Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amdcad!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-lymph!arndt From: arndt@lymph.DEC Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame Subject: A Conversation With Sir John Eccles (tired of Rosen!) Message-ID: <79@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Dec-84 22:50:39 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.79 Posted: Thu Dec 27 22:50:39 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Dec-84 01:08:10 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 66 Xref: watmath net.religion:5182 net.flame:7415 Sir John Eccles is a Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology and a pioneer in brain research. A neurobiologist, he has taught at universities in Great Britain, Australia and the U.S. "We need to discredit the belief held by many scientists that science will ultimately deliever the final truth about everything. Science doesn't deliever the truth; what it provides are hypotheses in an attempt to get nearer the truth. But scientists must never claim to know more than that." "Unfortunately, many scientists and interpreters of science don't understand the limits of the discipline. They claim much more than they should. They argue that someday science will explain values, beauty, love, friendship, aesthetics and literary quality. They say: 'All of these will eventually be explicable in terms of brain performance. We only have to know more about the brain.' That view is nothing more than a superstitution that confuses both the public and many scientists. My task as a scientist is to try to eliminate superstitutions and to have us experience science as the greatest human adventure. But to understand is not to completely explain. Understanding leaves unresolved the great features and values of our existence." "I have spent my life working on the brain and know what a wonderful structure it is, how it gives us an immense range of experiences. It is also a tremen- dous storehouse of memories, which is what it's principally for. But examining the brain in all possible scientific ways doesn't mean that I can know why, when I open my eyes, I see a world of light and color. We live in a world of experiences, not in a world of brain events. This is my world and much of it is not explicable scientifically." "Science also cannot explain the existence of each of us as a unique self, nor can it answer such fundamental questions as: Who am I? Why am I here? How did I come to be at a certain place and time? What happens after death? These are all mysteries that are beyond science." "Science has gone too far in breaking down man's belief in his spiritual greatness and has given him the belief that he is merely an insignificant animal who has arisen by chance and necessity on an insignificant planet lost in the great cosmic immensity. But that does not mean that religion and science are necessarily at odds. Max Planck, the great physicst, was a practicing Catholic. Albert Einstein believed in a God of the cosmos. Werner Heisenberg also held religious views, though he was not a man who practiced religion. I, myself, am a practicing Christian. To hold views such as mine about the mystery of existence, you don't have to be a religious person. The great philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper, with whom I have written a book on this subject, holds similar beliefs - and he describes himself as an agnostic. Both of us recognize the great wonder of existence. We believe in both a material world and a mental-spiritual world." (Taken from U.S.News & World Report, recent issue.) ----------------------------------------------- Gee, could there be somethin' to it???? See also Eccles's new book, THE WONDER OF BEING HUMAN: OUR BRAIN AND OUR MIND, written with Daniel Robinson. Love ya, Keep chargin' Ken Arndt