Philosophers
Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias Samuel Alexander William Alston Anaximander G.E.M.Anscombe Anselm Louise Antony Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Harald Atmanspacher Robert Audi Augustine J.L.Austin A.J.Ayer Alexander Bain Mark Balaguer Jeffrey Barrett William Barrett William Belsham Henri Bergson George Berkeley Isaiah Berlin Richard J. Bernstein Bernard Berofsky Robert Bishop Max Black Susanne Bobzien Emil du Bois-Reymond Hilary Bok Laurence BonJour George Boole Émile Boutroux Daniel Boyd F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad Michael Burke Lawrence Cahoone C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Rudolf Carnap Carneades Nancy Cartwright Gregg Caruso Ernst Cassirer David Chalmers Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Tom Clark Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Anthony Collins Antonella Corradini Diodorus Cronus Jonathan Dancy Donald Davidson Mario De Caro Democritus Daniel Dennett Jacques Derrida René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Dupré John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus Austin Farrer Herbert Feigl Arthur Fine John Martin Fischer Frederic Fitch Owen Flanagan Luciano Floridi Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Bas van Fraassen Michael Frede Gottlob Frege Peter Geach Edmund Gettier Carl Ginet Alvin Goldman Gorgias Nicholas St. John Green H.Paul Grice Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire W.F.R.Hardie Sam Harris William Hasker R.M.Hare Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger Heraclitus R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Baron d'Holbach Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume Ferenc Huoranszki Frank Jackson William James Lord Kames Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Walter Kaufmann Jaegwon Kim William King Hilary Kornblith Christine Korsgaard Saul Kripke Thomas Kuhn Andrea Lavazza Christoph Lehner Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Jules Lequyer Leucippus Michael Levin Joseph Levine George Henry Lewes C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton C. Lloyd Morgan John Locke Michael Lockwood Arthur O. Lovejoy E. Jonathan Lowe John R. Lucas Lucretius Alasdair MacIntyre Ruth Barcan Marcus Tim Maudlin James Martineau Nicholas Maxwell Storrs McCall Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Brian McLaughlin John McTaggart Paul E. Meehl Uwe Meixner Alfred Mele Trenton Merricks John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Thomas Nagel Otto Neurath Friedrich Nietzsche John Norton P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor Parmenides David F. Pears Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Plato Karl Popper Porphyry Huw Price H.A.Prichard Protagoras Hilary Putnam Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Michael Rea Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher C.W.Rietdijk Richard Rorty Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle Jean-Paul Sartre Kenneth Sayre T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Wilfrid Sellars Alan Sidelle Ted Sider Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith Baruch Spinoza L. Susan Stebbing Isabelle Stengers George F. Stout Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Francisco Suárez Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Mark Twain Peter Unger Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin Voltaire G.H. von Wright David Foster Wallace R. Jay Wallace W.G.Ward Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford C.F. von Weizsäcker William Whewell Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Bernard Williams Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists David Albert Michael Arbib Walter Baade Bernard Baars Jeffrey Bada Leslie Ballentine Marcello Barbieri Gregory Bateson Horace Barlow John S. Bell Mara Beller Charles Bennett Ludwig von Bertalanffy Susan Blackmore Margaret Boden David Bohm Niels Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Emile Borel Max Born Satyendra Nath Bose Walther Bothe Jean Bricmont Hans Briegel Leon Brillouin Stephen Brush Henry Thomas Buckle S. H. Burbury Melvin Calvin Donald Campbell Sadi Carnot Anthony Cashmore Eric Chaisson Gregory Chaitin Jean-Pierre Changeux