Our brain is similar to an internet service provider with 86 billion computers connected to a network. Each neuron processes information, receiving and sending signals to many others over a labyrinth of output cables connecting it all together. Every computer communicates over these cables, forming complex networks supporting all the signals they transmit. Our 85 billion support cells are the network technicians who maintain the infrastructure and manage signal transfer between computers. Our neurons and support cells work harmoniously as a complex biological network to deliver the reality we experience. 

The brain is not a computer but a living network of 86 billion computers that collectively produce seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, planning, and doing.¹ Neurons do not work in isolation; their power is in their numbers. When we have experiences, our neurons fire, making connections with others to form functional patterns relative to what we think and do.  In The Deep History of Ourselves, Joseph Ledoux says that functions result from circuits made of ensembles of neurons in one area that connect via output cables to ensembles in other areas, forming functional networks.²

Our brain is a mass of computers and cables responding in real time to form functional patterns that make us who we are. It may not seem like much, but when hundreds to thousands of neurons send signals through a functional circuit, we experience perception, movement, thought, and emotion.³ Everything we are results from neurons firing signals in functional patterns. 

Thinking of the brain as a network center comprising many functional circuits is an abstract concept for most to understand. However, if we look closer, we can see them all over in nature and human endeavor.  Humans use networks in modern society for the internet, water systems, power grids, cell phones, artificial intelligence, and much more. 

Nature is the originator, utilizing networks everywhere you look in plant and animal life. The largest organism on earth is a 2.4-mile-wide honey fungus found in Oregon.⁴. With fungus, mushrooms grow on top of the soil, and a complex root system connects them underground. Nutrients flow through the root network, nourishing and sustaining all the connected mushrooms. The honey fungus is a root network producing mushrooms over 2.4 miles, all representing one organism. 

In the book Elastic: Unlocking Your Brain’s Ability to Embrace Change, author Leanard Mlodinow looks at social insects like ants as an example of networks in animal life.  Depending on the species, thousands to millions of ants live together in a colony, working as a collective unit. They form a society of nurses, architects, builders, scouts, hunters, gatherers, and many others who live to support the colony.⁵  Each ant is a single processing unit out in the world, sending and receiving information with others as it performs its job. If there is a danger, one ant can tell another, who will tell another until the message gets back to everyone in the colony. A single ant can trigger an evacuation message that the entire colony instantly responds to. 

Every ant connects with others, who connect with others, who connect with others, and so on, until the whole colony is interconnected. Together, they form a complex network that integrates information from every ant into the colony, resulting in an emergent phenomenon of collective intelligence.⁶ When every ant communicates in a network, the colony takes on a singular identity. The colony is the combined processing power of each ant, all sharing information, leading to a collective intelligence that can evaluate situations and take meaningful action.⁷  The colony can be considered a single organism that integrates information to make decisions. 

Similarly, our brain is a colony of neurons communicating collectively as a network to produce a singular identity. With its 86 billion neurons, the brain is almost 200 times the size of a typical ant colony.⁸ Like ants, collective intelligence emerges when neurons integrate information in complex networks. Nature is all about networks, and ants are just the beginning. Part 2 of this post will explore the brain as a network and explain how it leads to our reality.