The nervous-system metaphor made state apparatus an interior ruling an exterior

Evidence

The production of new neurons therefore does not simply serve to replace cells that have died; it participates in modulational plasticity and, in doing so, opens the concept of plasticity slightly more, just far enough to unsettle the concept of stability. Once more: the statue is alive, the program quickens itself; right where we have so often believed we would find only mechanism, we find a complex entanglement of different types of plasticity, which contradicts the ordinary representation of the brain as machine. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 98 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The psychic apparatus is another inside made external to the nervous system — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 760; Brain metaphors have historically been centralizing, mirroring top-down ideals of governance — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 16; Mechanical brain metaphors all reduce the brain to a control center — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 118 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The brain contradicts the machine metaphor through entangled plastic processes #complicates (0.78) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 98
• Believing one’s exteriority transparently reveals inner being subjects one to others’ gaze #complicates (0.74)