Thinking brain plasticity correctly is required to think freedom

Evidence

If we do not think through this transformation or this plasticity, we dodge the most important question, which is that of freedom. If, in effect, the life of the brain is played out between program and deprogramming, between determinism and the possibility of changing difference, then the transition from the proto-self to the self is indeed the transition from the undifferentiated to the possibility of a transdifferentiation of self—the self, between receiving and giving form, being at once what one inherits and what one has created. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 230

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crucial definitional pair: the self ‘between receiving and giving form, being at once what one inherits and what one has created’ — this is where giving form (plasticity) exceeds mere receiving (flexibility).
• XREF: Directly relevant to catching the substitution — here receive/give is the structural divide, aligned with her declared plasticity/receptivity-hegemony concern.