A look at how human brain structures and the human mind function, and how this knowledge can inform anarchism.
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Anarchism calls for a decentralized, nonhierarchical society composed of free individuals; recent developments in cognitive science have shown that the mind itself is a decentralized, non-hierarchical distributed system composed of interconnected neurons. Combining some of the latest work in cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of the mind, possible age-old questions that have recently been debated in anarchist circles -- like the function and origin of symbolic thought, and the possibility for radical change of our relations to both each other and the environment -- can be reappraised in a new light. A creative and revolutionary anarchist synthesis of how we relate both to our mind and society can lead anarchism in brave new directions.
This talk was presented at the third Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, at the Institute for Social Ecology, August 2001.
For further information on the conference, please visit http://www.homemadejam.org/renew/archive/archive.html