Synaptic Pruning Could Challenge DEUCE Dogma

We’ve all got a dogma. Oddly, the only thing more dangerous than having one is not knowing you have one. One of my dogmas is this perspective of growth and development that is centered on transcendence. I stole the words of Ken Wilbur who said that we “transcend and include” our previous selves as we grow and ran with it. 

Challenging your dogma is healthy. 

In the spirit of challenging dogma, I’d like to share some potentially powerful evidence that challenges my dogma. To simplify, I believe that our growth process is a progression of transcendence to new complexity that includes and accounts for earlier parts of us. To oversimplify, teenagers aren’t just teenagers. They are teenagers who were children who were toddlers who were babies. Soon they will transcend into adolescence, while including their previous iterations. 

I normally share my dogma in my developmental coaching of coaches, in my business course, and also the Hold the Standard Summit, specifically in the context of our conscious capacity. However, new research is indicating that our neurology may experience a specific process called synaptic pruning that would challenge the “include” part of “transcend and include.” 

Essentially, synaptic pruning is a process of neurological developments that are forfeited to make way for new learning. This type of shedding challenges my understanding of how development works and may force a more complex explanation for development. 

My initial reaction is that this could be semantics of language and how we process where we’ve been and how much it is included or not in our transcendence. From a literal perspective, pruning seems to directly combat the notion of including previous iterations of development. One counter argument might read something like, “The synapses might not exist now, but they surely are included in a chronological progression to this level of transcendence.”

I genuinely don’t know how to reconcile this research and think that sharing about it is worthwhile if not for no other reason that demonstrating a challenge to my own dogma as a practice. What do you think?