Gerald Edelman’s Project: How Gerald Edelman’s Theory of Consciousness Completes Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and Provides a Basis for a Brain-Based Psychoanalytic Perspective

In this article we consider Nobel Prize Winner Gerald Edelman’s remarkable contribution to the understanding of human evolution, and our own application of Edelman’s theory to a brain-based psychoanalytic perspective we have devised. Edelman’s paradigm setting out his theory of the evolution of mind, brain, and consciousness concerns not only mankind’s evolution over all of time, but also the evolution of each and every individual over and within his single lifetime. Edelman contends that human beings, as individuals, and not only as the taxonomic category from which they sprang, have a separate and distinct evolutionary history of their own, and it is especially from within Edelman’s theoretical assumptions about the evolution of the individual per se that our own psychoanalytic understanding of theory and practice derives.     

The relevance of Nash equilibrium to psychiatric disorders

In game theory, the word ‘game’ is used to describe any interdependence between interacting parties, and the Nash equilibrium is a prominent tool for analysing such interactions. I argue that the concept of the Nash equilibrium may also be used in non-gaming contexts. An individual is in a Nash equilibrium if his or her beliefs are consistent with his or her actions. Given that discordance between beliefs and behaviour is a typical cause of psychiatric disorders, individuals who are not in a Nash equilibrium are likely to be affected by such disorders. In this regard, the concept of the Nash equilibrium could aptly be introduced into the medical practitioner’s vocabulary for describing a patient’s mental health status.     

Discussion of Petri Meronen's paper, "The Return of Narcissism: Heinz Kohut in the Context of the History of Ideas"

In the 100-year-old history of the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, there are several fields whose practitioners have not received the prize. Among the unlucky candidates for the Nobel Prize, Sigmund Freud (18561939) is probably the most prominent and best known. He is also the one proposed for the prize during the longest period of time, almost a quarter of a century, or more precisely, between 1915 and 1938. In this article I will examine the nominations of Freud and the evaluations of his work by what is perhaps the most science centered of medical institutions, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. I will place these in the context of the reception of Freud's work by Swedish psychiatrists. Here the influence of the most prominent psychiatrist at the time, Bror Gadelius, deserves special attention.     

2003年诺贝尔医学奖给科学界的多重启示(下)

在2003年诺贝尔医学奖获奖名单公布以后,未曾获奖的MRI人士达马迪安,自恃对MRI技术医用方面作出过杰出贡献,而未中选.遂与友人-起在三张美国大报和一张瑞典大报,刊登广告,声称不公平待遇.但医学奖诺贝尔委员会发言人认为,在大量未获奖人士中,这种做法极为罕见;这一现象对诺贝尔奖评选有参考价值,即使时科学界也有多重启示.至于诺贝尔基金会拟改革,估计未必触动"三人规则".     

Herbert A. Simon: Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, 1978

In 1978, Herbert A. Simon won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, the same Nobel won by Daniel Kahneman in 2002. Simon's work in fact paved the way for Kahneman's Nobel. Although trained in political science and economics rather than psychology, Simon applied psychological ideas to economic theorizing. Classical and neoclassical economic theories assume that people are perfectly rational and strive to optimize economic outcomes. Simon argued that human rationality is constrained, not perfect, and that people seek satisfactory rather than ideal outcomes. Despite his Nobel, Simon felt isolated in economics and ultimately moved into psychology. Nevertheless, his ideas percolated through the economic community, so that Kahneman, whose research advanced Simon's broad perspective, could be the psychologist who won the Nobel in economics.     

阿马蒂亚·森的自由观述评

阿马蒂亚·森在自由问题上提出的一些重要观点包括：自由与偏好相关．也与个人的理性相关。而他影响最大的贡献是证明了帕累托自由的不可能,后者为他赢得诺贝尔经济学奖奠定了基础,其基本含义指不存在一种可以同时满足无限制域、帕累托原则和最低限度的自由这三个条件的社会决策函数。森的论述对自由意志论一厢情愿的信念构成了深刻的挑战,其贡献值得我们记取。但应看到,从理论建构的角度来看,森的各种观点缺乏有机的综合,呈现出折衷的特点。     

心导管技术的发明与诺贝尔奖之启示

德国医生维尔纳·福斯曼(Werner.Forssmann,1904-1979)因其对心导管技术的创造所做的里程碑式的贡献而荣膺1956年度生理学和医学诺贝尔奖.回顾福斯曼创造心脏导管技术的历程带给我们一些启示:科学研究需要强烈的探索欲为动力,无畏的探索精神为保障,科学的辩证法思想为指导.     

