Gerald M Edelman – författare

What goes on in our heads when we have a thought? With this book, Edelman and Tononi present an empirically-supported full-scale theory of consciousness. They apply all of the resources and insights of modern neuroscience, from the largest computermodels ever constructed to new experiments that detect the changes in brain activity. This pioneering work represents a landmark in our growing understanding of consciousness. Praise for Gerald Edelman: "The new Darwin...His theory is an enrichment of life itself" - Oliver Sacks, The Times

In this, his first book aimed at the general reader, Gerald Edelman describes how consciousness arises in complex brains and how it is related to evolution, to the development of the self, and to the origins of feelings, learning, and memory. Edelman's theories offer a solution to the mind-body problem. An understanding of the workings of consciousness in scientific terms would be of enormous value in all areas of science, in medicine and psychiatry, and in the humanities.

A renowned neuroscientist explains how our brains and bodies give rise to knowledge, creativity, and mental experienceBurgeoning advancements in brain science are opening up new perspectives on how we acquire knowledge. Indeed, it is now possible to explore consciousness—the very center of human concern—by scientific means. In this illuminating book, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman offers a new theory of knowledge based on striking scientific findings about how the brain works. And he addresses the related compelling question: Does the latest research imply that all knowledge can be reduced to scientific description?Edelman’s brain-based approach to knowledge has rich implications for our understanding of creativity, of the normal and abnormal functioning of the brain, and of the connections among the different ways we have of knowing. While the gulf between science and the humanities and their respective views of the world has seemed enormous in the past, the author shows that their differences can be dissolved by considering their origins in brain functions. He foresees a day when brain-based devices will be conscious, and he reflects on this and other fascinating ideas about how we come to know the world and ourselves.

In A Universe of Consciousness, Gerald Edelman builds on the radical ideas he introduced in his monumental trilogy-Neural Darwinism, Topobiology, and The Remembered Present-to present for the first time an empirically supported full-scale theory of consciousness. He and the neurobiolgist Giulio Tononi show how they use ingenious technology to detect the most minute brain currents and to identify the specific brain waves that correlate with particular conscious experiences. The results of this pioneering work challenge the conventional wisdom about consciousness.

If you had a complete copy of a dinosaur's DNA and the genetic code, you still would not be able to make a dinosaur,or even determine what one looked like. Why? How do animals get their shape and how does shape evolve? In this important book, Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman challenges the notion that an understanding of the genetic code and of cell differentiation is sufficient to answer these questions. Rather, he argues, a trio of related issues must also be investigated,the development of form, the evolution of form, and the morphological and functional bases of behaviour. Topobiology presents an introduction to molecular embryology and describes a comprehensive hypothesis to account for the evolution and development of animal form.