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The understanding of the brain
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Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
John C. Eccles
50 books22 followersSir John Carew Eccles, AC FRS FRACP FRSNZ FAAS (27 January 1903 – 2 May 1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse.
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November 6, 2025
A FAMOUS NEUROPHYSIOLOGIST GIVES A COLLEGE-STUDENT-LEVEL EXPLANATION
John Eccles (1903-1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist who shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1977 book, “I undertake … to give an account of my present understanding… this is a personal communication… Necessarily this personal communication will be somewhat biased in its treatment and in its emphasis… I have written a book which can be read right through and which will give some vision of many aspects of brain research… Yet I have hopefully written a text which is so simple to read that it should be within the competence of a college student… it is a personal communication in which I write about those aspects of the brain that are of particular interest to me and which I think are essential to any understanding of how the brain can carry out its marvelous and manifold functions.” (Pg. ix)
He continues, “I believe that it is important to build up our story of the brain so that it relates to the human brain in the full range of its performance. Therein lies the greatest challenge. Marvellous as they are, the brains of invertebrates such as leeches, aplysia, or octopuses fail to be adequate models for man’s brain with its abilities of conceptual thought, cogitation, volition, and self-consciousness. Nevertheless investigations at these levels are of fundamental importance in that the unitary constituents and their simple intercommunications give the basis for understanding the units of higher brains and the properties of simple aggregates of these units. This can also be stated for investigations of the lower invertebrates.” (Pg. x)
He goes on, “I recognize that large areas of the brain sciences are but cursorily treated, if treated at all. In particular neurochemistry is neglected, though not perhaps in its implications. My belief is that its period of greatness is yet to come---and it will be magnificent when we have precise chemical concepts accounting for all the information required to build a nervous system in all its detailed connectivity and to explain learning and all the ongoing trophic influences with neurons and between neurons… At another level neurochemistry is concerned with the nature of membranes, their structure, and their specific receptor properties related to the mode of operation of synaptic transmitted substances. Here neurochemistry links to neuropharmacology.” (Pg. xi)
He explains, “there are enormous numbers of interneurons, with many arranged in parallel, but they are also serially arranged so that the reflex is a very wide spreading and prolonged response of the muscles. A simple example of such a reflex occurs if you touch something unexpectedly hot. You will find that you withdraw your hand before you feel the pain.” (Pg. 70)
He notes, “It is important to realize that the brain is constructed in all its detail before it is used. It was postulated in the 1930s that the brain was built as a more or less randomly organized structure, and then by use it was modeled to the appropriate design. This hypothesis has been proved false by the many experimental demonstrations that the nervous system is already constructed in its detailed connectivity before it is used.” (Pg. 148
He states, ‘Following [Donald] Hebb, it is generally recognized that there are two kinds of learning and memory: short-term and long-term. However, we shall propose… that long-term memory is composed of an intermediate memory of hours and a truly long-term memory that can last for a lifetime. Short-term memory is exemplified by the ability to remember short sequences of digits, as for example a telephone number that you look up and then dial.” (Pg. 177)
He reports, “I will … give an account of my philosophical position on the so-called ‘brain-mind’ problem… I have written … in a book with Sir Karl Popper, entitled ‘The Self and Its Brain.’ … I fully accept the philosophical achievements of Sir Karl Popper with his concept of three worlds. I was a dualist, now I am a ‘trialist’!... World 1 is the world of physical objects and states… World 2 is the world of states of consciousness and subjective knowledge of all kinds. The totality of our perceptions comes in this world… at the core of World 2 there is the SELF of EGO, which is the basis of our unity as an experiencing being throughout our whole lifetime. This World 2 is our PRIMARY REALITY… What is World 3?... it is the whole world of culture. It is the world that was created by man and that reciprocally made man. This is my message in which I follow Popper unreservedly.” (Pg. 193-195)
He reports, “It is my thesis that the philosophical problem of brain and mind has been transformed by these [brain hemisphere] investigations of the functions of the separated dominant and minor hemispheres in the split-brain subjects. Several years ago I suggested that even before the splitting, the conscious self was in liaison only with the dominant hemisphere.” (Pg. 218)
He argues, “Now I come to a brief consideration of free will. I am not going to indulge in a philosophical argument on this too-much-discussed theme. All I have to say is that free will is a fact of experience. It is something each of us experiences. No one would have imagined free will to exist if he or she had not experienced it, by which I mean the ability to carry out actions that have been planned in thought, or at least to attempt to carry them out. Free will is often denied on the grounds that you can not explain it, that it involves happenings inexplicable by present-day physics and physiology. To that I reply that our inability may stem from the fact that physics and physiology are still not adequately developed in respect of the immense patterned complexity of neuronal operation.” (Pg. 221-222)
He concludes, “This is the question I ask: How did man come to be what he is? What is the evolutionary story behind man? Let’s face it, man is unique. We must not accept the idea that man is JUST a superior animal. This is certainly not true. In his intellectual, rational, ethical, and aesthetic activities man has outgrown his animal ancestry to an amazing degree, though his emotions and behavior patterns still betray his ancestry, as has been emphasized by Konrad Lorenz. The uniqueness of man is attributable to World 3, which of course was made by man. When man, say a million years ago, was just a poor hominid battering pebbles, you would never have predicted he would have progressed beyond that, particularly if you as privileged observer could have seen that for hundreds of thousands of years he would hardly improve his pebble battering!... Nevertheless, slowly he did improve, and eventually, with progressive acceleration.” (Pg. 223-224)
This book (though almost 50 years old) may interest those studying the brain.
