The brain’s explosive excess resists self-obedience and drives formative change.

Evidence

The story is complex. We must consider that in a certain sense the brain does not obey itself, that it manufactures events, that there can be an excess in the system, an explosive part that, without being pathological, refuses to obey. We have seen that plasticity allows us to combine the thought of a sculpture of the self with that of transdifferentiation. To exist is to be able to change difference while respecting the difference of change: the difference between continuous change, without limits, without adventure, without negativity, and a formative change that tells an effective story and proceeds by ruptures, conflicts, dilemmas. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 258

Categorization

• DEFINE: Contrasts continuous change (mere flexibility) with formative change (plasticity) that proceeds by ruptures and conflicts — a definitional key for the reader’s goal.