Rudolf Clausius Arthur Holly Compton John Conway Jerry Coyne John Cramer Francis Crick E. P. Culverwell Antonio Damasio Olivier Darrigol Charles Darwin Richard Dawkins Terrence Deacon Lüder Deecke Richard Dedekind Louis de Broglie Stanislas Dehaene Max Delbrück Abraham de Moivre Bernard d'Espagnat Paul Dirac Hans Driesch John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Gerald Edelman Paul Ehrenfest Manfred Eigen Albert Einstein George F. R. Ellis Hugh Everett, III Franz Exner Richard Feynman R. A. Fisher David Foster Joseph Fourier Philipp Frank Steven Frautschi Edward Fredkin Benjamin Gal-Or Howard Gardner Lila Gatlin Michael Gazzaniga Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen GianCarlo Ghirardi J. Willard Gibbs James J. Gibson Nicolas Gisin Paul Glimcher Thomas Gold A. O. Gomes Brian Goodwin Joshua Greene Dirk ter Haar Jacques Hadamard Mark Hadley Patrick Haggard J. B. S. Haldane Stuart Hameroff Augustin Hamon Sam Harris Ralph Hartley Hyman Hartman Jeff Hawkins John-Dylan Haynes Donald Hebb Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg John Herschel Basil Hiley Art Hobson Jesper Hoffmeyer Don Howard John H. Jackson William Stanley Jevons Roman Jakobson E. T. Jaynes Pascual Jordan Eric Kandel Ruth E. Kastner Stuart Kauffman Martin J. Klein William R. Klemm Christof Koch Simon Kochen Hans Kornhuber Stephen Kosslyn Daniel Koshland Ladislav Kovàč Leopold Kronecker Rolf Landauer Alfred Landé Pierre-Simon Laplace Karl Lashley David Layzer Joseph LeDoux Gerald Lettvin Gilbert Lewis Benjamin Libet David Lindley Seth Lloyd Werner Loewenstein Hendrik Lorentz Josef Loschmidt Alfred Lotka Ernst Mach Donald MacKay Henry Margenau Owen Maroney David Marr Humberto Maturana James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr John McCarthy Warren McCulloch N. David Mermin George Miller Stanley Miller Ulrich Mohrhoff Jacques Monod Vernon Mountcastle Emmy Noether Donald Norman Alexander Oparin Abraham Pais Howard Pattee Wolfgang Pauli Massimo Pauri Wilder Penfield Roger Penrose Steven Pinker Colin Pittendrigh Walter Pitts Max Planck Susan Pockett Henri Poincaré Daniel Pollen Ilya Prigogine Hans Primas Zenon Pylyshyn Henry Quastler Adolphe Quételet Pasco Rakic Nicolas Rashevsky Lord Rayleigh Frederick Reif Jürgen Renn Giacomo Rizzolati A.A. Roback Emil Roduner Juan Roederer Jerome Rothstein David Ruelle David Rumelhart Robert Sapolsky Tilman Sauer Ferdinand de Saussure Jürgen Schmidhuber Erwin Schrödinger Aaron Schurger Sebastian Seung Thomas Sebeok Franco Selleri Claude Shannon Charles Sherrington David Shiang Abner Shimony Herbert Simon Dean Keith Simonton Edmund Sinnott B. F. Skinner Lee Smolin Ray Solomonoff Roger Sperry John Stachel Henry Stapp Tom Stonier Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard Max Tegmark Teilhard de Chardin Libb Thims William Thomson (Kelvin) Richard Tolman Giulio Tononi Peter Tse Alan Turing C. S. Unnikrishnan Francisco Varela Vlatko Vedral Vladimir Vernadsky Mikhail Volkenstein Heinz von Foerster Richard von Mises John von Neumann Jakob von Uexküll C. H. Waddington John B. Watson Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Paul A. Weiss Herman Weyl John Wheeler Jeffrey Wicken Wilhelm Wien Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson Günther Witzany Stephen Wolfram H. Dieter Zeh Semir Zeki Ernst Zermelo Wojciech Zurek Konrad Zuse Fritz Zwicky Presentations Biosemiotics Free Will Mental Causation James Symposium |
Mind, Brain, and Humanist Values
ROGER W. SPERRY
Any mixing of values and science is a red flag in some
quarters. Value judgments, wc are told, lie outside the
realm of science. Values are for popes and prophets, for
philosophers and perhaps scout leaders and civic planners, but not for science or scientists. As a student of brain and behavior, I have never quite been able to accept this. It seems like saying that value judgments lie outside the realm of knowledge and understanding, or
that the best method of applying the human brain to
problems of understanding must be discarded when it
comes to values. It is like saying that science is able to
deal only with those phenomena that appeared prior to
the emergence of higher brains, with their wants, needs,
and other goal directed properties and, of course, the
corresponding value systems that these latter impose.
