Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind

In this challenging, exhilarating leap by a disciplined and original mind, Nobel Prize-winner Edelman (medicine, 1972) throws a neurobiological line between two ships--mind and matter--in the stormiest of scientific seas. In his defense of the biological component of mind, Edelman ( The Remembered Pres ent ) disposes of cognitive and behavioral theories of consciousness. To take up the slack, he extends current developments in brain neuroscience well into speculation. He is far too modest in stating that his goal is ``to dispel the notion that the mind can be understood in the absence of biology,'' for the book is a near-kinetic series of critiques and proposals to connect physics and psychology. The ``Harmonies'' section draws on other disciplines--philosophy, linguistics and psychiatry, among others--to entwine these tendrils of thought into a ``unified theory'' of mind. Illustrations not seen by PW . Natural Science Book Club selection. (Apr . )