Brains, Minds, and Science: Digging Deeper

Maurício Vieira Kritz

Nowadays scientific challenges require us to work together not only across disciplines, but also in large teams often scattered around the globe. To understand the intrusive inefficiencies present when we deal scientifically with the dazzling natural and social challenges facing us, I have previously proposed to consider the scientific milieu itself as a primary subject of study. Since any collective action related to knowledge involves communication, brains, and minds, a central point in this plan is to understand the role our brains play in this scenario.

This paper describes the beginnings of a many-step modelling process that aims to build a brain-aware scientific culture, starting from a model of the scientific milieu itself displaying associations of the brain-mind complex with its many components. The description of the scientific milieu embraces all its aggregation and individuation levels, while highlighting channels, procedures, conditionings, and phenomenological characteristics through which our brains may interfere in the process of knowledge production, preservation, and transmission.

It extends previous efforts by sketching models that separate anatomical from physiological changes in brains; by highlighting the interplay of both these facets; by discussing next steps necessary to advance towards a more encompassing model; and by clarifying how agreements about elementary cross-disciplinary communication tokens seems to be initially achieved.

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