brain not a sponge

Humphries, Proust and many others are reversing the way we see the brain. Rather than a passive receptor, we need to think of it as an active outreacher. The child's brain reaches out into the world to test it. The successfully fired neurons are strengthened, the less successful ones die out. Think of the brain as being like a squid with tentacles (neurons) reaching out into the world. For Humphries, the goes back to a simple organism recoiling from a threat. Proust describes how we create our loved ones in our mind then project out into the world. This is why someone "not our type" is perfect: we need to project their qualities.