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John Eccles on Mind and Brain

David Pratt
According to the prevailing scientific theory of the mind -- known as 'identity theory' -mental states are identical with physicochemical states of the brain. The brain is
regarded as a supercomplex computer in which material processes in the cerebral
cortex somehow generate thoughts and feelings. A supporter of this materialistic theory,
Daniel C. Dennett, says that our brains contain
a cobbled-together collection of specialist brain circuits, which . . . conspire
together to produce a . . . more or less well-designed virtual machine . . . By
yoking these independently evolved specialist organs together in common
cause, and thereby giving their union vastly enhanced powers, this virtual
machine, this software of the brain, performs a sort of internal political
miracle: It creates a virtual captain of the crew . . . [1]
This 'virtual captain' is what we normally regard as our 'self,' but according to Dennett it
is really just an illusion produced by the global action of our brain circuits!
Distinguished neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Sir John Eccles rejects this theory,
saying that it never goes beyond vague generalities; materialists believe that the
problems will be resolved when we have a more complete scientific understanding of
the brain, perhaps in hundreds of years, a belief which Eccles ironically terms
'promissory materialism'. Eccles feels that this 'impoverished and empty' theory fails to
account for 'the wonder and mystery of the human self with its spiritual values, with its
creativity, and with its uniqueness for each of us' [2]. He criticizes identity theory for
allowing no real scope for human freedom. Extensive experimental studies have shown
that mental acts of attention and intention activate appropriate regions of the cerebral
cortex. An intention to move, for example, initiates the firing of a set of neurons of the
supplementary motor area about 200 milliseconds before the intended movement takes
place. If the mind is the brain, this would mean either that one part of the brain activates
another part, which then activates another part, etc., or that a particular region of the
brain is activated spontaneously, without any cause, and it is hard to see how either
alternative would provide a basis for free will.
Over the course of several decades, partly in collaboration with the philosopher of
science Sir Karl Popper, Eccles has developed an alternative theory of the mind, known
as dualist-interactionism. His basic philosophical starting point is one with which
theosophists can wholeheartedly agree:
I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific
reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually
for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This
belief must be classed as a superstition. . . . we have to recognize that we
are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material

beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. [3]

According to Eccles, we have a nonmaterial mind or self which acts upon, and is
influenced by, our material brains; there is a mental world in addition to the physical
world, and the two interact. However, Eccles denies that the mind is a type of
nonphysical substance (as it is in Cartesian dualism), and says that it merely belongs to
a different world [4]. But unless our mind (and the world in which it exists) is pure
nothingness -- in which case it would not exist -- it must be composed of finer grades of
energy-substance. Indeed, our inner constitution may comprise several nonphysical
levels. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, for instance, proposes that our physical bodies are
organized by morphogenetic fields, our habits by behavioral morphic fields, and our
thoughts and ideas by mental morphic fields. He suggests that our conscious self may
be a higher level of our being which interacts with the lower fields and, through them,
with the physical brain and body. Theosophy adds to this list spiritual and divine levels,
and describes all the different 'layers' of our constitution as different phases of
consciousness-substance.
Opponents of Eccles' view argue that mind-brain interaction would infringe the law of
the conservation of energy. In his latest book, How the Self Controls Its Brain, Eccles,
with the help of quantum physicist Friedrich Beck, shows that mind-brain action can be
explained without violating the conservation of energy if account is taken of quantum
physics and the latest discoveries concerning the microstructure of the neocortex.
Eccles calls the fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex dendrons, and proposes
that each of the 40 million dendrons is linked with a mental unit, or pychon, representing
a unitary conscious experience. In willed actions and thought, psychons act on
dendrons and momentarily increase the probability of the firing of selected neurons,
while in perception the reverse process takes place. Interaction among psychons
themselves could explain the unity of our perceptions and of the inner world of our mind.
Eccles' acceptance of the standard interpretation of the conservation of energy actually
limits his theory. According to the first law of thermodynamics, the total energy of a
closed system (i.e. one which does not exchange matter or energy with its environment)
remains constant. Since materialists believe that the physical world is all that exists and
therefore forms a closed system, they argue that the quantity of matter-energy within it
must remain absolutely the same. According to theosophy, on the other hand, there is a
constant circulation of energy-substances through the various planes or spheres of
reality, none of which forms a closed system, and the conservation of matter-energy
applies only to infinite nature as a whole. Orthodox quantum physics does in fact
recognize that energy can be borrowed from the 'quantum vacuum' provided it is paid
back after a fraction of a second. Furthermore, over the past hundred years or so, a
number of physicists, engineers, and inventors, beginning with Michael Faraday and
Nicola Tesla, have built electromagnetic 'free energy' devices that seem to produce
more energy than required to run them, by apparently tapping on a larger scale the
'zero-point energy of the vacuum' (or 'energy of hyperdimensional space', as some
scientists call it) -- that is, nonphysical, etheric energy [5]. Some scientists believe that
'cold fusion' has a similar explanation [6].
Eccles says that the interaction between brain and mind 'can be conceived as a flow of
information, not of energy' [7]. But information must surely be carried by some form of
matter-energy, and if the mind can alter the probability of neural events, it is more likely
that it does so by means of subtler, etheric types of force or energy, acting at the

