Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind

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Summary: Edelman went where no man went before
Review: Although Edelman tried to make "Bright Air, Brilliant Fire : On the Matter of the Mind" a self-contained story, it really is based on his trilogy of books "Topobiology : An Introduction to Molecular Embryology", "Neural Darwinism; The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection", and "The Remembered Present : A Biological Theory of Consciousness". I am not sure that any mortal can read only "Bright Air" and really understand what Edelman is talking about.

The claim that Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) "does not appear to have the potential to really crack the problem" of how a brain makes a mind is a claim that is often made without any suggestion of exactly what Edelman might have missed. These claims are like people in the 1940's saying, "a rocket does not have what it takes to get to the moon." Certainly a 1940's rocket could not reach the moon, and certainly Edelman's TNGS is not a complete theory of mind, but Edelman, like von Braun, was visionary in being able to see that with future improvements, the path to the desired future was in sight. The claim that no correct materialistic theory of mind will ever be found is now nearly as impossible to defend as the claim that "men will never walk on the moon" would have been in 1965.

Speculation about why Edelman's books so annoy and infuriate his critics: 1) Edelman has constructed an new language which he uses to describe his theory mind. He provides no glossary with definitions of his terms. This alone is a horrible tactical error that can only alienate his readers. 2) Edelman builds his theory from a foundation that is unfamiliar to most of his critics.People like Crick, Dennett, and Johnson have never read the literature of "topobiology" and they are also not able to conceptualize how synapse regulation rules must be integrated into the proper types of neural networks in order to allow for learning and memory. 3) Philosophers of Mind, in particular, the many who are "Functionalists" as well as the huge swarm of Parallel Distributed Processing connectionists are shown by Edelman to be taking an inferior approach to mind. Having your professional career side-swiped by an interloper from Biolgy is enough to enrage most philosophers and AI researchers.

New species arise from subtle recombinations of mutations and their birth is a fragile process. The fundamentally correct components of Neural Edelmanism will survive the memetic selection process within the Science of Mind. In the next century Edelman will be viewed in much the same way biologists of this century now view Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin: men who published their ideas well before science as a whole was ready.

Rating:
Summary: The concepts are more important than the details
Review: Although Edelman tried to make "Bright Air, Brilliant Fire : On the Matter of the Mind" a self-contained story, it really is based on his trilogy of books "Topobiology : An Introduction to Molecular Embryology", "Neural Darwinism; The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection", and "The Remembered Present : A Biological Theory of Consciousness". I am not sure that any mortal can read only "Bright Air" and really understand what Edelman is talking about.

The claim that Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) "does not appear to have the potential to really crack the problem" of how a brain makes a mind is a claim that is often made without any suggestion of exactly what Edelman might have missed. These claims are like people in the 1940's saying, "a rocket does not have what it takes to get to the moon." Certainly a 1940's rocket could not reach the moon, and certainly Edelman's TNGS is not a complete theory of mind, but Edelman, like von Braun, was visionary in being able to see that with future improvements, the path to the desired future was in sight. The claim that no correct materialistic theory of mind will ever be found is now nearly as impossible to defend as the claim that "men will never walk on the moon" would have been in 1965.

Speculation about why Edelman's books so annoy and infuriate his critics: 1) Edelman has constructed an new language which he uses to describe his theory mind. He provides no glossary with definitions of his terms. This alone is a horrible tactical error that can only alienate his readers. 2) Edelman builds his theory from a foundation that is unfamiliar to most of his critics.People like Crick, Dennett, and Johnson have never read the literature of "topobiology" and they are also not able to conceptualize how synapse regulation rules must be integrated into the proper types of neural networks in order to allow for learning and memory. 3) Philosophers of Mind, in particular, the many who are "Functionalists" as well as the huge swarm of Parallel Distributed Processing connectionists are shown by Edelman to be taking an inferior approach to mind. Having your professional career side-swiped by an interloper from Biolgy is enough to enrage most philosophers and AI researchers.

