This is a book which readers of bionet.neuroscience might find of=20
interest. For more information, please see:
<http://weber.u.washington.edu/~wcalvin/>
<http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/mitp/recent-books/cog/calch.html>
The Cerebral Code
Thinking a Thought in the Mosaics of the Mind
William H. Calvin
The Cerebral Code is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes=20
could operate in the brain to shape mental images in only seconds,=20
starting with shuffled memories no better than the jumble of our=20
nighttime dreams, but evolving into something of quality, such as a=20
sentence to speak aloud. Jung said that dreaming goes on continuously=20
but you can't see it when you are awake, just as you can't see the=20
stars in the daylight because it is too bright. Calvin's is a theory=20
for what goes on, hidden from view by the glare of waking mental=20
operations, that produces our peculiarly human type of consciousness=20
with its versatile intelligence.
As Piaget emphasized in 1929, intelligence is what we use when we=20
don't know what to do, when we have to grope rather than using a=20
standard response. Calvin tackles a mechanism for doing this=20
exploration and improvement offline, as we think before we act or=20
practice the art of good guessing.
Surprisingly, the subtitle's mosaics of the mind is not a literary=20
metaphor. For the first time, it is a description of a mechanism of=20
what appears to be an appropriate level of explanation for many mental=20
phenomena, that of hexagonal mosaics of electrical activity that=20
compete for territory in the association cortex of the brain. This=20
two-dimensional mosaic is predicted to grow and dissolve much as the=20
sugar crystals do in the bottom of a supersaturated glass of iced tea.
A Bradford Book
October 1996
6 x 9 =8B 248 pp.
ISBN 0-262-03241-4=20
$22.50