GERALD M. EDELMAN

We are on the verge of a revolution in neuroscience as significant as the Galilean revolution in physics or the Darwinian revolution in biology. Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman takes issue with the many current cognitive and behavioral approaches to the brain that leave biology out of the picture, and argues that the workings of the brain more closely resemble the living ecology of a jungle than they do the activities of a computer. Some startling conclusions emerge from these ideas: individuality is necessarily at the very center of what it means to have a mind, no creature is born value-free, and no physical theory of the universe can claim to be a theory of everything without including an account of how the brain gives rise to the mind. There is no greater scientific challenge than understanding the brain. Bright Air, Brilliant Fire is a book that provides a window on that understanding.

What goes on in our head when we have a thought? Why do the physical events that occur inside a fistful of gelatinous tissue give rise to the world of conscious experience? In The Universe of Consciousness , Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi present for the first time a full-scale theory of consciousness based on direct observation of the human brain in action. Their pioneering work, presented here in an elegant style, challenges much of the conventional wisdom about consciousness. The Universe of Consciousness has enormous implications for our understanding of language, thought, emotion, and mental illness.

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. Edelmans 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.

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

¿Que pasa en nuestras cabezas cuando pensamos? ¿Cómo es que los fenómenos físicos que se producen en el interior de un tejido gelatinoso dan lugar al fantasmagórico mundo de las experiencias conscientes, un mundo que contiene todo lo que sentimos y conocemos, todo, en definitiva, lo que somos? Cientificos y filosofos se han enfrentado a preguntas como estas a lo largo de siglos y siglos, ofreciendo respuestas con nula o escasa base experimental. Solo recientemente el tan oscuro como fascinante universo de la consciencia y el pensamiento humano esta comenzando a convertirse en una autentica ciencia, aunque en ningun caso lo ha hecho de una forma tan evidente y atrevida como mediante las ideas propuestas por el premio Nobel de Medicina de 1972, Gerald M. Edelman, ideas que el mismo presenta y desarrolla en este libro, escrito en colaboracion con otro distinguido neurobiologo, Giulio Tononi. Al igual que Galileo revoluciono nuestra comprension del cosmos explotando las posibilidades de un entonces nuevo instrumento, el telescopio, Edelman se esta enfrentando a ese "Santo Grial" de las neurociencias que es explicar que es la consciencia, beneficiandose de las posibilidades que abre una ingeniosa tecnologia que permite detectar minusculas corrientes y ondas cerebrales asociadas a