New species arise from subtle recombinations of mutations and their birth is a fragile process. The fundamentally correct components of Neural Edelmanism will survive the memetic selection process within the Science of Mind. In the next century Edelman will be viewed in much the same way biologists of this century now view Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin: men who published their ideas well before science as a whole was ready.

Rating:
Summary: impressive
Review: Dr. Edelman has many critics, who all sound the same in their attacks on his work. First, a sly remark about his personality, his egomania, his obsession with grandeur. Then they claim that he cannot write clearly, that he obscures with his highly technical language. And then you get the usual complaint about the lack of empirical evidence, etc., etc. finally, they claim that they, even being the experts that they are, cannot understand Edelman at all. All these critisms seem convincing enough until one reads Edelman's recent book. Yes, he is highly ambitious, attempting to construct a complex theory of consciousness. But he is a clear and direct writer, who exposes the problems at every step instead of hiding them; he is modest, generously acknowledging his debts to earlier work, providing a helpful bibliography for the interested reader. As to his theory, I find it more convincing than all the theories offered by his critics. That is not to say that it's flawless. Edelman himself, in fact, explicitly says that many aspects of the theory are in need of further revision based on empirical evidence. But his work, clearly the product of a powerful and erudite mind, seems to me the best there is in this immature theoretical field. It needs criticism, but not stupid cricism, as offered by his current critics (e.g. Crick, Dennett, Johnson, etc.), who are obviously off the mark. It would be interesting to speculate why Edelman's books so annoy and infuriate them; after all, it is just another theory, why all the sound and fury when most people in the neuroscience community haven't even read the new book, or any of the previous ones. Is it dangerous--to certain people, for certain unknown reason? Now I hope that Dr. Edelman will continue his line of work, writing more enlightening books that will gradually engage the specific problems he mentioned in his previous work.

Rating:
Summary: a bit watered-down
Review: I am a huge fan of Edelman, but I regretted having bought this book; I would say this is a kind of half-successful attempt at vulgarizing what he explained so well elsewhere: there is nothing to be found here that wasn`t already explained in more detail in "Neural Darwinism" and "The Remembered Present". So stay away from this one if you read the others. If you never read anything by him, go for his "Neural Darwinism". Reading his books was definitely a great intellectual experience of my life. Go for it!

PS: Da man is a genius.

Rating:
Summary: An Especially Appropriate Title
Review: In Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, Gerald M. Edelman accomplishes what seems to be an almost impossible task: He helps the non-scientist to understand the connections between what is known about the mind with what is beginning to be known about the brain. For Edelman, this subject "is the most important one imaginable" because it is charged "with the excitement of being on the threshold of knowing how we know." At the outset, he poses "some commonsense notions":

1. Things do not have minds.

2. Normal humans have minds; some animals act as if they do.

3. Beings with minds can refer to other beings or things; things without minds do not refer to beings or things.

The book is divided into four main parts (Problems, Origins, Proposals, and Harmonies), concluding with "Mind Without Biology: A Critical Postscript" in which Edelman dispels the notion that the mind can be understood in the absence of biology. Stated another way (in Chapter 2), "There must be ways to put the mind back into nature that are concordant with how it got there in the first place."

Obviously, this is not a book for browsers, for grasshoppers, or for dilettantes. It makes great demands on the mind (and patience) of its reader. But consider Edelman's original objective: to explore the connections between what is known about the mind with what is beginning to be known about the brain. For him, this subject is (to reiterate) "the most important one imaginable" because it is charged "with the excitement of being on the threshold of knowing how we know."

Is there any other knowledge of greater importance?

Rating:
Summary: Of great interest
Review: More than a quarter of a century ago, Edelman was distinguished with a Nobel Price for his research on the immunity system. Later he switched to neurology. He sees a parallel between the way the immunity system is programmed and the way the brain is programmed. These procedures have much in common with Darwins process of evolution by way of natural selection. Edelman speaks of "neural Darwinism".

When you just think about it, after reading the arguments Edelman brings forward, you will see that evolution could hardly have produced something as complex as the human brain (or even more simple animal brains) by any other means. A lot has to be investigated yet, of course, but I think Edelman has shown the way to a deeper understanding of our brain.

