Quotes on Friedrich Hayek & Neuroscience

Quotes on Friedrich Hayek & Neuroscience

The Hayek/Hebb Synaptic Model

Gerald Edelman* (Neuroscience, Scripps)

"[Hayek] made a quite fruitful suggestion, made contemporaneously by the psychologist Donald Hebb, that whatever kind of encounter the sensory system has with the world, a corresponding event between a particular cell in the brain and some other cell carrying the information from the outside word must result in reinforcement of the connection between those cells. These day, this is known as a Hebbian synapse, but von Hayek quite independently came upon the idea. I think the essence of his analysis still remains with us . . ". (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 25).

"Most theoretical work since the proposals of Hebb (1949) and Hayek (1952) has relied upon particular forms of dependent synaptic rules in which either pre- or postsynaptic change is contingent upon closely occurring events in both neurons taking part in the synapse." (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 181).

"Since [the idea that modification of synaptic function can provide a basis for memory arose shortly after the first anatomical description of the synapse] a number of models (Hebb 1949 . . Hayek 1952 . . Kendel 1981) have been proposed in which various cognitive activities are represented by combinations of the firing patterns of individual neurons." (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 179).

"[Hebb] place the Law of Effect at the synaptic level by proposing a correlation model of synaptic modification similar to that of Hayek (1952). This work was seminal in providing a basis for many subsequent theoretical studies . . " (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 12).

*Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, and Chairman of the Dept. of Neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute.

Joaquin Fuster* (UCLA School of Medicine)

"The main reasons for dwelling .. on Hayek's model is simply that it has certain properties, absent from most others, that conform exceptionally well to recent neurobiological evidence on memory and that make it particularly suited to the current discourse." (Joaquin Fuster, Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p. 89)

"The first proponent of cortical memory networks on a major scale was neither a neuroscientist nor a computer scientist but .. a Viennes economist: Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992). A man of exceptionally broad knowledge and profound insight into the operation of complex systems, Hayek applied such insight with remarkable succes to economics (Nobel Prize, 1974), sociology, political science, jurisprudence, evolutionary theory, psychology, and brain science (Hayek, 1952)." (Joaquin Fuster, Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p. 87)

"It is truly amazing that, with much less neuroscientific knowledge available, Hayke's model comes closer, in some respects, to being neurophysiologically verifiable than those models developed 50 to 60 years after his." (Joaquin Fuster, Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p. 89)

"How is that apparatus formed? Here Hayek invokes a principle very similar to that of Hebb. In essence, it coincides with what we have called Hebb's second principle (sensorisensory association) transposed to the level of cell groups." (Joaquin Fuster, Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p. 88)

"Friedrich Hayek .. seems to have been the first to postulate what is the core of this paper, namely, the idea of memory and perception represented in widely distributed networks of interconnected cortical cells. Subsequently this idea has received theoretical support, however tangential, from the fields of cognitive psychology, connectionism and artificial intelligence. Empirically, it is well supported by the physiological study and neuroimaging of working memory." (Joaquin Fuster, "Network Memory", _Trends in Neuroscience_, 1997. Vol. 20, No. 10. (Oct .): 451-459.)

*Fuster is a leading authority on the prefrontal cortext and the neuronal basis of memory.

Friedrich Hayek's The Sensory Order

Gerald Edelman* (Neurobiology, Scripps)

"I must say that I have been deeply gratified by reading a book [Hayek's The Sensory Order] of which I had not been aware when I wrote my little essay on group selection theory . . I was deeply impressed . . I recommend this book to your [i.e. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences] attention, as an exercise in profound thinking by a man who simply considers knowledge for its own sake. What impressed me most is his understanding that the key to the problem of perception is to comprehend the nature of classification. Taxonomists have struggled with this problem many times, but I think von Hayek considered this problem in a broader sense." (Gerald Edelman, "Through a Computer Darkly: Group Selection and Higher Brain Function", Bulletin -- The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XXXVI, No. 1, Oct. 1982, p. 24)

"My eventual aim [in Neural Darwinism] is to show the bearing of this [structural] diversity [of individual nervous systems] upon the problem of generalization and upon phenomena that point up the difference between the sensory and the physical orders (Hayek 1952)." (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 33).

". . consider the two lines in the Wudt-Hering illusion . . This rather banal exercise serves to demonstrate that there is only a rough correspondence between what has been called the sensory order (Hayek 1952) and the physical order. Furthermore it bears upon point . . that the perceptual world is a world of adaptation rather than a world of complete veridicality." (Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism, 1987, p. 28).

*Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, and Chairman of the Dept. of Neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute.

Joaquin Fuster* (UCLA School of Medicine)

*Fuster is a leading authority on the prefrontal cortext and the neuronal basis of memory.

Edwin Boring* (Psychology, Harvard)

"Half the time I read [Hayek's The Sensory Order] with amazement at the extent of his reading and comprehension . . he is right . . most of the time." (Edwin Boring, "Elementist Going Up", The Scientific Monthly, March, 1953, p. 183)

" . . I feel sure that no one has done this particular kind of job [i.e. a physicalistic system of psychology, mind, and consciousness] nearly so well." (Edwin Boring, "Elementist Going Up", The Scientific Monthly, March, 1953, p. 183)

"I do not for a moment believe it is the last word on this matter [i.e. a physicalistic system of psychology, mind and consciousness], but it is . the best word I have ever heard spoken from this platform." (Edwin Boring, "Elementist Going Up", The Scientific Monthly, March, 1953, p. 183)

*Boring is internationally known for his famous survey of psychology.