Book review of Ben Goertzel

Ben Goertzel:
THE EVOLVING MIND (Gordon & Breach, 1993)

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Inspired by Gregory Bateson, Gerald Edelman and Jason Brown Goertzel believes that thinking, like life, is a process of evolution by natural selection. Goertzel believes that Darwinism must be supplemented with a theory based on self-organization of complex systems and offers a candidate based on the theory of computation: an organism that, coupled with the other organisms in its environment, generates a large amount of emergent pattern is more likely to survive.
Goertzel proves that Gould's punctuated equilibrium follows from these premises. This is the evolutionary theory that applies to the mind as well. His model of the brain is Edelman's, except that neural maps are assumed to be hierarchical structures and generate emergent pattern. Goertzel shows that, with these assumptions, neural maps can be thought of as a population reproducing sexually and evolving by natural selection; just like ecosystems. Therefore, Gould's punctuated equilibrium applies as well to the cognitive development of an individual.