Have a look at this... it isn't meant to be what I use it for but it gives an image...
Edward de Bono suggests a mind is like a vast plain, rolling slopes with an occasional gully built in... at birth. Information is like rain, falling on the plain. Some information is heavily represented and it forms more gullies which become valleys. The more information coming in, the more eroded the vista becomes.
So in this picture, the original 'plain' was purple, with maybe some red creases that represent the pre-defined structures we begin with, such as for shape, for language (any language) and sounds. (any scale)
He also suggests we have funnels.
Imagine a virgin beach, smooth sand with the waves washing up gently. A squall comes in and rains on the beach - not much changes - lots of pockmarks on the beach.
Now put a whole lot of different-sized funnels above the beach and have the same squall come in - the beach is RADICALLY changed because the funnels cause concentrated streams of water to erode the beach, forming valleys and creeks taking the water to the sea.
Funnels are labels that we use. We begin by identifying. We say things like, "I am a Democrat" because we see ourselves that way. And there are many Democrats in our group. There is another funnel we label as Republican and that's where we put the people who identify themselves as that.
But we are human. Some Republicans have ideas like we do, but we leave them over in their funnel because they ain't gonna vote for 'OUR' guy. But some Democrats espouse views that seem very Republican in nature, so we move them over into the Republican funnel. After some time, we find, if we are actually thinking and aware, there are actually very few people who qualify to be Democrats like us, but we only have TWO funnels for this.
"you are with us or against us" - are you seeing where this is going?
Funnels are labels. They gouge holes in the terrain of our hologram. Those holes tend to channel our thoughts in only one way. Those valleys ALWAYS lead in the same direction - if you enter you ALWAYS come down to the same exit.
And there is the problem. Once we, as a human, decide to enter a two-valued universe we cannot (literally) converse with someone we have put through the other funnel - they are in a different valley. So we have the constant bitch-fight between Creationists and Evolutionists - they aren't even talking about the same subject but they will fight it out to the bitter end - BECAUSE THEY HAVE FUNNELS FOR EACH OTHER! And we have (in the USA) Democrats and Republicans who also cannot ever reach rapprochement - FOR THE SAME REASON!
Which leads us to the other problem...
There was a guy by name of Count (not too sure about the title, but he was of nobility) Alfred Korzybski. He wrote about what he called General Semantics, which was, in layman's terms, The Meaning of Meaning. Science and Sanity was his major work I think, and in it he tries to bring us out of the Aristotelian world the Church put us in.
For the Church to work, in fact for almost ANY religion to work, they have to divide us into 2 classes. And in fact every single 'self-help' course I have ever done (& given 20 years in a public service job there were many :D) does the same thing. They propose there is THIS type of person and THAT type of person. In Religion they tell you which type you are, in self-help they ask you to identify with one.
An example is a VERY GOOD book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Even though I recommend the book, he does the same thing - there are Romantic and Classical people.
And there lies the rub. Humans have as many 'types' as there are humans. Even identical twins do not tick all the same boxes.
Korzybski's thesis was that we cannot think of ourselves as truly human until we are CONSCIOUSLY aware of the fact we are making identifications every time we 'decide' anything. An identification means we are abstracting reality. Which we ALWAYS have to do because we have zero independent verification that there is actually a reality at all.
The prime awareness is Korzybski's world is, The Map is NOT the Territory. Sounds fairly innocuous but, (& relating this back to neuroscience) it is basic to everything we do. What Korzybski is saying is we cannot claim to be truly human until (& unless) we include THAT awareness in every thought.
And here is where it matters in Neuroscience... In normal Solid terms, EVERYTHING we can ever know comes in via senses. Which means everything gets 'coloured' with emotion on the way in, and everything gets skewed a little by previous experience, BEFORE WE SEE IT! So we MUST stay aware that THIS experience is NOT the other experience even if it is the same in almost every detail.
But as humans we tend towards reacting as if THIS situation IS that situation. Mostly it goes OK. Guy with knife running towards me, kick in nuts solved it last time, will usually work this time.
UNLESS IT IS THE SAME GUY! In which case the kick in the nuts will probably get you stabbed!
So awareness that THIS incident is not exactly THAT incident may save your life.
And yet our Education, our TV programming, our schooling (a different thing to education) teaches us to use the A=A of Aristotle rather than learning to be aware of all the nuances. We get no training in what it is to be human but lots of training in what it means to obey. We get taught the person with Authority is right and we will be punished if we do not conform... and here's the rub... all this is visited upon us by people who do not want us to be individual - the closer they can make us to identical the easier we are to predict and control.