John Eccles (1903-1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist who shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1977 book, “I undertake … to give an account of my present understanding… this is a personal communication… Necessarily this personal communication will be somewhat biased in its treatment and in its emphasis… I have written a book which can be read right through and which will give some vision of many aspects of brain research… Yet I have hopefully written a text which is so simple to read that it should be within the competence of a college student… it is a personal communication in which I write about those aspects of the brain that are of particular interest to me and which I think are essential to any understanding of how the brain can carry out its marvelous and manifold functions.” (Pg. ix)
He continues, “I believe that it is important to build up our story of the brain so that it relates to the human brain in the full range of its performance. Therein lies the greatest challenge. Marvellous as they are, the brains of invertebrates such as leeches, aplysia, or octopuses fail to be adequate models for man’s brain with its abilities of conceptual thought, cogitation, volition, and self-consciousness. Nevertheless investigations at these levels are of fundamental importance in that the unitary constituents and their simple intercommunications give the basis for understanding the units of higher brains and the properties of simple aggregates of these units. This can also be stated for investigations of the lower invertebrates.” (Pg. x)
He goes on, “I recognize that large areas of the brain sciences are but cursorily treated, if treated at all. In particular neurochemistry is neglected, though not perhaps in its implications. My belief is that its period of greatness is yet to come---and it will be magnificent when we have precise chemical concepts accounting for all the information required to build a nervous system in all its detailed connectivity and to explain learning and all the ongoing trophic influences with neurons and between neurons… At another level neurochemistry is concerned with the nature of membranes, their structure, and their specific receptor properties related to the mode of operation of synaptic transmitted substances. Here neurochemistry links to neuropharmacology.” (Pg. xi)
He explains, “there are enormous numbers of interneurons, with many arranged in parallel, but they are also serially arranged so that the reflex is a very wide spreading and prolonged response of the muscles. A simple example of such a reflex occurs if you touch something unexpectedly hot. You will find that you withdraw your hand before you feel the pain.” (Pg. 70)
He notes, “It is important to realize that the brain is constructed in all its detail before it is used. It was postulated in the 1930s that the brain was built as a more or less randomly organized structure, and then by use it was modeled to the appropriate design. This hypothesis has been proved false by the many experimental demonstrations that the nervous system is already constructed in its detailed connectivity before it is used.” (Pg. 148
He states, ‘Following [Donald] Hebb, it is generally recognized that there are two kinds of learning and memory: short-term and long-term. However, we shall propose… that long-term memory is composed of an intermediate memory of hours and a truly long-term memory that can last for a lifetime. Short-term memory is exemplified by the ability to remember short sequences of digits, as for example a telephone number that you look up and then dial.” (Pg. 177)
He reports, “I will … give an account of my philosophical position on the so-called ‘brain-mind’ problem… I have written … in a book with Sir Karl Popper, entitled ‘The Self and Its Brain.’ … I fully accept the philosophical achievements of Sir Karl Popper with his concept of three worlds. I was a dualist, now I am a ‘trialist’!... World 1 is the world of physical objects and states… World 2 is the world of states of consciousness and subjective knowledge of all kinds. The totality of our perceptions comes in this world… at the core of World 2 there is the SELF of EGO, which is the basis of our unity as an experiencing being throughout our whole lifetime. This World 2 is our PRIMARY REALITY… What is World 3?... it is the whole world of culture. It is the world that was created by man and that reciprocally made man. This is my message in which I follow Popper unreservedly.” (Pg. 193-195)
He reports, “It is my thesis that the philosophical problem of brain and mind has been transformed by these [brain hemisphere] investigations of the functions of the separated dominant and minor hemispheres in the split-brain subjects. Several years ago I suggested that even before the splitting, the conscious self was in liaison only with the dominant hemisphere.” (Pg. 218)
He argues, “Now I come to a brief consideration of free will. I am not going to indulge in a philosophical argument on this too-much-discussed theme. All I have to say is that free will is a fact of experience. It is something each of us experiences. No one would have imagined free will to exist if he or she had not experienced it, by which I mean the ability to carry out actions that have been planned in thought, or at least to attempt to carry them out. Free will is often denied on the grounds that you can not explain it, that it involves happenings inexplicable by present-day physics and physiology. To that I reply that our inability may stem from the fact that physics and physiology are still not adequately developed in respect of the immense patterned complexity of neuronal operation.” (Pg. 221-222)
He concludes, “This is the question I ask: How did man come to be what he is? What is the evolutionary story behind man? Let’s face it, man is unique. We must not accept the idea that man is JUST a superior animal. This is certainly not true. In his intellectual, rational, ethical, and aesthetic activities man has outgrown his animal ancestry to an amazing degree, though his emotions and behavior patterns still betray his ancestry, as has been emphasized by Konrad Lorenz. The uniqueness of man is attributable to World 3, which of course was made by man. When man, say a million years ago, was just a poor hominid battering pebbles, you would never have predicted he would have progressed beyond that, particularly if you as privileged observer could have seen that for hundreds of thousands of years he would hardly improve his pebble battering!... Nevertheless, slowly he did improve, and eventually, with progressive acceleration.” (Pg. 223-224)
This book (though almost 50 years old) may interest those studying the brain.
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