Our metaphors are powerful things. And it takes a long time to change them, when they have gotten fixed into our thinking.

So it is with the idea of the brain, and body, as machine, rather than a living system that can repair itself. (An idea that has also shaped our view of the natural world, as machine rather than ecosystem.)

So when I read Norman Doidge’s wonderfully readable books explaining neuroplasticity – the brain’s capacity to learn, and to repair itself – I thought for sure that the idea of the brain and body as machine would disappear for good.