In the lab I worked in, we literally studied two neurons coupled together. Simplistic networks are good for learning certain things in isolation but some phenom

In the lab I worked in, we literally studied two neurons coupled together. Simplistic networks are good for learning certain things in isolation but some phenomena might only be the result of complex systems and studying small networks may never lead us towards understanding these complex phenomena. The obvious one is "consciousness" but even things like sensory perception which in part is the result of complex, distributed calculations would difficult if not impossible to understand from studying simple networks.