In the selectionist model of biological evolution proposed by Darwin and Wallace, Nature selects some variants (potentials) at the expense of others, depending on how well each functions in the contexts in which they have to function. These variants are the ones most likely to "happen again" in the next generation. In the selectionist model of brain function proposed by Edelman, the TNGS, in perceptual categorisation, the perceivable selects some variant neural events (potentials) at the expense of others. Selection involves the strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons in groups in maps, thereby increasing the probability that such configurations will fire again. These neural variants are the ones most likely to "happen again" in the next generation of neural firing in response to specific sensory detections of difference.
This model can be understood in terms of the grammatical concept of ergativity: each perceptual categorising
process is actualised through a
medium, a brain as neurological recognition system, and caused by an external
agent, a domain that can be detected and categorised.
[1]
Note, by the way, that this is in stark contrast to an understanding based on the grammatical concept of transitivity. On such a model, a categorising process carries through from an
actor, an external domain, to a
goal, a brain as neurological recognition system. That is to say, categories flow into brains from the outside. Edelman (1992) labels this position
instructionism since it involves seeing categorisation as a process whereby the outside instructs the brain, and he opposes it to selectionism, pointing out that instructionism is Lamarckism applied to the brain.
[2] In the Lamarckian model of biological evolution, properties flow from the world into genomes, such that acquired characteristics can be inherited by offspring. That is, a coded world acts directly on a specific genome and changes it.
There are probably many reasons why the instructionist/transitive model should have been previously favoured in modelling the brain. For example, it is more obviously recognisable from visual experience: we see that things move from one location to another.
[3] Selectionism is more subtle, since it requires a generational timescale to observe the effects of selection in a visible domain. The view of human-as-agent may also have made the acceptance of the phenomenon-as-agent model less probable.
Footnotes:
[1] Phenomena make us sense: see, hear, smell, taste, feel (perception); phenomena make us feel (affect); phenomena make us think (cognition); phenomena make us want (desideration).
[2] Instructionism fails to explain, for example, why a patient of (Oliver) Sacks, ‘Virgil’, who receives sight for the first time at age 50 cannot make sense of what he sees.
[3] Cf Lakoff’s (1987) source-path-goal schema.
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Selectionism, Categorisation, and the Grammar of Causation
In Darwin and Wallace’s selectionist model of evolution, Nature selects among variant potentials depending on how effectively they function in the contexts in which they must operate. Those variants that function better are more likely to “happen again” in subsequent generations. Edelman’s Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) applies this logic to brain function: in perceptual categorisation, it is the perceivable that selects among variant neural events. Neural variants are actualised through the strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons in neural maps, thereby increasing the probability that similar configurations will fire again in response to comparable sensory inputs. These variants, like biological ones, are those most likely to “happen again” — not in reproductive generations, but in the next generation of neural firings.
This selectionist model can be usefully understood in terms of the grammatical concept of ergativity: the categorising process is actualised through a medium — the brain, as neurological recognition system — but caused by an external agent — the domain to be categorised.[1] The perceivable acts upon the brain by selecting which of its potentials are reinforced.
This stands in stark contrast to a transitive grammatical model of causation, where the process carries through from an Actor (external domain) to a Goal (the brain), as if categories are transmitted into the brain from the outside. This is the model Edelman (1992) calls instructionism, in which the external world is presumed to instruct the brain. Instructionism is effectively Lamarckism for the brain: it treats the world as already coded and the brain as its passive receiver. Just as Lamarck’s evolutionary theory imagined acquired traits being inscribed onto the genome, instructionism imagines that the categorised world imprints itself directly onto the neural substrate.
The prevalence of this model likely stems from intuitive biases. For one, it aligns with the visual metaphysics of movement: we can see things move from one place to another, so we project a similar structure onto causation in perception.[3] Selectionism, by contrast, is less intuitively accessible. It requires an understanding of cumulative effects across generational cycles of neural activation — a process we do not directly perceive. The longstanding image of the human as the locus of agency may also have made it harder to accept a model in which phenomena themselves act: where external difference is the initiating force and the brain the responsive medium.[2]