The cerebral code : thinking a thought in the mosaics of the mind /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Calvin, William H., 1939-
Imprint:	Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1996. ©1996
Description:	1 online resource (256 pages) : illustrations
Language:	English
Subject:	Cognitive neuroscience. Thought and thinking. Cerebral cortex. Natural selection. Human information processing. Central nervous system. Cognition. Psychophysiology. Life sciences. Learning. Nervous system. Physical sciences. Anatomy. Memory. Physiology. Consciousness. Brain. Mental Processes Central Nervous System Cognition Psychophysiology Biological Science Disciplines Learning Psychological Phenomena and Processes Nervous System Natural Science Disciplines Anatomy Disciplines and Occupations Psychiatry and Psychology Memory Thinking Physiology Consciousness Brain Cerebral Cortex Selection, Genetic Animal Structures Psychophysiology. Physiology. Physical sciences. Nervous system. Memory. Life sciences. Learning. Human information processing. Consciousness. Cognition. Central nervous system. Brain. Anatomy. Cerebral cortex. Cognitive neuroscience. Natural selection. Thought and thinking.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11100571

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	0585099146 9780585099149 9780262269711 0262269716 9780262531542 0262531542 9780262032414 0262032414 0262032414
Digital file characteristics:	text file PDF
Notes:	"A Bradford book." Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-238) and index. English. Print version record.
Summary:	The Cerebral Code proposes a bold new theory for how Darwin's evolutionary processes could operate in the brain, improving ideas on the time scale of thought and action. Jung said that dreaming goes on continuously but you can't see it when you're awake, just as you can't see the stars in the daylight because it is too bright. Calvin's is a theory for what goes on, hidden from view by the glare of waking mental operations, that produces our peculiarly human consciousness and versatile intelligence. Shuffled memories, no better than the jumble of our nighttime dreams, can evolve subconsciously into something of quality, such as a sentence to speak aloud. The "interoffice mail" circuits of the cerebral cortex are nicely suited for this job because they're good copying machines, able to clone the firing pattern within a hundred-element hexagonal column. That pattern, Calvin says, is the "cerebral code" representing an object or idea, the cortical-level equivalent of a gene or meme. Transposed to a hundred-key piano, this pattern would be a melody - a characteristic tune for each word of your vocabulary and each face you remember. Newly cloned patterns are tacked onto a temporary mosaic, much like a choir recruiting additional singers during the "Hallelujah Chorus." But cloning may "blunder slightly" or overlap several patterns - and that variation makes us creative. Like dueling choirs, variant hexagonal mosaics compete with one another for territory in the association cortex, their successes biased by memorized environments and sensory inputs. Unlike selectionist theories of mind, Calvin's mosaics can fully implement all six essential ingredients of Darwin's evolutionary algorithm, repeatedly turning the quality crank as we figure out what to say next. Even the optional ingredients known to speed up evolution (sex, island settings, climate change) have cortical equivalents that help us think up a quick comeback during conversation. Mosaics also supply "audit trail" structures needed for universal grammar, helping you understand nested phrases such as "I think I saw him leave to go home." And, as a chapter title proclaims, mosaics are a "A Machine for Metaphor." Even analogies can compete to generate a stratum of concepts, that are inexpressible except by roundabout, inadequate means - as when we know things of which we cannot speak
Other form:	Print version: Calvin, William H., 1939- Cerebral code. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1996 0262032414
Standard no.:	9780585099149

Review by Choice Review

After authoring eight books about the brain and behavior aimed at a general audience, Calvin has written this one for the sophisticated researcher and theorist. He proposes that the brain acts principally through a system of columnar triangles and hexagons which recruit or "clone" the activation patterns of nearby neurons to entrain or resonate into a larger pattern. He develops this model from a strong background in physiology and a thorough understanding of Darwinism. By his own admission, this is a difficult book of limited interest. This model may some day lead to our best understanding of the mechanisms of the brain. But in its present state, it is not adequately developed or tested so as to be of interest to the non-neuroscientist. Both book and theoretical model will be useful only to the experimenter who can test its propositions or to the theorist who can hope to expand upon or criticize its propositions. Recommended only for advanced neuroscience graduate students and faculty. R. A. Drake Western State College of Colorado

Review by Choice Review

The cerebral code : thinking a thought in the mosaics of the mind /

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