Customer Reviews

The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness

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Edelman, in the third of three books which discusses the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, grapples with the fundamental neuronal architecture which comprises consciousness.This work is excellent, although the text becomes disappointingly vague about half-way through; intriguing theories are presented, but not supported, with the rigor pursued by Edelman in his earlier volume "Neuronal Darwinism."

Having recently read several books by Gerald Edelman, including "Neural Darwinism" and "Topobiology", the predecessors to "The Remembered Present", I want to note that Edelman carefully and repeatedly states what is speculative about his Theory of Neuronal Group Selection and its role in the emergence of consciousness. Unlike the prior reviewer, I found nothing "vague" in Edelman's text, nor do I believe it lacks the "rigor" of its predecessors. "The Remembered Present" clearly references the more complete (rigorous, if you will) analyses in Edelman's prior books. His stated intent here is to extend and apply those analyses to more speculative terrain. In my judgment, he does so judiciously and effectively. Edelman's key hypotheses have weathered surprisingly well. Several books on the brain published by reputable neuroscientists during the last few years come to essentially the same conclusions as Edelman . . . a generation later. Some (e.g., Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux) cite Edelman's earlier work; others ignore it, conspicuously so when they confirm with their own experimental evidence and published conclusions what he hypothesized more comprehensively years ago.

I will not even attempt to do justice to the breadth or detail of Edelman's analysis, but if you are curious about the nature of reality as we perceive it, as well as human consciousness and how it has evolved, Edelman is an essential source. Please note, however, that Edelman falls outside the the mainstream of cognitive neuroscience, something you might already have inferred from the last sentence of my preceding paragraph. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in immunology and his view of neuroscience is explicitly influenced by his knowledge of that field. He crashed the neuroscience party with expertise in the biology of the entire body. Personally, I find a view of the brain and consciousness rooted in immunology and nearly four billion years of evolution much more compelling than what I have seen in hypotheses derived from information processing, quantum physics or philosophical speculation.