Values have natural and logical origins. They are interdependent and interrelated in logical, hierarchical systems. These value systems and their perturbations
ought to be subject to study, analysis, and prediction —
and perhaps even some experimentation on a model
basis these days, with computer assistance.
• HUMANIST IMPACTS OF BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
We turn to our main topic now to consider some of
the major impacts on human values that stem from recent developments in the sciences that deal with mind and brain. At first glance the record achieved by the
brain behavior sciences during the past half century
must appear, to the humanist, to read less like a list of
contributions and advancements than like a list of moral
offenses and major setbacks. The accusations that anti-science can raise in this area are not exactly trivial. For
example, prior to science, man had reason to believe that
he possessed a mind that was potent and replete with
something called consciousness. Modern experimental
objective psychology and the neurosciences in general
would dispense not only with the conscious mind but
also with, most other spiritual components in human
nature. Before science man used to think himself a free
agent possessing free will. Science gives us, instead,
causal determinism wherein our every act is seen to follow inevitably from preceding patterns of brain excitation. Where we used to see purpose and meaning in
human behavior, science now shows us a complex bio physical machine composed entirely of material elements, all of which obey inexorably the universal laws of physics and chemistry.
Science, abetted by Freud with an assist from astrophysics, stands accused of depriving the thinking man
of his Father in heaven, along with heaven itself. Man's
inner nature and his heritage also seem to have fared
poorly. Since Darwin, and again Freud, man now enters
this life, not "trailing clouds of glory" and divinity but
clouds of jungleism and bestiality with a predisposition
to oedipal and other complexes. The veneer of civilization is seen to be superficial, and when it rubs thin or cracks the basic animal within quickly shows.
In the face of these and related onslaughts of science
on the worth and meaning of human nature and existence, one can understand why humanist thinkers look for other roads to truth. For the scientist himself, the
current dim picture puts a rather severe test to his credo
that it is better to know and live by the truth, however
ugly, than by false premises and illusory values.
I find that my own conceptual working model of the
brain leads to inferences that are in direct disagreement
with many of the foregoing; especially I must take issue
with that whole general materialistic-reductionistic conception of human nature and mind that seems to emerge from the currently prevailing objective analytic approach in the brain-behavior sciences. When we are led to favor the implications of modern materialism in opposition to older, more idealistic values in these and related matters, I suspect that science may have sold society and itself a somewhat questionable bill of goods.
• THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
THE CENTRAL ISSUE
Most of the disagreements I refer to relate to a central point of controversy that comes out of the following question: Is it possible, in theory or in principle, to
construct a complete, objective explanatory model of
brain function without including consciousness and
mental phenomena in the causal sequence?
If the prevailing view in neuroscience is correct — that
consciousness and mental forces in general must be excluded from any objective model — then we write off all that inner subjective world from science and come out
with materialism and all its implications. Conversely, if
it should prove true, when the facts are in, that conscious mental forces do in fact govern and direct the nerve impulse traffic and other biochemical and biophysical events in the brain and, hence, do have to be included as important features in the objective chain of
control, we then come out on the side of mentalism, and
with quite a different and more idealistic set of values.
Some 99.9 per cent of those of us who work in brain
research have held firmly during the past fifty years to
the conviction that conscious mental forces have no
place in any explanatory model or theory of brain function. The inner sensations, feelings, percepts, concepts, mental images, and the like cannot be weighed or measured, photographed, spectrographed, or chromatographed, or otherwise recorded or dealt with objectively
by any known scientific methodology. The dictates of
the scientific method, requiring experimental demonstration and proof, demand that these introspective, private, inaccessible, will-o'-the-wisp unknowns must be
excluded from any scientific explanation. Furthermore,
the neuroscientist of today feels he has a pretty fair idea
anyway about the kinds of things that excite and fire the
cellular elements of the brain: membrane changes, ion
flow, chemical transmitters, presynaptic and post-synaptic potentials, and the like may be on his list of
acceptable causal influences, but not consciousness.
