“Are we not threatened with a flood of information? And is this not the monstrousness of it, that it crushes beauty by means of beauty, and annihilates truth by means of truth? . . . How can we save ourselves from it? How can we save our souls from self-constipation?”

This is from his introduction to ‘Imaginary Magnitude’. In a book that achieves an impressive balance between playful irony and deep sincerity and concern about our future, Lem answers his own questions by deciding that “we are subject, without appeal, to the laws of the Evolution of Form”, before elaborating upon a “lemma [that] bids us exchange one old, spontaneous, and therefore unconscious bondage for a new one; it does not cut the fetters, but merely lengthens our lead, for it drives us into the Unknown, calling freedom a clear necessity.”

On that point, and regarding the renewed interest in neuroplasticity: almost everywhere I look I see a fixation on the brain. That’s well and good, but if we must reduce and simplify, it makes more sense to me to consider the entire nervous system, embedded in the body, itself integrated more or less sentiently in an ever-changing (and endlessly stimulating) environment.

The internet structurally reflects this complexity; little wonder we’re so bewitched by the uncanny connections it delivers. It’s a technology whose effects and capabilities we can intuit only vaguely, but rather than reject it we should surely try to learn how to put it to the best possible use — all the time allowing, as much as possible, for our physical, social, ethical shortcomings, etc.

I’m especially suspicious of such claims when they come from people who would be out of a job if and when anyone can go directly to the information they want with the click of a mouse.

But, people have far more opinions than they can keep in proper working order through critical thinking and research, and I have to admit, this is one from way, way back in my mental garage. So feel free to dismantle it for parts if that is its destiny.