Gender and Science: Women Nobel Laureates

Women and their creativity are underrepresented in science. To date, few women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in science. Eleven female Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and physiology/medicine between 1901 and 2006 were compared with 37 males who received the Nobel Prize in the same area one year prior and one year after the women. Data analyzed included birth order, marital status, children, awards (Fulbright, Rhodes, and number of honorary awards received), highest education level and Nobel mentor. Results indicated that female Nobel laureates were significantly less likely to marry and have children. When female laureates had children, they had significantly fewer children than male laureates. Female laureates also had fewer publications than their male counterparts. Our findings suggest that eminent women scientists tend to choose the pursuit of scientific discovery over starting families more often than eminent male scientists. More resources are needed in order to nurture and enhance the recruitment and retention of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).     

揭秘经济管理中的行为异象：心理账户理论的应用启示

2017年Richard H. Thaler获得诺贝尔经济学奖, 其重要的研究贡献之一是催生并发展了心理账户理论。心理账户理论被广泛用于解释经济管理中的行为异象。文章以消费决策、金融管理决策两大领域的应用研究为外在逻辑, 以心理账户的设立、运算和关闭过程的特点为内在逻辑, 重点探讨了消费决策中的“标签效应”、“预算效应”、“价格幻觉”、“解耦效应”和“效用偏差”; 金融管理决策中的“粘蝇纸效应”、“薪酬感知之谜”、“税收-投资之谜”、“会计信息披露之谜”和“处置效应”十大行为异象。文章进一步提出未来可能的两个研究方向, 一是通过眼动技术和认知神经科学方法揭示心理账户影响行为决策的内在过程及神经机制; 二是将心理账户理论应用于“以小拨大”的行为助推, 助力政府公共管理和企业管理决策。     

An elusive honor: psychology, behavior, and the Nobel Prize

Apart from economics, the human sciences have not generally been rewarded with high honors from the world community. Psychology has been awarded the distinction of a Nobel Prize only when it has served a role in explicating human behavior in relation to economics. Yet psychological science has played no small part in the work of a number of Nobel Prize winners. This section addresses a selection of that work. Some of the winners of the Nobel Prize in the field of psychology are briefly reviewed. In addition, this selection introduces the papers in this issue.     

Symbiotic psychosis and the need for fame

This paper attempts to synthesize Tartakoff's concept of the Nobel Prize complex (a constellation of personality traits found in some achievement-oriented neurotics) with the symbiotic syndrome which Mahler noted among certain psychotic patients. The performance-oriented symbiotic syndrome formulated in this paper is found in patients whose pathology ranges from the normal to the psychotic. The familial constellation involved in this performance-oriented symbiosis consists of an obessive, successful father; a depressed, hysterical, unfulfilled mother; and a child who is made to take the father's place in the household. The mother exploits the child by offering attention only when he achieves or performs in such a way as to fulfill her narcissistic strivings and bolster her self-esteem. The father is often involved in a similar symbiotic relationship with his own mother and therefore sanctions his wife and son's dyadic relationship.     

The Intrinsic Quantum Nature of Nash Equilibrium Mixtures

In classical game theory the idea that players randomize between their actions according to a particular optimal probability distribution has always been viewed as puzzling. In this paper, we establish a fundamental connection between n-person normal form games and quantum mechanics (QM), which eliminates the conceptual problems of these random strategies. While the two theories have been regarded as distinct, our main theorem proves that if we do not give any other piece of information to a player in a game, than the payoff matrix—the axiom of “no-supplementary data” holds—then the state of mind of a rational player is algebraically isomorphic to a pure quantum state. The “no supplementary data” axiom is captured in a Lukasiewicz’s three-valued Kripke semantics wherein statements about whether a strategy or a belief of a player is rational are initially indeterminate i.e. neither true, nor false. As a corollary, we show that in a mixed Nash equilibrium, the knowledge structure of a player implies that probabilities must verify the standard “Born rule” postulate of QM. The puzzling “indifference condition” wherein each player must be rationally indifferent between all the pure actions of the support of his equilibrium strategy is resolved by his state of mind being described by a “quantum superposition” prior a player is asked to make a definite choice in a “measurement”. Finally, these results demonstrate that there is an intrinsic limitation to the predictions of game theory, on a par with the “irreducible randomness” of quantum physics.     

A Beautiful Mind

It is often difficult to discern the line between creativity and madness. This presents a particular hazard for the analyst, whose failure to recognize real potential can result in undermining the individual's developmental strivings. This dilemma is explored through a case illustration of a woman whose creativity was undermined by a lack of recognition. To vivify the dilemma, the author invites the reader to look through her eyes into the lens offered by the film A Beautiful Mind, which portrays the struggles of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash to maintain his sanity while also testing the limits of his mind and imagination. These illustrations encourage us to consider the dilemma of the gifted individual when excessive tension arises between absorption in one's medium versus needs for recognition.     