It is a pity Edelman and Daniel Dennet get along so badly. Edelman never mentions Dennet, and Dennet is extremely critical in the few remarks he makes about Edelmans work. I think their approaches are complementary, not contradictory.

Yes, the human brain is a computer of sorts. Edelman has the clearest ideas about the structure of this computer, but he denies that the metaphor of the computer is valid. I think that, even taking Edelmans ideas about the deeper structure in account, the metaphor remains valid, up to a point at least. Really, Edelman has much more in common with Dennet (whom he seems to despise) than with the "mysterian" Searle, whom he praises.

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Summary: Want to know the truth? It IS out there--
Review: The worst kind of reviewers are those who come when the play is half over. There is no "royal road" to the truth, either in mathematics, as the old tale has it, or in philosophy and science. Ethically, you can struggle through the basics and talk about your conclusions; or you should shut up. If you have no inkling about the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, you have no inkling about consciousness. Go back and do your homework. So Edelman's books are tough going? Did you expect to understand calculus without taking algebra? I read "Neural Darwinism" right after it was published, and gagged. My biology background is thin; one college course. I looked up "natural selection" and found Dawkins; I read all of his books and knew something about genetics. I read "ND" again, understanding a bit more, especially the part about "ground-breaking" ... When "Topobiology" appeared, I read it. I had to reread "ND" to get through it, but I began to understand the vocabulary, the ideas, the logic, the structure. Same thing with "Remembered Present". At that point I was working in a university psychology department (strictly as a hardware specialist, never having had a single psychology course). I mentioned this exciting work to a few professors in developmental psych who might have been expected to look at it; none of them did. Not till 1999, when a visiting professor offered a course in "Consciousness" based on "The Remembered Present", was there any hint that Edelman had some relevance for those researching the development of the mind. Draw your own conclusions. If you're not afraid to know the facts, if you really want to know the answers to the hard questions (What is life? Why is the universe only 4-dimensional? Where does thought come from?), dig for them; they do exist. Start with Edelman.

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Summary: Consciousness as a biological Darwinist adaptation.
Review: This is a very important book.
It proves convincingly that consciousness is a matter of ... matter (the biological matter of the brain) and that it is the outcome of a long history of biological adaptations.

It also proves that the mind is not a computer or a Turing machine, that human language is not a computer language and that physics is not sufficient to explain its working. The morphology of the brain goes deep, but not as deep as to attain the quantum level.
On the contrary, Edelman explains clearly that the mind is a process that operates in a 4 dimensional world; that it doesn't have a perfect memory or doesn't order events or objects logically. It is subject to mutation in order to select and to adapt and creates itself aspects of the reality by cultural and language interaction. Into the bargain, the biological structure of the brain is different for every individual.

Edelman's theory has also far reaching philosophical implications. It is the death of essentialism (there are no 'essences', only populations with different individuals) and of idealism (the world was there before the mind).

Is Edelman's TNGS (theory of neural group selection) the end of the story? Absolutely not. It is only the beginning. It forms the basis for further investigations. But it clearly indicates which way to follow and which ways not.

I have only one reservation: Edelman's nearly unconditional admiration for Freud.

This is an essential read.

Rating:
Summary: The Light Ages
Review: Wow. Obviously we've emerged from the dark ages into the light and....wait, Plato already made this analogy. Anyway, its always edifying to see people, anyone, confirm in print what we all already know but are afraid, for political reasons I guess, to utter. It's a material world. Edelman takes off on this theme and proceeds to deliver the underlying neural blueprints for ego, soul, cognition, and a host of other mystical magical metaphysics, minus the meta. Edelman makes some gratuitous forays into philosophy in this book, but by and large sticks to the point and discusses his work on axonal feedback/forward pathways and TNGS; the theory of neuronal group selection, an evolutionary take on neurobiology. It's always nice, in my view, when researchers deign to wtite these pop-sci books to share with us plebes what we could never encounter in our own pedestrian lives. I can't really evaluate if this is a "good" piece of literature, but anyone remotely interested in who and what they and the people they know are simply must devour evey morsel of this neurophysiology primer.