quantum or subquantum level. Eccles says that his theory can account for ordinary
voluntary actions, but that 'more direct actions of the will are precluded by the
conservation laws' [8]. This is significant, for even if there is no measurable violation of
energy conservation in ordinary mental phenomena, this may not be the case with
certain paranormal phenomena, especially psychokinesis and materializations. Eccles,
however, does not take paranormal phenomena seriously [9].
Eccles is in basic agreement with the neo-Darwinian theory that evolution is driven by
random genetic mutations followed by the weeding out of unfavorable variations by
natural selection, but he also believes that 'there is a Divine Providence operating over
and above the materialist happenings of biological evolution' [10]. He accepts that
mammals (such as dogs, cats, horses, and monkeys) and possibly birds are conscious
beings, which experience feelings and pain, but denies conscious experiences to
invertebrates and lower vertebrates such as fish and even amphibians and reptiles
which, he says, have instinctual and learned responses, but no awareness or sensation.
He maintains that the mental (or psychon) world, and therefore conscious experiences,
came into existence with the development of the complex neocortex of the mammalian
brain, and that the neocortex evolved by natural selection because it enabled the
increased complexity of sensory inputs to be integrated, and therefore offered survival
advantages. Then,
with hominid evolution there eventually came higher levels of conscious
experiences, and ultimately in Homo sapiens sapiens -- self-consciousness - which is the unique life-long experience of each human SELF, and which
we must regard as a miracle beyond Darwinian evolution. [11]
In theosophy, rather than the physical world giving rise to the mental world, lower
realms are said to unfold from higher, more spiritual realms through a process of
emanation, differentiation, and concretion, and all the various planes, and the classes of
entities composing and inhabiting them, are manifestations of consciousness -- the
ultimate reality. In the words of H.P. Blavatsky:
Nature taken in its abstract sense, cannot be 'unconscious,' as it is the
emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the
ABSOLUTE consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to
deny to vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he
can say is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension. [12]
Thus not only are all animals conscious; plants too have a primitive form of sentient,
conscious existence, as various researchers have established [13]. As for the mineral
kingdom, 'panpsychists' such as B. Rensch and C. Birch believe that all physical matter,
including atoms and subatomic particles, possesses a protoconsciousness. Eccles
rejects panpsychism on the grounds that modern physics does not admit memory or
identity for elementary particles. However, physicist David Bohm believed not only that
all forms of matter were alive and conscious to some extent, but also that, at deeper
levels, every particle of a particular species is distinguishable and unique, rather than
being completely identical as is assumed in orthodox physics [14]. Furthermore, newly
synthesized chemical compounds have been found to crystallize more readily all over
the world the more often they are made -- implying the existence of some sort of
memory [15].

A further weakness in Eccles' approach is his attachment to the ape-ancestry theory.

The hominid family includes not only our own species, Homo sapiens, but also more
primitive (now extinct) human forms. The oldest generally accepted hominid genus is
Australopithecus, which appeared in southern Africa about 4 million years ago in the
early Pliocene. Some researchers have tried to trace a progressive line of evolutionary
ascent from Australopithecus through Homo habilis and Homo erectus to modern
humans, but such a simplistic interpretation of the fossil record is hotly contested, even
among Darwinists. The origin of the hominid family itself is even more problematic. The
prevailing theory is that humans and the modern anthropoid apes had a common
ancestor, thought to be closely related to the extinct Miocene apes known as the
dryopithecines. But as the Encylopaedia Britannica states:
Exactly when the Hominidae, as a separate and independent line of
evolution, became segregated from the anthropoid-ape family (Pongidae) is
not certainly known; indeed, it is still the most serious gap in the fossil record
of the Hominidae. [16]
Transitional forms leading from ancestral apes to hominids (distinguished, for example,
by an erect posture and bipedal locomotion) have not been discovered, and are found
only in the fanciful illustrations that decorate popular science publications. Furthermore,
there is abundant evidence -- in the form of stone tools, incised bones, and skeletal
remains -- that human beings of the modern type existed in the Pliocene, the Miocene,
and even in early Tertiary times, millions of years before our supposed apelike
ancestors are thought to have appeared! Most of this evidence was discovered by
reputable scientists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the modern truncated
time scale of human evolution became firmly established, None of this evidence is
reported in modern textbooks, but has been buried and forgotten. [17]
A comparison of the skeletal and muscular features of living apes and humans shows
that apes have developed a more complex and specialized structure, while humans
have preserved a primitive mammalian simplicity, with only the cerebrospinal system,
necessary for the manifestation of selfconscious intelligence, being highly developed. If
apes and humans descended from a common ancestor, that ancestor must have been
simpler in anatomical structure than modern apes. Significantly, as we go back in time,
fossil apes are found with simpler, more hominid-like features (e.g. in teeth, jaw, and
skull), while hominids show no convergence towards the apes. So unless the
hypothetical ancestral apes were as simple in structure as modern humans, which no
Darwinist would claim, there must have been a reversion from specialized to simpler
anatomical features after the separation of the hominid line, and science knows of no
comparable cases where this has occurred.
The Finnish anthropologist Dr. Bjrn Kurtn has proposed an alternative interpretation
of the fossil record, which turns orthodox Darwinism on its head. He states: 'the most
logical answer suggested by the fossil evidence is this: hominids are not descended
from apes, but apes may be descended from hominids' [18]. This is consistent with the
theosophical teaching that apes arose in the Miocene from interbreeding between less
progressed human (Atlantean) stocks and an extinct animal stock, whose ancestors
were the product of similar interbreeding at a much earlier period. As for the more
primitive hominid fossils that have been discovered, rather than being our direct
ancestors, they may have existed alongside advanced civilizations (some of them on
now submerged islands and continents), just as civilized and primitive peoples co-exist

