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Gerald M. Edelman
Wider than the Sky
The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease and you beside, wrote the American poet Emily Dickinson in the mid-nineteenth century. The fundamental mechanisms governing mental life are now the subject of scientific study. In this book, Gerald Edelman examines a major aspect of the mind - consciousness. How can the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? A scientific explanation of consciousness must take into account the causal connections between these two domains. Such a theory must show how the neural bases of consciousness appeared during the evolutionary process and how certain animals developed consciousness. These are some of the key issues that Gerald Edelman examines here. He shows that consciousness cannot be located in a specific area of the brain, because it is a process linked to how the brain functions as a whole, to its wealth of connections and to its great complexity. The brain, he argues, is not a kind of computer. Edelman is regarded as one of the greatest theoreticians of the brain, and his notion of consciousness dominates all discussions on the subject among the international scientific community. This book offers the most accessible version of his theories that is available today. The winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Medicine, Gerald Edelman heads the Institute for Neurosciences, in La Jolla, California.
Didier Pleux
Handbook of Education for Modern Parents
Parents often feel overwhelmed by their children's omnipotence. It is easy enough to say that parents must recover their authority and lay down rules, but what are the practical ways of going about this in everyday life?
Ilya Prigogine
The End of Certainties
As we come to the end of the century, the question of the future of science is often posed. I believe we are just at the beginning of a new endeavour. We are witnessing the development of a science which is no longer limited to simplified, idealised situations, but makes us face the complexity of the real world. This new science will allow human creativity to be experienced as the unique expression of a fundamental trait common to all aspects of nature. Ive tried to present this conceptual transformation, which implies the beginning of a new chapter in the fruitful relations between physics and mathematics, in a manner that will be comprehensible and accessible to all readers interested in the evolution of our ideas of nature. We are but at the threshold of a new chapter in the history of our dialogue with nature, writes Ilya Prigogine. Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, teaches at the Free University of Brussels and at the University of Texas, in Austin.
Thierry Najman
Places of Asylum Should We Open Psychiatric Wards?
Locking up psychiatric patients is shameful and ineffective
Jean-Paul Binet
The Surgical Procedure
One of the great names in cardiovascular surgery, Jean-Paul Binet, wished to embrace his discipline it its generality (working with hands) but also in showing its prodigious diversity, progress and transformations. The reader is invited to follow him, and in so doing to surpass the mixed sentiments of fascination and horror that are often inspired by this branch of medicine. Jean-Paul Binet is a member of the Medical and Surgical Academies, and a correspondent for the Academie des Sciences. He practices at the Marie-Lannelongue Surgical Center.