Science can see the brain as a complex electrochemical communications network full of nerve excitations,
all governed by respectable scientific laws of biophysics,
biochemistry, and physiology; but few investigators, and
none that I know, have been ready to tolerate an interjection into this causal machinery of any mental or conscious forces. This then in brief is the general stance of
modern science out of which has come today's prevailing objective, mechanistic, materialistic, behavioristic, reductionistic, fatalistic view of the nature of mind and
psyche. This kind of thinking is not confined to our
laboratories and classrooms, of course. It leaks and
spreads, and though never officially imposed on the societies of our Western world, we nevertheless see, on all sides, the pervasive influence of creeping materialism.
• AN ALTERNATIVE MENTALIST POSITION
I am going to align myself in a counterstand, along
with that approximately 0.1 per cent mentalist minority, in support of a hypothetical brain model in which consciousness and mental forces generally are given their
due representation as important features in the chain of
control. These appear as active operational forces and
dynamic properties that interact with and upon the
physiological machinery. Any model or description that
leaves out conscious forces, according to this view, is
bound to be pretty sadly incomplete and unsatisfactory.
The conscious mind in this scheme, far from being put
aside and dispensed with as an "inconsequential by-product," "epiphenomenon," or "inner aspect," as is the
customary treatment these days, gets located, instead,
front and center, directly in the midst of the causal
interplay of cerebral mechanisms.
Mental forces in this particular scheme are put in the
driver's seat, as it were. They give the orders and they
push and haul around the physiology and physico-
chemical processes as much as or more than the latter
control them. This is a scheme that puts mind back in
its old post, over matter, in a sense — not under, outside,
or beside it. It's a scheme that idealizes ideas and ideals
over physico-chemical interactions, nerve impulse traffic — or DNA. It's a brain model in which conscious, mental, psychic forces are recognized to be the crowning achievement of some five hundred million years or more of evolution.
Let us now examine more closely this seemingly ridiculous notion, this "water-on-the-brain" contention that ideas and other mental entities push around, control, and direct the biophysical and biochemical events in the nervous system. The basic reasoning is simple:
First, we contend that conscious or mental phenomena
are dynamic, emergent, pattern (or configurational)
properties of the living brain in action — a point accepted by many, including some of the more tough-minded brain researchers. Second, the argument goes a
critical step further, and insists that these emergent pattern properties in the brain have causal control potency — just as they do elsewhere in the universe. And there
we have the answer to the age-old enigma of consciousness.
To put it very simply, it becomes a question largely of
who pushes whom around in the population of causal
forces that occupy the cranium. There exists within the
human cranium a whole world of diverse causal forces;
what is more, there are forces within forces within forces, as in no other cubic half-foot of universe that we know. At the lowermost levels in this system are those
local aggregates of sub nuclear particles confined within
the neutrons and protons of their respective atomic nuclei. These individuals, of course, don't have very much to say about what goes on in the affairs of the brain.
Like the atomic nucleus and its associated electrons, the
subnuclear and other atomic elements are "molecule-bound" for the most part, and get hauled and pushed
around by the larger spatial and configurational forces of
the whole molecule.
Similarly the molecular elements in the brain are
themselves pretty well bound up, moved, and ordered
about by the enveloping properties of the cells within
which they are located. Along with their internal atomic
and subnuclear parts, the brain molecules are obliged to
submit to a course of activity in time and space that is
determined very largely by the overall dynamic and spatial properties of the whole brain cell as an entity. Even the brain cells, however, with their long fibers and impulse conducting elements, do not have very much to say either about when or in what time pattern, for example, they are going to fire their messages. The firing orders come from a higher command.
• THE MENTAL ENTITIES
The flow and the timing of impulse traffic through
any cell, or nucleus of cells, in the brain is governed very
largely by the overall encompassing properties of the
whole cerebral circuit system, and also by the relationship of this system to other circuit systems. Even the circuit properties of the cerebral system as a whole, and
the way in which these govern the flow pattern of impulse traffic throughout — that is, the circuit properties of the whole brain — may undergo radical and widespread
changes with just the flick of a cerebral facilitatory "set."
