The mind extends beyond the physical body, into the greater world around us. Your neurons learn not to contain complete processes internally, but rather to integrate themselves within other higher order systems. The reason that progress must mean changing everything is to sever your connections with the systems that have been built up over countless generations, to trap and restrict your mind internally within a hypothetical "black cube" through which no information passes, so it can be as clay molded into any form that may please the artist.