Off List Re: Freedom and equality?

[Carrol Cox]

Peter,

If you have a fairly decent grasp of Edelmann's theorys, sketching them
out further for the list would be a valuable contribution. We (the
marxist tradition) have bungled too often by putting all our eggs into
this or that scientific theory which then dissolved, but still I feel
"neural darwinism" comes closer than any other
psychological/neurological theory I know of to lending support to Marx's
critique not only of the 'old' materialism but also of the bourgeois
"abstract -- isolated -- individual." Someone quoted Skinner's
"Consciousness is a social product," but that is too mechanical -- i.e.,
it puts the machine (society) on one hand, the isolated invidual on the
other as the "product." As far as I can grasp them, Edelmann's
conceptions allow for consciousness existing only within social
relations, but not separating it as an isolated billiard ball.

Carrol