---
abstract: 'Two books published within months of each other, each critical of the reigning family of working assumptions known as cognitive science, each calling for a more biological vision of the mind and even sharing a slogan: we must see the mind as "embodied". Is this merely a striking coincidence or perhaps a case of convergent evolution of scientific ideas? There are further striking similarities. Francisco Varela, the principle author of The Embodied Mind, is an immunologist-turned-neuroscientist, and so is Gerald Edelman, author of Bright Air, Brilliant Fire. Both books call for a biological counter-revolution to succeed the cognitive revolution, but neither are attracted to the even more radically revolutionary "quantum gravity" speculations of Roger Penrose.'
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commref: 'Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1991) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, MIT Press and Gerald M. Edelman (1992) Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of Mind. Basic Books.'
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  - family: Dennett
    given: Daniel C
    honourific: ''
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date: 1992-06
date_type: published
datestamp: 1998-04-14
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dir: disk0/00/00/02/68
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eprintid: 268
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lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:47
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metadata_visibility: show
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pagerange: 48-49
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publication: New Scientist
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rev_number: 8
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status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:26:13
subjects:
  - phil-mind
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
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thesistype: ~
title: Review of Varela et al. & Edelman
type: newsarticle
userid: 38
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