Orthocardia, ROI of Raising Aspirations, The Microscopic Cosmos of the Brain
Amnous Newsletter #72
Discipleship
“Take an inventory of how you spend your time and where you devote your energy. That will tell you where your heart is.”1
Russell M. Nelson
In Christian vocabulary, three words describe a lot about what matters to God. Those words are orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthoocardia.
As one Christian writer defined them, “Orthodoxy is the term for the traditional beliefs in any given religious tradition. Orthopraxy refers to righteous conduct.”2
Orthocardia means having a right heart before God. Theoretically, having orthocardia should push someone towards orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
Augustine taught about the importance of ordering your loves. His idea was that “You harm yourself when you love anything more than God.”3 To have correctly ordered loves, God must be first, and everything must be subordinate to that.
I wonder if we were to order orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthocardia, where they would fall. All of these matter to God, but which matters most to Him? Maybe the scriptures will have an answer for us.
Orthodoxy
“They shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved.”4
Clearly, there is salvific significance to orthodoxy.
Orthopraxy
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect … Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only … For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”5
If we are saved by faith in Christ, and faith without works is dead, clearly there is salvific significance to orthopraxy.
Orthocardia
For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing ... if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift ... if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.6
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.7
From these verses, it’s clear that even if externally one is wholly orthodox and wholly orthoprax, God doesn’t view it that way unless one is wholly orthocardic. “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”8
You can do everything right, but without love, without a heart correctly motivated, it’s wrong.
Thus, the proper spiritual formation of your heart—orthocardia—is what God cares most about, and is what should be ordered at the top of your priority list.
Leadership
“Within each of our circles of friendship there lie so many unused opportunities to love, to serve, and to be taught … None of us ever fully utilizes the people-opportunities allocated to us within our circles of friendship. You and I may call these intersectings ‘coincidence.’ This word is understandable for mortals to use, but coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God. He does not do things by ‘coincidence’ but instead by ‘divine design.”9
Neal A. Maxwell
I read an inspiring piece recently by Tyler Cowen. Pasting it below without comment. There’s so much truth and wisdom in it.
Yesterday I had lunch with a former Ph.D student of mine, who is now highly successful and tenured at a very good school. I was reminded that, over twenty years ago, I was Graduate Director of Admissions. One of my favorite strategies was to take strong candidates who applied for Masters and also offer them Ph.D admissions, suggesting they might to do the latter. My lunch partner was a beneficiary of this de facto policy.
At least two of our very best students went down this route. Ex ante, neither realized that it was common simply to apply straight to a Ph.D program, skipping over the Masters. I believe this is now better known, but the point is this.
At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them, and to the broader world, may be enormous.
This is in fact one of the most valuable things you can do with your time and with your life.10
Mental Performance
“(Your brain) consists of about one hundred billion neurons and trillions of supporting glia cells … Collectively, if laid out end to end, our neurons would be over two million miles long.”11
Dan Siegel
Above are two photos. The first photo shows a single neuron, with its thousands of nerve fibers and connecting synapses. The second photo shows a photo of just 1 cubic millimeter of your brain and it’s “microscopic cosmos”12 of neurons and connections, as one has called it.13 The activation of just one neuron can influence an average of ten thousand other neurons, due to the spiderweb-like interconnections you can observe in these photos.14
The human brain is arguably the most spectacular of God’s creations. It is awe-inspiring.15 It is also humbling to realize just how much power we have in shaping our brains. You’ve probably heard of neuroplasticity. It is the truth that our brains are not static, but in fact, they are continually changing. Our experiences and choices determine how our brains change. As one scientist put it, “Everyday experiences … shape brain structure. The brain’s development is in part an ‘experience-dependent’ process, in which experience activates certain pathways in the brain, strengthening existing connections and creating new ones … Lack of sensory experience can lead to cell death … This is sometimes referred to as the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ principle of brain development.”16
The Savior wasn’t just teaching a spiritual truth, but also a neurological one, when He taught, “For whosoever receiveth, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever continueth not to receive, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”17 He is, after all, the Master neuroscientist.
Each time you repeat a behavior or repeat a thought, specific connections grow stronger in your brain until they become your default patterns. Whether you are creating good or bad habits, it makes no difference to your brain. It simply strengthens wherever you give your attention and whatever you experience.
I think this is why President Russell M. Nelson taught, “There is nothing easy or automatic about becoming such powerful disciples. Our focus must be riveted on the Savior and His gospel. It is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought. But when we do, our doubts and fears flee.”18 The doubts and fears fleeing come in multiple ways — both from the power of God and also from natural neurological reactions. Your brain physically changes to reflect what you consistently focus on. So when Alma asked, “I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?”,19 you can know that His image can be engraven on your countenance. You can see Him as He is and be like Him;20 you can attain unto the mind of Christ.21 Your brain can literally change to be like His. You just have to think what He would think, act as He would act, have your neurons wire together how His neurons wired together, and then these realities will be yours.
We Can Do Better and Be Better. Sermon by Russell M. Nelson.
Making Sense of God. Book by Tim Keller.
1 Nephi 15:14. The Book of Mormon
James 2:14-16 (KJV)
Moroni 7:6-11 . The Book of Mormon
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (KJV)
1 Samuel 16:7
Brim With Joy. Speech by Neal A. Maxwell
The high-return activity of raising others’ aspirations. Blog post by Tyler Cowen.
The Developing Mind. Book by Dan Siegel.
Source for these photos:
Shapson-Coe, A., Januszewski, M., Berger, D. R., Pope, A., Wu, Y., Blakely, T., ... & Lichtman, J. W. (2024). A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution. Science, 384(6696), eadk4858.
Unseen details of human brain structure revealed. Article by Brian Doctrow on NIH.
The Developing Mind. Book by Dan Siegel.
Loved the thoughts shared by Anish Moonka on Twitter.
“That one neuron connects to about 7,000 others. Your brain has 86 billion of them. Do the math and you get somewhere around 100 trillion connections inside your head. More connections than stars in 1,500 galaxies.
”And each connection point is way more complicated than anyone expected. A Stanford lab found that every single connection contains about 1,000 tiny switches that can store memories and process information at the same time. So your brain is running roughly 100 quadrillion switches right now, while you read this sentence.
”The wild part is the power bill. Your brain runs on 20 watts. That’s less energy than the light in your fridge. The world’s fastest supercomputer needs 20 million watts to do the same amount of raw calculation. A million times more power for the same output.
”We’re still nowhere close to understanding how any of this works. In October 2024, a team of hundreds of scientists finished mapping every single connection in a fruit fly’s brain. Took six years and heavy AI help. That fly brain had 140,000 neurons. Yours has 86 billion. Google and Harvard also mapped a piece of human brain last year, a speck smaller than a grain of rice. That speck alone contained 150 million connections and took 1,400 terabytes to store. The lead scientist said mapping a full human brain at that detail would produce as much data as the entire world generates in a year.
”A tiny worm had its 302 brain cells mapped back in 1986. Almost 40 years later, scientists still can’t fully explain how that worm’s brain keeps it alive. Your brain has 86 billion of those cells, each one wired to thousands of others, each wire packed with a thousand switches, all of it humming along on less power than a lightbulb.”
The Developing Mind. Book by Dan Siegel.
Matthew 13:10-11 (JST)
Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives. Talk by Russell M. Nelson
Almaa 5:14. The Book of Mormon.
Moroni 7:48. The Book of Mormon.
1 Corinthians 2:16