph LeDoux in Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. The essence of who are, he says, reflects patterns of interconnectivity among 100 billion neurons and about 100 trillion synapses.

He continues:

“Given the importance of synaptic transmission in brain function, it should be practically a truism to say that the self is synaptic. What else could it be? Not everyone, however, will be happy with this conclusion. Many will surely counter that the self is psychological, social, moral, aesthetic, or spiritual, rather than neural, in nature. My synaptic theory of the self is not proposed as an alternative to these views. It is, rather, an attempt to portray the way the psychological, social, moral, aesthetic, or spiritual self is realized.”

Francis Crick, the Nobel Laureate, argues the same point in The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. He writes:

“The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You” -- your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will -- are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons!” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people alive today that it can truly be called astonishing.”

To borrow from another Nobel Laureate, Herbert Simon, author of The Sciences of the Artificial,  human beings may be best described as synaptical systems that over time accumulate an evolving collection of “symbol structures” – that is, memories and mental images. The more such structures any species of animal compiles, the better it can model and interact with its environment.

And the better we can write press releases. And set up satellite media tours. And blog.

It’s obvious that a complete theory of communications must ultimately deal with the manner in which neurons, synapses and symbols are organized by our brains, but this is not a frequent topic of discussion at PRSA or CASE meetings. Some day, they will be – in the new era of quantum scanners and trigeminal-based neural devices.

What will that discussion look like?

It’s impossible to say for sure, but I think it will echo at least one major theme that Elizabeth developed in the first installment of her theory. She writes about the need to move away from the “old command/control, uni-directional” model of communications to a new “cooperative, multi-directional” model. This is exactly the same way our thinking about the brain is evolving. We're discovering that logic and reason are not the commanding powers we thought they were, but aspects of a great confederation with no central control.

Here’s LeDoux again:

“Although we often talk about the brain as it it has a function, the brain itself actually has no function. It is a collection of systems, sometimes called modules, each with different functions. There is no equation by which the combination of all of the different systems mixed together equals an additional function called brain function.”

“Evolution,” he adds, “tends to act on the individual modules and their functions rather than the brain as a whole.”

The same can be said of our communications technologies. Our communications system doesn’t evolve as a whole; new features and capabilites emerge individually. Email. The static Web. The dynamic Web. Blogs. Wikis. Podcasts. Etc.

New technologies of the brain similarly will evolve in piecemeal fashion, entering the neural environment step-by-step in such a way that we never perceive ourselves to be entering technological slavery. Oh, sure, we'll talk about it, and we'll worry about it, but will be no stopping a technology that increases our comfort or our capabilities. There will be many regulatory hurdles, but the big CNS houses will cross them, and we will ultimately have ThinkPal, the first neural device that measurably enhances symbolic reasoning.

“I remain fascinated by the study of how humans and technology and interact, and how we can avoid becoming enslaved to that technology,” Elizabeth wrote in her first installment.

I too am intrigued by the interaction of humans and technology, but since reading Richard Dawkins I no long worry about the prospect of enslavement. This is because I think Dawkins is right when he describes our technologies as extended phenotypes, as instrinsic to our humanity as nests are to “birdness” and dams are to “beaverness.” Our technologies will become whatever gives our genes an added probability of reproducing.

This is implicit in our sketching of a “multi-directional” model. There’s no telling where we’ll wind up because the field is wide open. Evolution is blind.

Dan Forbush is president of ProfNet, volunteer director of communications for the Long Island Area Council of Unitarian Universalist Congregations, and a collaborator in Old North Church, Inc.