Mechanisms of cultural evolution. Victor Efremenko

structures of this network are local associations of neurons – the «words» of the neural code of the MEM. These associations are not physical, but functional. The functional states of neurons are encoded by information received by the brain from the sense organs about the external environment, about the state of the organism itself from its nerve cells. The incoming information is processed by the MEM system, which can be considered as a set of regulators that determine the activity of various brain structures that affect the behavior of the whole organism.

      If you feel hungry, cold, irritated, joyful, or any other need of the body, then this appropriately directs thoughts and changes behavior. Regulators that control processes in accordance with the established regulation law are themselves capable of changing (adaptive regulators) by internal needs. This changes the vector of our thinking and behavior. The entire control system resembles the slave control system used in an electric drive, when the external control loop takes into account the state of the internal one. Only in the body, the parameters of the regulators are set not by the developers, but by the totality of the surrounding factors. In other words, regulators are adaptive.

      The brain acts in accordance with the many signals that enter it. Most of them come from the environment external to a person, and the other part from the internal environment.