The Critical Brain Hypothesis? Meet The Metastable Brain~Mind

Abstract

In contrast to the critical brain hypothesis in which the brain tunes itself to a critical point between $states$ of chaos and order, analysis of Coordination Dynamics suggests that a vast repertoire of $coexisting$ $tendencies$ exists for regions of the brain to integrate and segregate at the same time. Rather than teetering between order and randomness, the brain~mind lives in an immense sea of metastability where it can create functional information.