Second Nature Brain Science and Human Knowledge

by Gerald M. Edelman

Burgeoning advancements in brain science are opening up new perspectives on how we acquire knowledge Indeed it is now possible to explore consciousnessthe very center of human concernby 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

Genres: Science, Neuroscience, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Brain, Health

Library Binding

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Gerald Maurice Edelman (born July 1, 1929) is an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter 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. There is a continuity in this way between his work on the immune system, for which he won the Nobel Prize, and his later work in neuroscience and in philosophy of mind.

Reviews

[Sina Homayooni · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got bored!

This book may (if ever) impress only those who have chosen to read this book as their first try to know about Consciousness.

While Edelman's idea of Neural Darwinism is interesting, he could summarize all he had to say in 20 pages (tops). Instead, he keeps on writing a philosophical essay on how dualism and traditional epistemology are inferior to brain-based science and makes sure to repeat his own very sentences at least three times throughout the book. I think, regarding the title, a person who chooses to read it, given Edelman's fame in science, would expect to read something more detailed in the science front!

Also, I couldn't help but notice that Edelman has had a conservative approach when it came to AI. It's like he was afraid of the idea that human brain could ever be simulated. When he briefly pointed to the matter of Free Will, he escaped the subject. This along with his other exclamations about uniqueness of human brain and impossibility of recreating anything similar to it, doesn't really help you to say he has been an open-minded scientist!

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A charming, deeply lucid overview of the cutting edge of neuroscience today. Edelman writes with gem-like clarity and grace, inspiring me to go out and read all of his books (even the more heavy-science ones). Edleman's thinking also has some interesting parallels to classical Buddhist philosophy about perception and consciousness. Highly, highly recommended.

[Corey Butler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this with the hopes that it would be something like fellow Nobel laureate, Eric Kandell's excellent book, In Search of Memory. It's not. Of course it's much shorter, being more of a philosophical essay than a treatise on brain research. That's not the problem though. The problem is that Edelman's argument itself simply isn't very compelling. I'm not convinced that consciousness can be localized so easily among the axons of the thalamocortical system. And more importantly, even if it can localized in this way, the unification of science and the humanities certainly doesn't follow from this premise! I like the Neural Darwinism approach, but I think Dr. Edelman has gone a bit past his data here.

[Ouroboros · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.consciousentities.com/edel...

brain-based epistemology {=thought & knowledge}

brain : consciousness : [naturalized:] epistemology

brain : body : environment

Neural Darwinism:
variation introduced thru developmental | experiential selection

intentionality - conscious states are oft about things or events

The combination of value system activity, along w/ the selectional synaptic changes in specific networs of neuronal groups, governs behavior

rationalist -- innate mental operations
empiricists -- knowledge achieved thru sense data upon interaction w/ the world
Kantian -- a priori <-> a posteriori

Quine - naturalized epistemology
Piaget - psychologize epistemology

mistaken notion: ontogeny {becoming of individual} recapitulates phylogeny {evolutionary history/progression of species}

psychologically based / empirically based & naturalized epistemology

epistemology should be based on scientifically certifiable outcome, simultaneously assess relevance/irrelevance of neural underpinnings of said outcomes

Donald Campbell - evolutionary epistemology

epistemology - nature, scope, & origin of knowledge; theory/acquisition of knowledge

epigenetic - neurons that fire together wire together

perceptual categories - sensory & motor I/O

reentry: interaction of brain areas

thought precedes language
but once language sets in, explosion of possible thoughts occurs

hermeneutics - study of interpretation & its conditions by insiders w/in a historical culture

consilience - from Whewell "the Philosophy of Inductive Sciences"

"jumping together" of facts & theory across disciplines to create a common ground of explanation

naturalistic fallacy: "ought" does not come from "is"
refutation of E. O. Wilson's proposal:
normative systems (ethics / aesthetics) can be reduced / explained by epigenetic rules of the brain

reductionism: reduction of certain physical & chemical events to general laws

*given the selectionistic properties of the human brain, no adequate reduction of human sciences to brain's epigenetic rules is realizable.

epiphenomenalism - consciousness does nothing

if Neural Darwinism is correct, then even in normal states, every perception is to some degree an act of creation, & every memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

reentry solves the binding problem:

how diff brain areas can synchrnize and integrate their segragated fns in the absence of an executive area

biological chauvinism: artifact must be made of biochem components.
extreme liberalism: the brain may run purely as software on a virtual machine.

higher-order consciousness enabled by evolution of linguistics

blurring together of psychology & epistemology allows for:
origin of logic in language
contribution of imaginative pattern recognition to mathematics
historical & ideational origins of scientific empiricism
artistic & normative issues

brain-based epistemology:
scientific grounds for pluralistic view of truth

although we must recognize that evolution, neuronal group selection provide the bases & constraints for the acquistion of knowledge, historical, sociocultural, & linguistic factors set up normative criteria for truth.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

There has been an incredible advancement in the clarity of our understanding of the brain this decade. It seems that the mountains of data that have been gathered over the last 40 years or so are finally painting the picture of the remarkable functions of our brain as neuroscientists and psychologists put together the pieces into plausible theories. Second Nature is one of those attempts to put these pieces together along with the author's brilliant insights.

I felt like the author's concept of Neural Darwinism should have been expanded on much more as it seems to be the focus of his contribution to brain theory. The debate of types of epistemology and how all that history relates to the current fields of study was not what I was interested in, but maybe others would be. While I found the general way the book was written to be elegant and articulate, it may have been too much so, and I felt a slightly more plain spoken style would have been more effective for spreading his ideas.

