1. Philosophical considerations and brain models

To what extent is it difficult to put these two points together is to be seen on the instance of Karl Popper's philosophical theory as applied in John Eccles' brain research.^v

In the Karl Popper's ontology the world of meanings and of the logic structure of their interrelations has been considered as an intersubjective, interindividual world that is completely detached from the subjective world of our individual conscious experiences. This latter has been conceived by Popper as equally detached from the complete material world. The material world (including the human brain and man-made objects) is considered in that ontology as a World 1, paralleled with the World 2 of conscious phenomena (including in addition to direct environmental and intraorganizational experiences memories, thoughts, and even the self, as the subject of all these experiences) and the World 3 of meanings interacting with those other worlds.

When investigating about the ontological status of the “World 3”, Karl Popper pointed out that it includes together with contents of meanings also the forms of their interrelations. This latters are considered by Popper to be pre-eminently “World 3” entities. He conceded that meanings may be embodied in such “World 1” objects that come to exist as objectivations of human activity; but as regards logical, mathematical or other interrelations he precludes such a possibility, insisting that they exist nowhere but in the “World 3”.

Not even in the “World 2”, contrary to a rather widespread error in psychological thought: such relations cannot be reduced to processes of individual consciousness or to their products stored in individual memory. It is why the subjective consciousness of an individual may investigate upon them, find contradictions and look for their solution, i.e., have the same activity with them as with “World 1” objects that are self-evidently detached from that consciously subjective world.

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2. The brain model of John Eccles.

ow, at the Sixteenth World Congress of Philosophy^vi, at a specially organized by philosophers, brain researchers, and psychologists symposium on interrelation between brain and experiences, whether conscious or unconscious, Eccles had the opportunity of presenting his brain model correlated with Popper's philosophical model of those three interacting worlds. And Popper's co-author labelled his theory dualist interactionalism: the “World 3” had been completely missing from it. It is worth seeing his arguing in some details: Eccles (and in their jointly written book Popper as well) rejects the theory of epiphenomenalism, according to which there is nothing but a reciprocal influence between the brain and the external world and if in the meantime some phenomena of awareness and self-awareness happen to arise, this would allegedly be nothing but an epiphenomenon that would have no effect whatever on the reciprocating process. On the contrary, Eccles claimes that the self-reliant “World 2” of awareness and self-awareness itself establishes a reciprocating relationship with the “World 1” of the brain (for its part, interacting with the external reality) – hence the designation “dualist interactionalism.” Now, if in the meantime some phenomena of a “World 3” of interraleted to each other meanings happen to arise, this would, Eccles suggests, be nothing but an epiphenomenon that would have no effect whatever on that reciprocating process between “World 2” and “World 1”. Epiphenomenalism survived; it merely moved up one level within the system of interconnections.

From the point of view of this “World 3” epiphenomenalism, it is worthwhile to look at the arguments that prompted Eccles to reject a “World 2”-related epiphenomenalism. The argument originated with Popper, who, in his chapters of the book they jointly wrote, pointed out that:

“From a Darwinian point of view, we must consider the survival value of mental processes... Darwinists must look at “soul" – i.e., mental processes and our ability to form mental actions and reactions as a bodily organ that developed under the pressure of natural selection... The Darwinist point of view must be this: consciousness and, in general, mental processes must be viewed (and, if possible, explained) as the results of development in the course of natural selection.^vii

“World 2”'s phenomena develop in tandem with the increase in the brain's complexity, Eccles speculated at the World Congress of Philosophy; and yet, according to the theory of evolution only those structures and processes develop in the course of natural selection that contribute significantly to survival. If “World 2” is impotent, then the theory of evolution cannot explain its development.

As a matter of fact, we must consider exactly the same logic as applicable also to the “World 3” of interindividual phenomena.

In his presentation, Eccles (staying within the first two “Worlds”) summarized what was known of the brain's fine-grained mechanisms at the time of the World Congress of Philosophy: what we know of the location of nerve cells, and of their connection with each other. He pointed out that the mechanism revealed by brain research is not adapted for transforming physical stimuli put in from the environment into mental phenomena manifesting themselves at the output of the system (in purposeful behavior, speech). Consequently, we must assume either that conscious phenomena do not exist even at the output of the central nervous system; or that they already exist at its input. And the first assumption is rejected by Eccles on the basis of the above Darwinian considerations.

Therefore, Eccles's final conclusion at the World Congress of Philosophy was that “the self conscious mind” a priori exists as a “World 2”, and that a part of the cortex's operating units (of the 2 million modules, each one respectively constructed of some 5,000 nerve cells^viii) form a “liaison brain”^ix that serves as a window from the “World 1” to the “World 2”.