today.
Eccles at least recognizes that Darwinian evolution cannot account for our
selfconscious mind:
Since materialist solutions fail to account for our experienced uniqueness, I
am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the Self or Soul to a
supernatural spiritual creation. To give the explanation in theological terms:
each Soul is a new Divine creation which is implanted into the growing
foetus at some time between conception and birth. [19]
Theosophy, too, assigns human beings a spiritual ancestry, but rejects the belief that
they were created by a supernatural, extracosmic, anthropomorphic God. If nature is
infinite, divinity cannot be outside nature but must be coeval with it and pervade every
atom of life. At the heart of every entity is a spiritual monad -- a deathless spark of
divinity, or center of life-consciousness -- which imbodies in an endless variety of forms
in an endless variety of worlds in the course of its eternal evolutionary development.
The earth is merely the latest station on the evolutionary journey of our spiritual
monads. The first protohuman forms on earth were huge, ethereal, nonselfconscious
beings which slowly materialized, declined in size, and assumed the present human
shape. When these physical forms had attained the necessary degree of complexity, the
gradual awakening and unfoldment of our latent intellectual and spiritual powers could
begin. [20]
As for what happens after death, Eccles says:
we can regard the death of the body and brain as dissolution of our dualist
existence. Hopefully, the liberated soul will find another future of even
deeper meaning and more entrancing experiences, perhaps in some
renewed embodied existence . . . in accord with traditional Christian
teaching. [21]
Given his belief that a new human soul is created for every newborn child, Eccles is
probably not referring here to reincarnation on earth. But if our souls are to learn from
the past and evolve, it would seem logical that they must not only reap what they have
sown (in accordance with the law of karma), but must also reap where they have sown,
and must continue to incarnate on earth until they have learned all the lessons the earth
can teach.
Thus, although Eccles recognizes that the mind is relatively independent of the brain
and works through it rather than being identical with it, his views still remain limited by
several materialistic and theological dogmas. Nevertheless, his attempt to reach out
beyond scientific materialism and develop a more spiritual vision is refreshing. Towards
the end of his latest book, he writes:
I here express my efforts to understand with deep humility a self, myself, as
an experiencing being. I offer it in the hope that we human selves may
discover a transforming faith in the meaning and significance of this
wonderful adventure that each of us is given on this salubrious Earth of ours,
each with our wonderful brain, which is ours to control and use for our
memory and enjoyment and creativity and with love for other human selves.

[22]

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.

Consciousness Explained, Allen Lane/Penguin, 1991, p. 228.

How the Self Controls Its Brain, Springer-Verlag, 1994, pp. 33, 176.
Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self, Routledge, 1989, p. 241.
How the Self Controls Its Brain, p. 38.
See R. C. Hoagland, The Monuments of Mars, Frog, 1996, pp. 369-73.
See H. Fox, Cold Fusion Impact in the Enhanced Energy Age, Fusion Information
Center, 1992, ch. 11.
How the Self Controls its Brain, p. 9.
Ibid., p. 163.
Evolution of the Brain, p. 242.
Ibid., p. 239.
How the Self Controls Its Brain, p. 139.
The Secret Doctrine, TUP, 1977 (1888), 1:277fn.
See 'Our Intelligent Companions, the Plants', John Van Mater, Jr., Sunrise,
April/May 1987.
Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984 (1957),
p. 157; Science, Order & Creativity (with F. D. Peat), Routledge, 1989, pp. 210-11.
See Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past, Vintage, 1989, p. 131.
15th ed. 18:933.
See Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology,
Bhaktivedanta Institute, 1993; abridged version, The Hidden History of the Human
Race, 1994; cf. The Secret Doctrine, 2:10, 675, 678, 686, 714fn, 740.
Not from the Apes, Vintage, 1972, p. 42.
Evolution of the Brain, p. 237.
See G. de Purucker, Man in Evolution, TUP, 2nd ed., 1977, ch. 19, 'Lost Pages of
Evolutionary History'; The Esoteric Tradition, TUP, 2nd ed., 1940, ch. 10, 'Esoteric
Teachings on the Evolution of Human and Animal Beings'.
Evolution of the Brain, p. 242.
How the Self Controls Its Brain, pp. 180-1.

November 1997. Original article published in Sunrise, June/July 1995.

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