6 Quotes & Sayings By Gerald Edelman

Gerald Edelman is the director of the Neurosciences Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is also the founding president of the James B. Duke Professor, Chair, and Chief Scientific Officer of the Institute for Information Research at Duke University. He received his PhD in 1975 from Harvard Medical School, where he studied immunology Read more

His research on neural mechanisms underlying intercellular communication led to his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988. His other major contributions include elucidating thiamine-responsive synapses in vertebrate central neurons, identifying the role of glial cell-derived neurotrophic factors for neuronal survival, and discovering that Alzheimer's disease is caused by brain lesions that trigger an abnormal response to amyloid plaques. He has authored over 1,000 peer-reviewed articles and four books.

1
Memory results from a process of continual re-categorization which, by its nature, must be procedural and involve continual motor activity and repeated rehearsal. Gerald Edelman
2
Consciousness may be seen as the haughty and restless second cousin of morphology. Memory is its mistress, perception its somewhat abused wife, logic its housekeeper, and language its poorly paid secretary Gerald Edelman
3
When finally substantiated by scientific means, such a view will allow an individual to see his place in the world with greater clarity-- how he came from the world and how he may contribute to his fellows while he enjoys for a brief time the privilege of consciousness and communication. Gerald Edelman
4
The computer is not, in our opinion, a good model of the mind, but it is as the trumpet is to the orchestra - you really need it. And so, we have very massive simulations in computers because the problem is, of course, very complex. Gerald Edelman
5
Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth, and that service is indeed communal. It cannot be rigidly planned. Rather, it requires freedom and courage and the plural contributions of many different kinds of people who must maintain their individuality while giving to the group. Gerald Edelman