The Sole of the Matter Interplace

Hello Interactors,
Continuing on the theme of the brain being embedded in the world in which ‘we’ interact, I explore how the brain is also embodied in a biological system with which ‘it’ interacts. The brain conjures this sense of itself inside this thing called ‘me’. How do these illusions come to be inside a tangible body?
Let’s find out…
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CONSTRUCTING BRAD
I read a passage in a book a few years ago that fundamentally changed how I think about myself. We were fully into the pandemic, and I had started walking…a lot. I would pick a green patch on Google Maps, put my earplugs in, launch a book, and walk to my little green polygon. Some journeys stretched to 15 miles roundtrip.
So, when I was browsing one of my favorite little independent bookstores, you can imagine my attraction to a book positioned to get my attention called, “In Praise of Walking”. It’s a book on the neuroscience behind walking by the experimental brain researcher at Trinity College, Shane O’Mara. I also recommend his Brain Pizza Substack.
Walking, for me (and him), is a treat. For anyone able to walk, it should be considered a treat.
I learn a lot by walking. But walking is no longer something I need to learn. I already learned how to walk. We are not born knowing how to walk, we must be taught. We are not born knowing much at all. That includes who we are.
I was born Brad. Had I popped out with internal plumbing, I learned I would be named Becky. Here is something else I learned: I was born with a body that had already learned how to pee. That’s what I apparently did in the face of the doctor who pulled me out of the womb.
I am half constructed out of the same DNA that built that womb. Though every cell that constructed that baby Brad are long gone. The body I have today is made of different cells — a result of continuous cell division and renewal processes. Something cells have they already learned to do.
I was born a unique self only in that those cells remembered how to recombine genetically out of DNA passed down for generations. My uniqueness over my life arises out of mutations — random events in the sequencing of my own DNA. Other outside events, like what was in my Mom and Dad’s blood stream just prior to conception, can also randomly cause one gene to turn on and another to turn off.  
Those random mutations, some stemming from other random events, continued as I went from being enveloped in a warm viscous fluid shielded from light to my blinding, cold, stark reality. I was so happy or angry I peed on a human urinal. Every planned or random event that happened after that continued to shape my biological makeup — including the arranging, refining, and pruning of the 86 billion neurons in my little brain.
I can’t remember any of this. I can’t even remember learning to walk. But I apparently did. Once out of the womb, the world around us continues to shape us. Like those early moments of DNA expression, some genetic expression is baked into our physical genes. But the constructions of those genes are influenced through biochemical reactions which are influenced by our environment. This can lead cells to communicate and conspire to create unique and differentiating genetic expressions. Even genetically identical twins evolve to have differentiated biology — including physical skills, health outcomes, and the development of ‘self.’
Early brain development is a particularly sensitive period to environmental influences. The brain undergoes development, with processes that move neurons from their place of origin to their final position in the brain, guided by molecular signals. The formation of synapses between neurons allows for the transmission of electrical and chemical signals across the brain, enabling learning and memory​.
Our neurons are then wrapped in long