PRESTOPUNDIT

The ever wonderful Oliver Sacks on Edelman, Hebb, James, Crick and the mystery of visual consciousness. I said wonderful, right?

Gerald Edelman's Wider than the Sky is due out in March. "In this direct and non-technical discussion of consciousness, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman draws on a lifetime of scientific inquiry into the workings of the brain to formulate answers to the mind-body questions that intrigue every thinking person. Concise and understandable, the book explains pertinent findings of modern neuroscience and describes how consciousness arises in complex brains."

In my view Edelman is the greatest mind scientist of our time, perhaps of all time. Truly and justly the Darwin of modern brain science. Of course, I'd also recommend the work of Pinker, Hayek and Wittgenstein to all of those interested in some of the larger issues involved in the whole problem of understanding the mind/brain of man and its place in the social world of language, the natural world of everyday experience, and the theoretical world of science. On a related note William Calvin's A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond is also due in March.