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Learning and Selection in the Nervous System

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Abstract

The need to strengthen the links between the neurosciences and the humanities, and sometimes even to create these links in the context of “neuro-cultural research” (de Kerckhove, 1984), would not have to be emphasized if these disciplines had not traditionally evolved in an independent and even divergent fashion. Spinoza’s aphorism — “men judge according to the dispositions of their brains” — has too long been neglected by researchers in both areas, who are mainly concerned with analyses within the contexts of their own disciplines. In the field of neurolinguistics, for example, there is a wide gap separating the genetic code and language, and to span it presents a number of risks. It is a fact that some attempts at applying biological models to the humanities have ended in spectacular failure.

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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Changeux, JP. (1988). Learning and Selection in the Nervous System. In: de Kerckhove, D., Lumsden, C.J. (eds) The Alphabet and the Brain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-01095-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-01093-8

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