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Winner in the category of Medical Science in the 2003 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. In this provocative book, Paul Glimcher argues that economic theory may provide an alternative to the classical Cartesian model of the brain and behavior. Glimcher argues that Cartesian dualism operates from the false premise that the reflex is able to describe behavior in the real world that animals inhabit. A mathematically rich cognitive theory, he claims, could solve the most difficult problems that any environment could present, eliminating the need for dualism by eliminating the need for a reflex theory. Such a mathematically rigorous description of the neural processes that connect sensation and action, he explains, will have its roots in microeconomic theory. Economic theory allows physiologists to define both the optimal course of action that an animal might select and a mathematical route by which that optimal solution can be derived. Glimcher outlines what an economics-based cognitive model might look like and how one would begin to test it empirically. Along the way, he presents a fascinating history of neuroscience. He also discusses related questions about determinism, free will, and the stochastic nature of complex behavior.
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Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain
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Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain The Science of Neuroeconomics
Paul W. Glimcher
A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
( 2003 Paul W. Glimcher All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Sabon on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Glimcher, Paul W. Decisions, uncertainty, and the brain : the science of neuroeconomics / Paul W. Glimcher. p. cm. ‘‘A Bradford book.’’ Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 262 07244 0 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Cognitive neuroscience. 2. Brain Mathematical models. 3. Microeconomics. 4. Reflexes. 5. Dualism. I. Title. QP360.5 .G565 2003 153 dc21 2002026328 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For C.S.S. and D.M. whom I most miss having missed
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Contents
Acknowledgments xiii Further Reading xv Economics xv Behavioral Ecology xv Preface xvii I
Historical Approaches
1
Rene´ Descartes and the Birth of Neuroscience Vaucanson’s Duck 3 Rene´ Descartes
1 3
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Understanding the Ancients The Renaissance 16
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Francis Bacon 19 William Harvey 22
Descartes’s Synthesis 2
27
Inventing the Reflex 33 Enlightenment Views of Determinism in the Physical and Biological World 33 Determinism in Geometrical Mathematics and Geometrical Physics Determinism and Behavior 36 Nondeterministic Behavior 38
33
The Birth of Analytic Mathematics: The End of Geometric World Models 40 Beyond Clockworks: Analytic Models of the Determinate Brain 44 Vaucanson’s Duck in a Deterministic, but Analytic, World 51
viii
3
Contents
Charles Sherrington and the Propositional Logic of Reflexes 55 Testing the Limits of Determinate Analytic Mathematics 55 Charles Scott Sherrington: The Confluence of Logic and Physiology 60 Sherrington’s System: The Logic of the Nervous System Dualism 68
63
The Go¨del Theorem: Finding the Limits of Determinate Mathematics 72 Alan Turing and Computability
4
73
Finding the Limits of the