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20% of all cancers harbour a mutation in one of three RAS genes; KRAS, HRAS and NRAS. Each of these genes directs the production of a protein that naturally flexes and relaxes, on and off, thousands of times a second. In the “on” position, it allows cells to grow, and then in the “off” setting, it stops the growth. However, when the RAS genes are mutated, the protein remains stuck in its on state, and the cell is forced to proliferate out of control, becoming a tumour.

It’s now estimated that perception may be up to 90 percent based on memory; barely 10 percent of what we think we’re seeing is the result of stimuli outside the body in the present moment. In order to process huge amounts of visual information, the brain relies on memories of prior experience. Color is not only a wonder of the natural world but something inside us, as Wittgenstein hinted. Following Goethe, whose 1810 Theory of Colours inspired Wittgenstein’s investigation, “If the eye were not sunny, how could we perceive light?” Our memories of experiences, like photographs, may seem to represent the past, but they also shape how we see the present and the future.

Even when broken down into the actions of individual neurons, much remains to be understood. Try understanding the behaviour of 86 billion of those neurons, and the abilities of the world’s collective neuroscientists are confounded. We do not know how these neurons come together to achieve the brain’s defining function: consciousness. But it’s worse than that: we struggle to even define what consciousness is.

Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Frantz Fanon, and Judith Butler became as important to her thinking as Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion.