at the same time *being clear about the direction of interventions we need to develop*, I'm perfectly willing to get on board. I'm not stuck with the terminology, I just want people to have the option to relieve suffering and live to whatever potential they can envision.

One other thing. While I'm never going to buy the idea that all outcomes are equal, I have no commitment to the specific terminology and I don't think there should be any pejorative associated with the labels. So if you've got some kind of vocabulary that you think will be helpful to people while

will be told that "it's just variety, don't label it as a disease", and suffering goes unchecked. If I had more time on my hands, I'd run your alternative past the people who email us and see how it lands. I can guess though.

in whatever configuration, to be treated with the utmost compassion and care. Once we pretend outcomes don't matter, then "diseases" disappear as a target of research, and people who need solutions for cancer, limb loss, degenerative conditions, and all kinds of horrific situations

Bottom line. The vocabulary matters when it comes time to decide whether to do research, and if so, in what direction. Patients want a choice about outcomes. Whatever vocabulary helps us communicate about what direction we're trying to push things, that's what we need. And of course I want everyone,

Or, perhaps the American Heart Association agrees with you. Nope:
www.heart.org/en/health-to...

And finally. It's not just scientists who "push back" on this idea that all outcomes are the same. Here's March of Dimes, the major foundation supporting fetal and maternal health: www.marchofdimes.org/find-support... ; are you boycotting their work?

vocabulary for what these treatments are trying to accomplish exactly? If all the outcomes are supposed to be equal, what are we developing interventions to do? Should scientists be developing ways to cause loss of brain as well? Why not? Seems like there's an asymmetry after all...

I suppose I could start forwarding you all the emails I get from desperate people asking my community to "hurry the f*&@ up" finding these treatments. So let's assume the answer is yes - you do support treatments to be available to patients who want them. In that case, what's your preferred

we not, do research on what causes different outcomes in development, and giving patients the ability to make use of this information for medical treatments that change outcome? If you think "no", then we're done and there's nothing more for me to say; I think that would be morally unconscionable.

I have a very basic question. Are you supportive of the development of medical treatments, to be available to parents or patients themselves, that would allow them to prevent or shift outcomes? For example, from "no brain, death soon" to "yes brain, standard lifespan range". Should we, or should

The phenotypes we study are often severe - very malformed brain, no behavior, death before maturity. Defects, in any reasonable definition of words. Nevertheless, there are interesting broader issues around departures from a species' default target morphology, which can be speciation etc.

The super prescient H. S. Burr (link.springer.com/article/10.1...) warned clearly even back in the 1930's that it was crucial to pay attention to the field aspect, not only the "particle" aspect of bioelectric interactions, both in and out of the CNS.

We're definitely inspired by @earlkmiller.bsky.social 's work in the brain; we cite it in www.cell.com/cell-reports... for example.

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We're working on this now, in the context of computational and behavioral/psychological models. I think in some ways least action may be pretty universal all the way up (and all the ways down). In the end, whether Least Action will belong to physics or to cognitive science, we'll see.

Cool!! I'll check it out. But, "thinking vs. obeying physics" - the standard paradigm says our thinking is obeying physics too, right? One question is: how much of more advanced "thinking" is also least action dynamics on more complex virtual spaces constructed by more advanced cognitive systems.

Very cool find, thank you!! super relevant to some stuff I'm working on.