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, stirring book. Contains excellent summaries of basic brain functions as well as sweeping insights about the nature of epistemology and the possibility of building a conscious machine. Also claims that ultimately, the distinction between the sciences and the humanities is illusory and unnecessary.

Edelman is critical of certain other disciplines, especially evolutionary psychology. He claims there is no inherited language of thought, no brain-based language acquisition device. Instead he argues that language development is epigenetic, arising from brains interacting with environments (thought, therefore, can occur without language). Higher-order consciousness, or thought about thought, does appear to require language. Leaves me wondering what Pinker would say. Must read "The Stuff of Thought" soon.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The progress of brain science is examined within the fabric of Ancients and Moderns struggling with 'how we know what we know'. Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist, Edelman writes with a poetic clarity and respect as he follows the long history of the development of human knowledge as well as the shorter history of the individual's personal developing self. He calls it Neuro Darwinism - but don't think politics here - think of this as the long documented hunger to join Science and the Humanities. Quotations from the masters are reason enough to read this lovely work.

[NiezyBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the concepts were hard to grasp, it may be worth a second read for a person who has a non-medical background.

[Emmanouil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πληθωρικό, ενδιαφέρον, αντικειμενικό και απολαυστικό.

[Carter Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge by Gerald M. Edelman is a nonfiction book that tells you all about different kinds of science related topics. It goes through all sorts of things like explaining scientific understandings, brain functions, consciousness, and evolution. The main topics, like in the title of the book, are about the brain and human knowledge. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in learning about the brain and how it works and other scientific topics such as consciousness and how our brain works with it. Anyone currently in biology would be better suited for this book because there was a lot of big words and parts of it were hard to understand. I didn’t not like anything about this book specifically because overall it was a good book, the topic just didn’t interest me. But totally a great book for anyone interested in the topic!

[Enya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give this a bad rating not because the book was utterly terrible but because it does not need to exist. Nothing is argued in this book that hasn't been argued better elsewhere. It doesn't contribute anything: it doesn't work as a scientific text because it doesn't put forth any evidence (signposting to other books for evidence instead), and it doesn't work as a popular science introductory read because it does a poor job at explaining each and every idea that is presented. I don't know who this was written for, quite frankly.

[Wendell Richmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was meant as an explanatory essay of the author’s theory of “Neural Darwinism.” The theory of Neural Darwinism has three main pillars: developmental insulation of neurological pathways, insulation of neurological pathways through experience and repetition, and the execution of thought processes and awareness through reentry (the communication of the brain to itself). These thoughts are introduced early in the book, and later in the book the author goes into detail about how these thoughts can be applied, and represented in human behavior. The latter half of the book consists of detailed elaboration on the author’s theories, including its representation in epistemology and the development of knowledge. A large portion of this book includes references to neuroscience and previous theories developed by earlier scientists. It is much harder to comprehend this book without a prior foundation in neuroscience. I had to work much harder than the average neurosurgeon in order to extract useful bits of information. Although the book was a bit hard to comprehend, the book was an informative read, and gives me a new perspective to think about consciousness and the human psyche.

This book is appealing to the more philosophical and academically centered people. The book is a collection of thoughts on thoughts, which are attempted to be proven through scientific theory and data. Unfortunately, the book used a plethora of, not entirely necessary, analogies, references, and summaries of past knowledge that makes the reader (especially a reader less experienced with neuroscience) lose track of the true intention of the author. Personally, I found that the book contained compelling theories, and, although there was a lot of extra explanations, I also found those entertaining. I would only suggest this book to an inquisitive academic.

Overall, I was satisfied with this read. I cannot discredit an author for including extra information, however, the redundancy does deteriorate the experience of reading the book. Reading about the underlying causations of human consciousness is interesting, but I found it difficult to discern everything the author intending through the references he made. This was of no fault to the author, merely my own for being undereducated in the subject of neuroscience. I did find that the basic principles of the theory of Neural Darwinism were easy enough to grasp, and even without an elaborate foundation of knowledge in neuroscience, I was able to learn enough to make it a worth-while read.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging but worthwhile foray into the nature of human consciousness through the lens of Edelman's theories. Edelman intelligently integrates philosophy and physiology to make a case for his "Neural Darwinism" and the need for brain based epistemology. I came to Edelman from Dr. Sacks' glowing praise in his "On the Move", and was not disappointed. His writing can be dense, but this book does an excellent job of laying out an overview early and then building slowly, chapter by chapter. If you're looking to get an overview of Edelman's theories or see the fruits of diverse fields coming together I would strongly recommend this book. I left it at 4/5 due to it's lack of clarity in parts.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edelman, che senza il suo fido Tononi perde nella scorrevolezza e nella chiarezza dell'esposizione, ma per chi ama i suoi argomenti rispetto alla localizzazione della coscienza tra i neuroni rimane in assoluto un punto fermo insindacabile. Preferisco ancora "Un universo di coscienza", ma anche questo non è stato male, servirebbe qualche nuovo passo avanti comunque, è un po' di tempo che si parlano addosso sempre delle stesse cose...

[Dana Ream · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find the basic premise of Neural Darwinism intriguing, and I wish he would go into more detail about it. But this book seems to be primarily about how the author believes his theory can reconcile a rift between the sciences and humanities.

[samm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edelman builds upon his previous two books and talks about ANN (Artificial Neural Networks). It can be dense but it is uber intriguing.