This set is a shifting pattern of central excitation that
will open or prime one group of circuit pathways while
at the same time closing, repressing, or inhibiting endless other circuit potentialities. Such changes of set are
involved in a "shift of attention," "a turn of thought,"
"a change of feeling," or "a new insight," etc. In short,
if one climbs upward through the chain of command
within the brain, one finds at the very top those overall
organizational forces and dynamic properties of the large
patterns of cerebral excitation that constitute the mental or psychic phenomena.
Let us now illustrate one of these "power-packed"
mental entities. For simplicity, consider an elemental
subjective sensation—and for reasons that will become
evident let us use the sensation of pain instead of philosophy's old favorite, the color red. More specifically, make it pain in the wrist and fingers of the left hand of
an arm that was amputated above the elbow some
months previously. Suffering caused by pain localized
in a phantom limb is no easier to bear than if the limb
were still there. It is easier, however, with this example,
to infer where our conscious awareness must reside.
With regard to this conscious sensation of pain, the
contention is that any groans it may evoke — and any
other response measures the patient may take as a result
of the pain sensation — are indeed caused, not by the biophysics, chemistry, or physiology of the cerebral nerve impulses as such, but by the pain quality, the pain property, per se. This brings us to the real crux of the argument. Nerve excitations are just as common to pleasure,
of course, as to pain, or any other sensation. What is
critical is the unique patterning of cerebral excitation
that produces pain instead of something else. It is the
overall functional property of this pain pattern that is
critical in the causal sequence of brain affairs. This pattern has a dynamic entity, the qualitative effect of which
must be conceived functionally and operationally, and in
terms of its impact on a living, unanesthetized cerebral
system. This overall pattern effect in brain dynamics is
the pain quality of inner experience.
Above simple pain and other elemental sensations in
brain dynamics, we find, of course, the more complex
but equally potent forces of perception, emotion, reason,
belief, insight, judgment, and cognition. In the onward
flow of conscious brain states, one state calling up the
next, these are the kinds of dynamic entities that call the
plays. It is exactly these encompassing mental forces
that direct and govern the inner flow patterns of impulse
traffic, including their physiological, electro-chemical,
atomic, subatomic, and subnuclear details. It is important to remember in this connection that all of the simpler, more primitive, elemental forces remain present
and operative; none has been cancelled. These lower-level forces and properties, however, have been superseded in successive steps, encompassed or enveloped as it were, by those forces of increasingly complex organizational entities. For the transmission of nerve impulses, all of the usual electrical, chemical, and physiological
laws apply, of course, at the level of cell, fiber, and
synoptic junction. Proper function in the uppermost levels depends to a large extent upon normal operation at the subsidiary levels. It is a special characteristic of these
larger functional patterns in the brain, however, that
they have a coherence and organization that enables
them to carry on orderly function in the presence of
considerable disruptive damage in the lower-level components.
• IDEAS AS CAUSAL FORCES
Near the apex of this compound command system in
the brain we find ideas. In the brain model proposed
here, the causal potency of an idea, or an ideal, becomes
just as real as that of a molecule, a cell, or a nerve impulse. Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in
the same brain, in neighboring brains, and in distant,
foreign brains. And they also interact with real consequence upon the external surroundings to produce in toto an explosive advance in evolution on this globe far
beyond anything known before, including the emergence of the living cell.
Problems of complexity and adequate technology
aside, there would seem to be no great obstacle to the
eventual objective, scientific treatment of mental phenomena. Statements in the literature discourage the hope that the mind is capable of explaining itself in
terms of its own ideas. The argument is that no machine, living or otherwise, can logically embody within itself a complete description of itself. But underline
that word "complete," and then consider the extent of
the explanatory possibilities that still remain. Also underline "itself" and remember that this logic does not prevent a man's mind from acquiring a complete description of his neighbor's mind nor from passing on this description to other neighbors, excepting only the one
being described.
Looking back at this point, one may see that the earlier dichotomy between mentalism and materialism is resolved in this interpretation. The former polar differences with respect to human values, when recast in the present scheme, become mainly errors of reductionism.
For a theory of mind the new twist here, if any, lies in
the attempt to make the emergent properties of inner
experience conform to the brain code rather than isomorphs of the outside world — combined, of course, with the critical interjection of these mental qualities into
the causal sequence.
