What do 'these two sections' refer to?

What do 'these two sections' refer to?

The passage below is from ‘the Blank Slate’ by Steven Pinker.

http://evolbiol.ru/blankslate/blankslate.htm

This is simply a corollary of the general point with which I began the chapter: the environment cannot tell the various parts of an organism what their goals are.

The doctrine of extreme plasticity has used the plasticity discovered in primary sensory cortex as a metaphor for what happens elsewhere in the brain. The upshot of these two sections is that it is not a very good metaphor. If the plasticity of sensory cortex symbolized the plasticity of mental life as a whole, it should be easy to change what we don't like about ourselves or other people.

In this passage I'd like to know what the underlined 'these two sections' refer to.
It seems to refer to 'primary sensory cortex' and 'what happens elsewhere in the brain' but I'm not sure.

Regards.