The brain’s demonstrated plasticity coexists with a felt lack of real transformation

Evidence

But What should we do with our brain? is not a question reserved for philosophers, for scientists, or for politicians—it is a question for everyone. It should allow us to understand why, given that the brain is plastic, free, we are still always and everywhere ”in chains”; why, given that the activity of the central nervous system, as it is revealed today in the light of scientific discovery, presents reflection with what is doubtless a completely new conception of transformation, we nonetheless have the feeling that nothing is transformed; and why, given that it is clear that there can no longer be any philosophical, political, or scientific approach to history that does not pass through a close analysis of the neuronal phenomenon, we nonetheless have the feeling that we lack a future, and we ask ourselves What good is having a brain, indeed, what should we do with it? — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 55