The present scheme would put the conscious mind
back into the brain of objective science and in a position
of top command. It would eliminate the old dualistic
confusions, dichotomies, and paradoxes, proposing instead a single unified system extending from subnuclear forces near the bottom up through ideas at the top. It
would provide a long sought unifying view on which to
base our conception of human nature. Moreover it suggests a possible answer not only for the relation between mind and brain but also for that between the outside
world and its inner cerebral representation. As for the
older materialist-behaviorist movement, it may be said
in retrospect that the denial or downgrading of conscious mental forces in objective experimental psychology during the past half-century has had value as a
tactical expedient for a developing science and remains
appropriate for much analytic research aimed at lower
levels of brain function. It is hardly something, however,
on which to build societal philosophy and cultural
values.
• FREE WILL
Another serious threat to cherished images of human
nature is the scientific rejection of free will, Every advance in the science of behavior, whether it comes from implanted electrodes, psychomimetic drugs, the psychiatrist's couch, brain surgery, imprinting, or Skinner boxes, seems only to reinforce the old suspicion that
free will is merelv an illusion. The more we learn about
the brain and behavior, the more deterministic, lawful,
and causal it appears. Like most others in brain research,
I assume that every apparently free mental choice must
in fact have been causally predetermined in the preceding brain states and related events. This means that any decision any of us has ever made could not possibly have
had any other outcome in the given situation. Attempts
to restore free will to the human brain by recourse to
various forms of indeterminacy — physical, logical, emergent, or others — have failed, so far as I can see, to do much more than perhaps introduce a bit of unpredictable caprice into our comportment that most of us would prefer to be without. Neither science nor philosophy
seems able as yet to find in the brain any satisfying exceptions to the classical onward flow of causal determinism.
Before we become overly disturbed by all this, however, there are a few more points we should keep in mind. These add up to the conclusion that if we were
given freedom of choice in this whole matter, we might
well prefer not to have it; that is, we would probably
prefer to leave determinism in control exactly as science
postulates. It should be clear that the kind of determinism proposed is not that of the atomic, molecular, or cellular level, but rather the kind that prevails at the
level of cerebral mentation, involving the interplay of
ideas, reasoning processes, judgment, emotion, insight,
and so forth.
The proposed brain model provides in large measure
the mental forces and abilities to determine one's own
actions. It provides a high degree of freedom from outside forces as well as mastery over the inner molecular and atomic forces. In other words it provides plenty of
free will provided we think of free will as self-determination. A person does indeed determine with his own mind what he is going to do and often from among a large
series of alternative possibilities.
This does not mean, however, that there are cerebral
operations that occur without antecedent cause. Man is
not free from the higher forces in his own decision-making machinery. In particular, our model does not
free a person from the combined effects of his own
thought, his own impulses, his own reasoning, feeling,
beliefs, ideals, and hopes, nor does it free him from his
inherited makeup or his lifetime memories. All these
and more, including unconscious desires, exert their due
causal influence upon any mental decision, and the combined resultant determines an inevitable but nevertheless self-determined, highly special, and highly personal
outcome. Thus the question: Do we really want free
will, in the indeterministic sense, if it means gaining
freedom from our own minds?
There may be worse fates, perhaps, than causal determinism. Maybe after all it is better to be an integral part of the causal flow of cosmic forces than to be out of
contact with these — free-floating, as it were, with behavioral possibilities that have no antecedent cause, and hence no reason nor any reliability relative to future
plans, predictions, or promises. If one were assigned the
task of trying to design and build the perfect free-will
model, consider the possibility that the aim might be
not so much to free the machinery from causal contact
as the opposite, that is, to try to incorporate into the
model the potential value of universal causal contact. In
other words, contact with all related information in
proper proportion — past, present, and future.
At any rate it is clear that the human brain has come a
long way in evolution in exactly this direction, when
you consider the amount and the kind of causal factors
that this multidimensional, intracranial vortex draws
into itself, scans, and brings to bear in turning out one of
its preordained decisions; potentially included, through
memory, are the events and wisdom of most of a human
lifetime. Potentially included, also, with a visit to the
library, is the accumulated knowledge of all recorded
history. And we can add, thanks to reason and logic,
much of the forecast and predictive value extractable
from all these data as well as creative insights newly conceived. Maybe the total falls a bit short of universal causal contact; maybe it is not even up to the kind of
thing evolution has going for it over on galaxy nine; and
maybe, in spite of all, any decision that comes out is still
predetermined. Nevertheless it certainly represents a
very long jump in the direction of freedom from the
primeval slime mold, the Pleistocene sand dollar, or
even the latest model orangutan.
