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ON THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND OF PHYSICAL REALITY* DAVID L. WILSON^ For centuries the distinctness of the physical and mental worlds was taken for granted, and the ancient concept of physical matter as inert forced mind, with activity and awareness as its essences, into a separate universe. Twentieth-century physics has all but extinguished the view of matter as inert. Today, matter is viewed as a form of energy, and objects as dynamic clusters of elementary particles, each of which may be located in space only in a probabilistic sense. With this view of matter, one must avoid setting classical limitations on the properties and states we consider possible for matter and for physical systems in general. In this' paper, "mind" or "inner self will refer to some of the states and processes which arise from or contribute to internal brain structure. These processes include willing, consciousness, thought, and perception. The term "consciousness" is not limited to modern psychology's definition (". . . being awake and responsive . . ."[I]), but refers to selfawareness —awareness of sensations, thoughts, and certain other mental processes. It is necessary to remain vague about the definition of mind. The situation is somewhat analogous to that of defining "life" a century ago, when we could only list the scope of activities which we associated with living (growth, reproduction, metabolism, movement, etc.). Today we can explain and describe those activities in detail. Limits to Knowledge Most biologists have made one of three assumptions concerning the relationship between mental events and the physical world: (1) that men- *This article is adapted from lectures given at the California Institute of Technology in March 1972, and at a seminar on consciousness at Vassar College in March 1975. It was submitted as an entry in the first Perspectives Writing Award competition for authors 35 years old or younger. tDepartment of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida 33152. I thank Stephen Arch, Margaret Wilson, and Lincoln Potter for discussions and comments on drafts of this paper. 568 I David L. Wilson · On the Nature of Consciousness tal events are not causally effective in the physical world, (2) that mental events are causally effective but are not a part of the physical world, or (3) that mental events are causally effective and are a part of the physical world. After a more general consideration of mental development and the possible limits it sets on human knowledge, I will describe some implications of these three views of the relationship between mind and body, indicating weaknesses in all three views, but emphasizing the third as offering the most exciting possibility of a fundamental advance in our understanding of physical reality. Let us suppose (and I will return to this assumption) that each individual's perceptions, thoughts, and knowledge are based upon an internal (brain) structure which was originally dictated genetically, but with plasticity, thereby allowing alterations to occur through experience [2]. Thus, each individual develops as a consequence of his or her unique combination of genes and environment. But development ofself is not the consequence of a simple sum of the two. Instead, there is a complex, ongoing interaction between present brain structure and present environment which gives rise to altered brain structure. What limits might such a foundation impose on human knowledge? One possible limitation is in the structures (neuron morphologies, connectivities , and functional properties) which are inherent in the program for brain development. These structures might reflect forms of a priori knowledge rather than merely forming a "blank slate" on which to construct experiences. Eugene Wigner [3] has described another possible source of limitations: "In order to obtain any information of the outside world, in order to make any measurement or observation, it is necessary that one already possess a crude knowledge of his surroundings. . . . Scientific knowledge always leans on, and is impossible without, the type of knowledge which we acquired in babyhood." Does initial brain structure or early perceptual and conceptual development impose inescapable limits on human knowledge? The outside world and the inner self seem to present a duality: as child becomes adult, he comes to distinguish between his own thoughts, which appear upon the stage of consciousness...

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