Edelman’s Errors

Abstract

Before we concern ourselves with further questions about the problems of real cognitive progress, it is necessary to discuss a thinkable alternative to the evolutionary interpretation of learning presented here. This alternative states, at the level of the neurons, a continuation of the neo-Darwinian theory in relation to the explanation of the human intellect. The new theory has been named neuronal Darwinism by its founder Gerald Edelman a former immunologist. The idea concealed behind this catchphrase is as simple as it is attractive. Edelman claims nothing more than it is legitimate to compare the fate of single neurons within complicated neural networks with that of single individuals in the Darwinian struggle for survival and this not just formally but to consider them being identical (Edelman 1989).

The intellect is the greatest unknown in his head,... If the idea, to get some idea, was a good idea, I now have absolutely no idea of an idea.

Johann Nestroy

The true problem concerns the origin of new cognitive structures.

Jean Piaget