Volume 35, Number 1 · February 4, 1988
Hunting the Homunculus
By J.Z. Young
Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection
by Gerald M. Edelman
Basic Books, 371 pp., $29.95
In the endless search for self-knowledge through the centuries a central question has been how we come to have any knowledge at all. Common sense has no doubts: as John Locke put it 'perception is the first step towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it.' But if this is so where does the news come from, and how and where is it received? Does it arrive in ready-made packets at some place in the brain where it is collected by a central agent, the mind, soul, or some hidden homunculus? Worse still, what is it that perception receives? Where do the facts come from? Are they all out there in the form of objects and events in a real world?
Review, 3601 words
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