The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

by Jeremy Lent

A system can be complicated but not complex, no matter how large, if each of its components and the way they relate to each other can be completely analyzed and given an exact description.

A complex system, on the other hand, arises from a large number of nonlinear relationships between its components with feedback loops that can never be precisely described.

Complex systems have some indicative characteristics. They have a large number of elements, each of which interacts with and influences other elements within the system through nonlinear feedback loops. They constantly interact with their environment, and, frequently, they contain smaller systems within them while themselves being nested within bigger systems. They are never in equilibrium but are continually in flux, evolving through time as a result of both their previous conditions and the environment around them.19

The book is based on a simple but compelling theme: culture shapes values, and those values shape history.

As far as we know, asking why is something only humans do, so if we want to know why we ask why, it helps to look to the source of what makes us uniquely human. Fortunately, in recent decades, cognitive neuroscientists have come a long way in their efforts to answer this. They've identified the prefrontal cortex (PFC) as the part of our brain primarily responsible for our thinking and acting in ways that differentiate us from other animals. The PFC mediates our ability to plan, conceptualize, symbolize, make rules, and impose meaning on things. It controls our physiological drives and turns our basic feelings into complex emotions. It enables us to be aware of ourselves and others as separate beings and to turn the past and the future into one coherent narrative.5