Dr. Sal Restivo

SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE, STUDIES IN SCIENCE, MATH, LOGIC, MIND AND BRAIN, RELIGION AND GOD

Dr. Sal Restivo is widely recognized as one of the founders of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), a pioneer in ethnographic studies of science, a founder of the modern sociology of mathematics, a contributor to public sociology (he was a founding member of the Association for Humanist Sociology), and a prominent figure in the radical science movement of the 1960s. Dr. Restivo retired as Professor of Sociology, Science, Studies and Information Technology in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York on June 30th 2012; he is Special Lecture Professor in STS at Northeastern University in Shenyang, China; a former Special Professor of Mathematics Education at Nottingham University in Great Britain; and a former Hixon/Riggs Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Harvey Mudd College. He was currently aAdjunct Professor in the Department of Technology, Culture and Society at New York University Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn NY from September 2015 to December 2017. He is now fully retired from the academy and working as an independent scholar from his home in Ridgewood NY. (see the full biography of Dr. Restivo for more details)

The original version of this model was designed with Sabrina Weiss. I have taken it through a number of revisions designed to keep pace with developments in neuroscience and in social neuroscience/sociology of the brain. It was designed to graphically represent and expand Clifford Geertz’s argument for the synchronic emergence of an expanded forebrain among the primates, complex social organizations, and at least among the post-Australopithecines tool savvy humans, institutional cultural patterns. This recommends against treating biological, social, and cultural parameters as serially related in a causal nexus. Rather, these levels should be viewed as reciprocally intertwined and conjointly causal. The claim in a nutshell is that human behavioral repertoires emerge from the complex parallel and recursive interactions of genes, neurons, neural nets, organs, biomes, the brain and central nervous system, other elements of the body’s systems and subsystems down to the molecular level (see Candace Pert, Molecules of Emotion, 1999) and our social interactions in their ecological and umwelt contexts. This implies that we need to re-think socialization. It is a process that simultaneously informs and variably integrates the biological self, the neurological, self, and the social self to construct personality and character. In addition, each element in the model must be understood as a dialectical entity containing its own internal “seeds” of change, and as following a temporal dynamic that may be at different times synchronous or dyssynchronous relative to other elements. Each element is conceived as an information system with all systems multiply inter-linked by the circulation of information. In the latest revision of my model I have added diagonals with double-headed arrows that criss-cross the model. This maps the chaotic dynamics and cooperative neural mass discussed by C.A. Skarda and W.J. Freeman (1990) in “Chaos and the new science of the brain,” Chapter in Shaw G (ed.) Concepts in Neuroscience 2 275-285; and see C.A. Skarda and W.J. Freeman (1987), “How brains make chaos in order to make sense of the world,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1987) 10, 161-195. The unit model is activated in a triad of unit models and it is that triad that is the basic model of brain/mind/culture/world. This reflects the idea that the triad is the basic unit of social life (Restivo, Weiss, and Stingl, 2014: 104n1). This diagram is the General Connectome. A connectome maps the elements and interconnections in a network. The term has been used specifically in connection with mapping the neural connections in the brain. Connectomes may range in scale from maps of parts of the nervous system to a map of all of the neural interactions in the brain. Partial connectomes have been constructed of the retina and primary visual cortex of the mouse. In line with these developments, my model represents the highest level of the connectome, a connectome of connectomes.
Based on ideas in my recent writings on the brain (2018, 2020) I can now offer an initial concept formula for the probability of an “innovative thought”. iT_p = qc^2 x K+G, where qc^2 is the amount of cultural capital the person commands and K is a constant that represents the cultural context and network structure the person is embedded in; qc^2 because doubling the amount of cultural capital, for example, quadruples its impact factor. K=C+Nt. C = Cultural Context, an index that takes into account a variety of demographic, class, gender, and institutional diversity indicators; N = the density and diversity of the network structure of the society. G=the genius cluster quotient at time t. When considering the etiology of behaviors that are traditionally considered genetically grounded, it is now important to recognize that the brain, like humans, arrives on the evolutionary stage always, already, and everywhere, social. Therefore, what we have considered to be linearly transmitted genetic phenomena must now be viewed in the context of a brain that is at no stage of development separated from the social and cultural imperatives that form us. The very notions of “genes” and “genetic” must now be revised in the context of the social brain paradigm.
The next stage in this project is to embed the basic triad of the General Connectome in the nested networks of the social and cultural connectomes locally, regionally, and globally so that we now visualize a Global Connectome driven by the circulation of information across nested networks. On the rationale for a global connectome (my interpretation), see P. Khanna, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization ( New York: Randon House, 2016).

UPDATE 2/29/20: THE INFORMATION LINKS ACROSS THE NETWORK ARE NOT ALL EQUAL. THE LINKS BETWEEN THE BRAIN AND THE LIVER, THE HEART, AND THE GUT ARE NOTABLY STRONGER THAN OTHER LINKS.

HEART-BRAIN: In an interview with author Marc C. Crowley, Dr. James Doty (Into The Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and The Secrets Of The Heart), notes, “Rather than passively waiting for instructions to the brain, the heart not only thinks for itself, it sends signals to the rest of the body.” In fact, the heart appears to be the boss of the brain — transmitting more signals to it than the reverse.
GUT-BRAIN: The Gut Microbiome and Brain … It’s called the gut-brain axis. Down in the gut, bacteria make neuroactive compounds, including 90% of our neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulate our emotions. In turn, the brain can send signals to the gastrointestinal system, for example, to stimulate or suppress digestion.
LIVER-BRAIN: Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2016 Feb 1; 310(3): E183–E189.Overview of brain-liver connections. Liver-related preautonomic neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus receive inputs from a variety of hypothalamic nuclei and via the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous systems (PNS) modulate glucose levels. Some of the liver-related neurons express corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and oxytocin, whereas the phenotype of the majority of liver-related PVN neurons is unknown. In vivo administration of neurotransmitters and modulators influences glucose levels, whereas the exact underlying mechanisms (e.g., receptors) are unclear. POA, preoptic area; AH, anterior hypothalamus; DMH, dorsomedial hypothalamus; VMH, ventromedial hypothalamus; SCN, suprachiasmatic nucleus; CVO, circumventricular organs; LTS, low-threshold spikes; TRPV1, transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1; HGP, hepatic glucose production.