It will be evident that our current view does not deny
the animalistic in human nature — any more than it denies the molecular or atomistic. It docs deny, however, that the higher human properties in the mind and nature of man are the same as, or are reducible to, the components from which they arc fashioned. On the
debit side, there is little in our proposed model for consciousness to bolster one's hopes either for extrasensory perception or for postmortem perception. Similarly prepartum perception in the embryo would presumably be negligible until after the requisite cerebral machinery for
conscious awareness begins to attain functional maturity in the later months of fetal life, and in subsequent
postnatal development.
• PLASTICITY OF HUMAN NATURE AND
INHERITANCE OF BEHAVIOR TRAITS
Finally, in connection with development, I should
mention briefly certain other advances in the brain-behavior sciences that have resulted in important revisions in our general conception of human nature. These concern the extent to which behavior traits can be inherited
and the extent to which human nature is plastic and
subject to shaping by experience and environment.
The objective, materialist movement in psychology,
established first in the Soviet Union partly under Pavlov, and pioneered in this country by Watson as behaviorism, has been identified almost as much with the
promotion of the conditioned response as it has with the
demotion of consciousness. Personality and behavior
generally were attributed to a life-long chain of conditioned reflex associations. The whole idea of the genetic inheritance of behavior patterns was renounced until
the term "instinct" became highly discredited in behavioral science. The embryonic growth of brain pathways was believed to be by nature nonselective and diffuse.
Specific anatomical hook-ups in the brain were held to be unimportant anyway for orderly function, and subject to radical, wholesale disarrangements by surgery,
injury, and regeneration without causing much functional disturbance. In the scientific thinking of those times the brain was endowed with an almost mysteriously omnipotent plasticity and readaptation capacity. In general, science seemed to be telling us as late as the
early forties that the human brain and human nature in
general are extreme in their malleability. It seemed at
that time a scientifically sound conclusion that it would
be possible, through an appropriate program of training
and environmental conditioning, to shape human nature and hence society within wide limits into a desired mold.
Much of the basic scientific thinking and evidence
behind these views has since suffered a series of severe
upsets leading to current stands on these same matters
that are almost diametrically opposed to the earlier doctrines. Instead of a loose, universal plasticity in brain hook-ups we see today a basic built-in wiring diagram
that is characteristic of the species and functionally
rather rigid. Instead of diffuse nonselective growth of
nerve connections in brain development, we see now a
very precise and highly ordered patterning of brain fiber
pathways and connections — all strictly preregulated
through cytochemical affinities under genetic control.
Where there used to be an outright denunciation of the
whole instinct concept, we now accept the idea that an
entire evolutionary tree can be set up on the basis of inherited behavior patterns. The conditioned response, along with other forms of learning, continues to be recognized as a highly powerful modeling influence, and especially so in man, but only within limits that are
much narrower than previously believed.
Within the specialized fields of scientific inquiry involved here the pendulum of opinion continues to swing, at this date, in the direction of inheritance. How
far it will go can only be guessed. It is still too soon for
the implications of these changes to have fully permeated even the neighboring scientific disciplines. In any case, to return to our central theme here: it would seem
that the evidence available today demands that we renounce, along with other aspects of the behaviorist-materialist approach, the old "Pavlovian-Watsonian
conditioned reflex theory of the psyche" with its radical
environmentalism that used to tell us, literally, that 99
per cent of human nature and mind is a product of experience, environment, and training.
Roger W. Sperry is professor of psychobiology,
California Institute of Technology. This article is
based upon a lecture presented in the series of
"Monday Lectures" at the University of Chicago
published in full in New Views of the Nature
of Man (University of Chicago Press, 1965).
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTSVol. XXII, No. 7, September 1966 Copyright 1966 by the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science Normal | Teacher | Scholar |