Talk:Neural Darwinism
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[edit] Virtually
Virtually all biologists support Neutar Darwinism, so what's the point in listing two names ? --Taw
They are 'leading proponents'. I incline towards the Neural Darwinist theory (or at least my currently dominant neural subsystem does), but I am not a 'leading proponent' of the theory. These guys have written books advocating the theory. -- The Anome
Why no discussion of the criticisms of Neural Darwinism? They do exist, and they're not all Creationists. - Discolando 10:26, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This theory could be a part of general theory of the Consciousness, which has to include it as a biological explanation of formation of "the cultural emotions" in the human consciousness. This understanding could be a one of "fundamental stone" in understanding of whole structure of the human Consciousness.--Eugene Gaufman 07:49, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Neural Darwinism refers to Edelman's theory, because as Taw says, virtually all scientists would support the proposal that the brain is a product of evolution (natural selection). And in fact, not to support that claim is probably to deny evolutionary theory. When scientists talk of "neural darwinism" they mean Edelman's theory. And that theory says something quite different than that the brain evolved. The theory is that a homologue of natural selection occurs amongst groups of neurons during the lifetime of an animal to effect neural development. the environment and animal's reward ("pleasure", "reinforcement") systems play the role of selector.
So, this article needs changing, preferably by someone who has read Edelman's book, and is familiar with what is going on! Perhaps I'll do it if I get some time.
I'm almost done with it so maybe I'll attempt it as well. --1000Faces 04:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Capitalization
If the article title is meant to name the theory it should not be capitalized (see MOS:CAPS), but if it is applied to the book, of course it should be capitalized. What do you think? --Blainster 11:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Uses in technology
I'm not an expert on Neural Darwinism, so I'll make this comment and let other editors can consider it. Background to comment from material on genetic programming with Wikipedia links added by me: "William James, the father of American psychology, argued in 1874, just 15 years after Darwin published The Origin of Species that mental processes could operate in a Darwinian manner. Evidence in cognitive research shows such competing patterns of thought and consciousness, where we consciously perceive only the tip of the iceberg. A very good overview of these thoughts is provided by Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman in his seminal book Neural Darwinism from 1987." It seems the most compelling, simple explanation, is that evolution of thoughts is fundamental to our adaptive nature and is an advanced survival mechanism: allowing destructive thoughts to die instead of the species. Application in technology: I've recently listened to the Singularity Summits (online) in which the transition to smarter than human technology was discussed (and have also been reading, etc.). There is a concensus among AI scientists that most advanced and promising area of evolutionary algorithm (inspired by natural evolution, this area of technology evolves software) is genetic programming (using mechanisms cross-over and mutation). A great first source in this area is "Genetic Programming, An Introduction," by Banzhaf, Nordin, Keller, and Franconé. But there is also already an entry on genetic programming in Wikipedia. GP was started by John Koza, who also has a Wikipedia entry. Development of "a complete cognitive system for robotics" based on GP and the work of Peter Nordin has been announced by irobis [1]. Rogerfgay 09:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
