Well frankly I did not read the article. But I am all too familiar with discussions of criticality in the context of neuroscience and it is always meant in the

Well frankly I did not read the article. But I am all too familiar with discussions of criticality in the context of neuroscience and it is always meant in the same way physicists use the word. I'm afraid this may be a scenario where some deeper knowledge is needed to fully appreciate the discussion. You would be well rewarded for putting in the effort though, it's a fascinating notion. I'd recommend starting with the Ising model [0] which is the canonical system exhibiting critical phenomenon. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ising_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ising_model edit: if by 'this' you are referring the the wiki article on critical phenomenon, you're definitely missing the larger picture. The examples that wiki article lists aren't metaphorical, they're all essentially 'corollaries' (in a very loose sense) of the same underlying thing. Start with the Ising model.