The real functional “machinery” of the brain, for Edelman, consists of millions of neuronal groups, organized into larger units or “maps”. These maps, continually conversing in everchanging, unimaginably complex, but always meaningful patterns, may change in minutes or seconds. One is reminded of C. S. Sherrington’s poetic evocation of the brain as “an enchanted loom”, where “millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns”.

The real functional “machinery” of the brain, for Edelman, consists of millions of neuronal groups, organized into larger units or “maps”. These maps, continually conversing in everchanging, unimaginably complex, but always meaningful patterns, may change in minutes or seconds. One is reminded of C. S. Sherrington’s poetic evocation of the brain as “an enchanted loom”, where “millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns”.

– Oliver Sacks –

On the Move: A Life

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