Game Theory in Philosophy

Game theory is the mathematical study of strategy and conflict. It has wide applications in economics, political science, sociology, and, to some extent, in philosophy. Where rational choice theory or decision theory is concerned with individual agents facing games against nature, game theory deals with games in which all players have preference orderings over the possible outcomes of the game. This paper gives an informal introduction to the theory and a survey of applications in diverse branches of philosophy. No criticism is reviewed. Game theory is shown at work in discussions about epistemological dependence (prisoner’s dilemma), liberalism and efficiency (Nash equilibrium), Hume’s concept of convention (correlated equilibrium), morality and rationality (bargaining games), and distributive justice and egalitarianism (evolutionary game theory). A guide to the literature provides hints at applications in collective intentionality, epistemology, ethics, history of philosophy, logic, philosophy of language, and political philosophy.     

Scientific Productivity and Idea Acceptance in Nobel Laureates

We investigated how new ideas become accepted for Nobel laureates in science. Archival data were collected for 204 Nobel laureates from 1980 to 2009 in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology. Acceptance was evaluated for Nobel laureates by Prize area and three key publications in the Nobel laureates' publishing careers: (a) first publication concerning their Nobel idea (FN), (b) highest cited publication concerning their Nobel idea (HN), and (c) last publication concerning their Nobel idea (LN). Acceptance was defined primarily in terms of academic prestige for the journal articles (journal impact factors, article citation counts, Eigenfactor scores [journal impact and journal citations] and journal‐cited half‐life ratings). We found that acceptance for these publications mostly followed LN < FN < HN for all measures and Prize areas—except for physics on impact factor only, which followed FN < LN < HN, as hypothesized. In sum, recent ideas are least accepted rather than original ideas even for established and eminent Nobel laureates.     

Mind the Croc! Rationality Gaps vis-à-vis the Crocodile Paradox

This article discusses rationality gaps triggered by self-referential/cyclic choice, the latter being understood as choosing according to a norm that refers to the choosing itself. The Crocodile Paradox is reformulated and analyzed as a game—named CP—whose Nash equilibrium is shown to trigger a cyclic choice and to invite a rationality gap. It is shown that choosing the Nash equilibrium of CP conforms to the principles Wolfgang Spohn and Haim Gaifman introduced to, allegedly, guarantee acyclicity but, in fact, does not prevent self-referential/cyclic choice and rationality gaps. It is shown that CP is a counter-example to Gaifman's solution of the rationality gaps problem.     

Psychosynthesis of the brain and mind: Comments on a new intellectual framework in psychiatry and psychotherapy

Abstract

Eric R. Kandel, the Nobel Prize winner of 2000 in physiology and medicine, emphasises five scientific principles of which psychiatrists must be aware and which are presented and critically analysed in this article. Kandel states that professional requirements for future psychiatrists will impose a greater knowledge of the structure and functioning of the brain, and that the rationale for the unique domain that psychiatry occupies within academic medicine is the analysis and understanding of the interaction between the social and biological determinants of behaviour. The work of a psychotherapist is based both on scientific knowledge and, to a large extent, on an empathic understanding of the patient's history as well as his or her verbal and non-verbal expressions – as a consequence, the orientation of hermeneutic philosophy and semiotics should also be included in the intellectual framework. The aim of this paper is to update the channels of communication between modern neurobiology, psychoanalysis, semiotics and philosophy to the best advantage for their multidisciplinary, holistic cooperation.     

诺贝尔医学奖与美国人的情结

通过对美国历年来获得诺贝尔医学奖项目和获奖者的分析,发现美国有获奖者多、原创性成果多、基础前沿研究成果多、出自一流科研机构的获奖者多的"四多"现状.美国的获奖历史和现状带给了我们许多哲学思考.     

The Evolution of John Nash's Male Melancholia: From Honor to Hope to Humor

This article is a response to the psychoanalytic study of mathematical genius John Nash by Donald Capps, and I apply Capps's own theory of male melancholia to John Nash. Capps interpreted Nash's life by dividing it into three phases: 1) predelusional; 2) delusional; and 3) postdelusional. I correlate Capps's three forms of male religiousness (i.e., honor, hope, and humor) with these three phases, respectively. The explanatory value of this interpretation is that it locates Capps's psychobiography of Nash within Capps's larger writings, thus providing an understanding of Nash as a deeply (if unconventionally) religious man.     

诺贝尔医学奖与俄罗斯的遗憾

通过对1901～2004年诺贝尔医学奖的复习分析,发现俄罗斯(前苏联)这个大国,在整个20世纪里102次的医学奖颁发中,只获得2人次,与它的大国地位很不相称.试图分析其获奖特少的历史原因并汲取教训.