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'Gerald Maurice Edelman' (born July 1, 1929 in Ozone Park, Queens, New York) is an American biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his work on the immune system^[1]. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concerned discovery of the structure of antibody molecules^[2]. In interviews, he has said that the way the components of the immune system evolve over the life of the individual is analogous to the way the components of the brain evolve in a lifetime. This is the continuity between his Nobel-Prize-winning work and his highly influential later work on Neural Darwinism.

Contents

Background

Trivia

References

See also

Bibliography

External link

Background

Edelman is noted for his theory of mind, published in a trilogy of technical books, and in briefer form for a more general audience in ''Bright Air, Brilliant Fire'' and more recently in ''Wider than the Sky''. ''Topobiology'' contains a theory of how the original neuronal network of a newborn's brain is established during development of the embryo. ''Neural Darwinism'' contains a theory of memory that is built around the idea of plasticity in the neural network in response to the environment. ''The Remembered Present'' contains a theory of consciousness.
Edelman has asked whether we should attempt to construct models of functioning minds or models of brains which, through interactions with their surroundings, can develop minds. Edelman's answer is that we should make model brains and pay attention to how they interact with their environment. Edelman accepts the existence of qualia and incorporates them into his brain-based theory of mind. His concept of qualia attempts to avoid the pitfalls of the idea of special qualia with non-functional properties, which was criticized by Daniel Dennett.
Edelman expounds a biological theory of consciousness, based on his studies of the immune system, which he explicitly locates within Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection and Darwinian theories of population dynamics. He rejects dualism and also dismisses newer hypotheses such as the so-called 'computational' model of consciousness, which liken the brain's functions to the operations of a computer.
Edelman argues that the mind and consciousness are wholly material and purely biological phenomena, occurring as highly complex cellular processes within the brain, and that the development of consciousness and intelligence can be satisfactorily explained by Darwinian theory.
Gerald Edelman is the founder and director of The Neurosciences Institute, a nonprofit research centre in San Diego that studies the biological basis of higher brain function in humans, and is a professor of neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute.

Trivia

★ His son, Eric Edelman, is an accomplished visual artist in New York City.

★ His daughter, Judith Edelman, is a bluegrass musician.

References

1. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1972
2. Structural differences among antibodies of different specificities by G. M. Edelman, B. Benaceraf, Z. Ovary and M. D. Poulik in ''Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A'' (1961) volume 47, pages 1751-1758.

See also

★ The Enigma of Qualia at Wikibooks.

★ Biologically-inspired computing

★ Embodied philosophy

★ Embodiment

Bibliography

★ ''Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection'' (Basic Books, New York 1987). ISBN 0-19-286089-5

★ ''Topobiology: An Introduction to Molecular Embryology'' (Basic Books, 1988, Reissue edition 1993) ISBN 0-465-08653-5

★ ''The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness'' (Basic Books, New York 1990). ISBN 0-465-06910-X

★ ''Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind'' (Basic Books, 1992, Reprint edition 1993). ISBN 0-465-00764-3

★ ''The Brain'', Edelman and Jean-Pierre Changeux, editors, (Transaction Publishers, 2000). ISBN 0-7658-0717-3

★ ''A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination'', Edelman and Giulio Tononi, coauthors, (Basic Books, 2000, Reprint edition 2001). ISBN 0-465-01377-5

★ ''Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness'' (Yale Univ. Press 2004) ISBN 0-300-10229-1

★ ''Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge'' (Yale University Press 2006) ISBN 0-300-12039-7

External link

★

★ Edelman's page on ''Il Diogene'' (it.)